VOYAGE OUT. 11 English occupation, in the shape of notices written on the walls of various buildings, to the effect of this being the bakery, that the artillery store, another the commissariat, etc. From what we saw of the place, one cannot but come to the conclusion that the French manage to make up a much neater town than we do. The roads are all at right angles to each other, very well kept, and there are small and pretty public gardens in the centre; not only that, but the native town, equally straightly laid out, was kept, with all its stinks, well away from the European quarter. To get to Nefish one has to cross a large fresh-water canal, and on it we saw our first diabeah. I was rather interested in this, as we were to have lived in one at Cairo. From this station the rail runs through the desert, nothing but sand the whole way until just before we got to Tel-el-Kebir, where cultivated ground steadily begins to dominate. Coming up to this latter place, there were all along the route unmis takable signs of the passage of English troops, in the shape of empty meat-tins of every kind, bits of telegraph wires strewed about, the little well-known fireplaces of the Indian troops, broken crockery, and even bits of paper blowing about. From the train a very good sight is obtained of the lines of Tel-el-Kebir. They stretch right and left on either side of the railway, and do not seem to be very formidable, owing to the want of what military men call flank defence. The cemetery, where are buried those of our troops who fell there, is close to
