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112 SOIOPTICON MANUAL. as hazardous as going on foot. The streets of Cairo are watered several times a day, and are nearly always cool and free from dust. FERRY AT OLD CAIRO. —Old Cairo is situated about two miles from modern Cairo. The wonderful clearness and brilliancy of the Eastern atmosphere; the absence of smoke, charcoal alone being burned; the picturesque effect of the ruin into which many of its great monu- ments are falling; the rich, green valley of the Nile; the river; the Pyramids in the distance; and the fading of the landscape into the boundless haze of the Lybian desert, constitutes a scene which, for splendor and inter- est, is perhaps unequaled in the world. The taste for gaudy and fantastic coloring has been for ages a distin- guishing feature of Eastern embellishment. The alter- nate red and white stripe is conspicuous on the sails of the ferry boats, which are constantly passing back and forth between Cairo and the island of Ehoda opposite. Here we have a group of Arabs from the desert, with their camels, dealers in oranges, vegetables, sugar-cane, &c. For picturesqueness of costume, there is nothing like the East; the flow of the drapery so simple and natural, the coloring so deep and brilliant. TOMBS OP THE MEMLOOK KINGS AT CAIRO. —These tombs are fine specimens of Saracenic architecture, and were erected in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. PYRAMIDS. —The Pyramids of Gizeh, three in number, are situated about eight miles from Cairo, and should be visited by the tourist before entering on his river cruise. They stand on a ridge of stone, which has been so cut as to form part of the basement. The great Pjo-amid is mainly composed of blocks of limestone brought from the