opening up the resources of Equatorial Africa; and recent events have rendered the present time peculiarly opportune for its establishment.

"It is, then, proposed to found a thoroughly independent and perfectly self-sustaining Joint-Stock Bank, in the most accessible and attractive part of the Court-end of our moneyed metropolis, for the purpose of identifying the wealth and intelligence of the white Western nations with the hitherto-neglected and singularly-undeveloped treasures of those of the sable South,-regions known to us only, at present, through the adventurous enterprise of a handful of hardy, devoted, and scientific travellers.

"In the full expectation of creating a new era in the monetary relations of the world, the directors of the Universal Guarantee and Cosmopolitan Safety Alliance Joint-Stock Bank of Central Africa, have given their undivided attention to the means of accumulating deposits of the precious metals for subsequent transfer to this country, as a "rest" on which the shareholders may confidently rely and therein find a positive guarantee; and with this view negotiations have been entered into with his Highness the Sultan of Soodan (who reigns absolutely over a vast territory, extending from Timbo on the frontier of Senegambia to the confines of Sandy Borgoo), with the native Princes of Darfûr and Kordofan, with the Emperor (or "Negus," as he is styled) of Abyssinia, with the King of Shoa, and finally with the Grand Sheikh of Somauly, for the establishment of Branch Banks in the capitals of their respective dominions, which it will be seen, by a glance at the map of Africa, form a belt across the central districts of that mighty continent, from the golden-grained shores of Guinea to the rich and spicy lands that border the Arabian ocean. Already have the potentates alluded to-with a liberality worthy of the most advanced state of civilisation-expressed their willingness to aid in the formation of entrepôts for monetary traffic in the flourishing cities of Timbuctoo, Saccatoo, Kouka, Muddago, Shaboon, Sennar, Gondar and Berbera, thus uniting in one Bund (as it may be termed) all the kingdoms north of the Gebel-el-Kumri, or celebrated Mountains of the Moon, and enchaining (as it were) in one wide interest the commercial relations of Africa from sea to sea.

"Under such flattering auspices it may safely be predicted that by means of the caravans which traverse the auriferous regions of Nigritia and the adjacent gold-producing countries-from Lake Tchad, as a centre, to Tripoli on the north, to the sources of the Niger (or Quarra) on the west, and across the base of the principal watershed of the lofty range of Kilimandjàro towards the east (the most valuable ores being always found in greatest abundance in the head-streams)—the metallic resources of Africa -her gold, her silver, and her copper, the three recognised forms of currency-may be made instantaneously available as a means of exchange for the circular notes of the Universal Guarantee and Cosmopolitan Safety Alliance Joint-Stock Bank of Central Africa.

"It is the want of a general or cosmopolitan currency, which, up to the present time, has mainly tended to cripple the mercantile and industrial energies of a continent that was intended by nature to minister to European necessities. But this restraint having once been removed, a new order of things will inevitably arise. That freedom of commercial inter

course which is the natural offspring of mutual confidence, and the absence of which has ever been a desideratum amongst the native tribes, will now be fixed upon a secure basis; while the growing interest that attaches to all we know, as well as to all we do not know, of the internal wealth of Central Africa, will, by the exertions of the local management, be amply rewarded in the large returns attendant upon the outlay of the Company's capital.

"The necessary steps have consequently been taken for securing a Royal Charter of incorporation, limiting the liability of the shareholders to double the amount of their subscriptions, and when all the preliminary arrangements are completed the business of the Bank will be commenced.

"The principle upon which the Directors propose to conduct the business of the Universal Guarantee and Cosmopolitan Safety Alliance Joint-Stock Bank of Central Africa will be those of the most successful of the London Joint-Stock Banks, while correlative advantages to which those institutions are strangers will be afforded, and under this head it may be as well to state that by the Safety Alliance system all accounts, both current and deposit, will be allowed a far higher rate of interest than is practicable elsewhere.

"The Bank will combine an ivory and gold-dust agency business as a distinct department, and THE ENTIRE SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE TRADE will be amongst the objects which are destined to enter largely into its composition.

"Prospectuses may be obtained of, and applications for shares may be made to, the Brokers, Messrs. Fustick and Madder, Lillypot-lane; but no application will be considered unless a deposit of 17. per share applied for is previously made with the Company's Bankers, Messrs. Blunt and Sharpe.

"For the convenience of parties residing at a distance from London, a remittance to, or order in favour of Rigby Nicks, Esq., Vice-Chairman, or Julius Smirke, Esq., the Secretary, will be handed by them to the Bank, and a voucher returned by one or other of them immediately to the applicant.

"By the provisions of the Act of Parliament under which the Universal Guarantee and Cosmopolitan Safety Alliance Joint-Stock Bank of Central Africa will be chartered, one half of the capital must be paid up at the time of incorporation and before the commencement of business."

“I think," said Meredyth Powell Jones, when Rigby Nicks had read this attractive document out loud, "I think, Rigby, that it will do." In this not very improbable conclusion, Rigby Nicks fully concurred, and that its active properties might not lie dormant a moment longer than was necessary, the Prospectus, fairly written out and well paid for, was sent as an Advertisement to all the morning papers.

How it prospered we shall see hereafter.

EL MEDINAH AND MECCAH.*

Few travellers have been able to penetrate into the Moslem's Holy Land, so carefully guarded by the sanguinary fanaticism and bigotry of its own people, and that of the pious pilgrims who visit it from all parts of the Muhammadan world. Still fewer have succeeded in visiting the Holy Cities-El Medinah, with its sacred' tombs of the Prophet, of his daughter Fatimah, and of his successors, Abu-Bekr and Omar, despised by Shiahs; or Meccah, the birthplace of the Prophet, with its jealously guarded and exclusive sanctuary! Burckhardt had been there, it is true, but he was prostrated by sickness throughout his stay in Hejaz, and was thus disabled from giving to the world minute and satisfactory descriptions of the places. Others have also added to the gradual accumulation of more or less correct details regarding these mysterious cities and their Holy Places; but Mr. Burton leaves all his predecessors far behind him. So successful was his disguise, that he travelled with the great pilgrim caravan, reinforced from Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Persia, and Arabia, describing the strange features of the daily progress of some fifty thousand human beings through a desert, waterless, burning country; he joined with them in their prayers, passed through all their trials, patiently bore up with all their long, tedious ceremonies, lasting often the whole night as well as the day, visited with them their most holy shrines and sanctuaries, and came out of the ordeal unscathed and triumphant, to place on record one of the most curious and interesting exploits that it has ever happened to traveller to pen.

Mr. Burton had fitted himself for this remarkable undertaking by acquiring, during a residence of many years in India, through his peculiar aptitude for such studies, a thorough acquaintance with various dialects of Arabia and Persia. His eastern cast of features also aided him, with his knowledge of languages, in the various disguises which he was induced to assume. He first started in the character of a Persian wanderer-the vagrant, the merchant, and the philosopher, being, amongst Orientals, frequently united in the same person. This, though it might have covered any deficiencies in the pronunciation of the Arabic, was not a disguise calculated to facilitate his progress among Sunni pilgrims. After a month's hard work at Alexandria he was therefore led to assume the character of a wandering Dervish, changing his title of Mirza for that of Shaykh Abdullah (commonly written Sheikh; but Mr. Burton is one of the few who adopt a correct system for rendering Arabic, Hindustani, Persian, and Turkish words in Roman letters), It was, however, long before he got over the uncomfortable consequences of having first appeared in Egypt as a Persian-the bad name stuck to him: bazaar reports, he says, fly quicker and hit harder than newspaper paragraphs.

No character (writes Mr. Burton) in the Moslem world is so proper for disguise as that of the Dervish. It is assumed by all ranks, ages, and creeds; by

* Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah. By Richard F. Burton, Lieutenant Bombay Army. Three Vols. Longman and Co.

the nobleman who has been disgraced at court, and by the peasant who is too idle to till the ground; by Dives, who is weary of life, and by Lazarus, who begs bread from door to door. Further, the Dervish is allowed to ignore ceremony and politeness, as one who ceases to appear upon the stage of life; he may pray or not, marry or remain single as he pleases, be respectable in cloth of frieze as in cloth of gold, and no one asks him-the chartered vagabond-why he comes here? or wherefore he goes there? He may wend his way on foot alone, or ride his Arab steed, followed by a dozen servants; he is equally feared without weapons, as swaggering through the streets armed to the teeth. The more haughty and offensive he is to the people, the more they respect him; a decided advantage to the traveller of choleric temperament. In the hour of imminent danger, he has only to become a maniac, and he is safe; a madman in the East, like a notably eccentric character in the West, is allowed to say or do whatever the spirit directs. Add to this character a little knowledge of medicine, a "moderate skill in magic, and a reputation for caring for nothing but study and books," together with capital sufficient to save you from the chance of starving, and you appear in the East to peculiar advantage. The only danger of the "path" (the Tarikat, or path, which leads, or is supposed to lead, to heaven) is, that the Dervish's ragged coat not unfrequently covers the cut-throat, and, if seized in the society of such a "brother," you may reluctantly become his companion, under the stick or on the stake. For, be it known, Dervishes are of two orders, the Sharai, or those who conform to religion, and the Be-Sharai, or Luti, whose practices are hinted at by their own tradition, that "he we daurna name" once joined them for a week, but at the end of that time left them in dismay, and returned to whence he came.

Thus disguised, our traveller started up the Nile in the Little Asthmatic, as the steamer is called; had his organs of vision publicly condemned by an Englishman, for happening to touch his elbow; accepted hospitality in Cairo at the hands of a shawl-merchant of Lahore; exchanged this for rooms in a Wakalah, or Khan; became a Turkish pilgrim; and lastly, a Pathan, or Afghan, assuming the polite, pliant manners of an Indian physician, and the dress of a small Effendi, still however representing himself to be a Dervish, and frequenting the places where Dervishes congregate. After a somewhat prolonged stay in the Egyptian metropolis, our Turco-Arabic and Hindu-Persian doctor and Dervish ventured upon an eighty-four mile ride across the desert to Suez, on a dromedary, with a Bedouin of Tur (Mount Sinai), the results of which were aches in every bone, the loss of much epidermis, and every portion of the skin that had been exposed to the sun well seared. Thence he sailed to Yambu, on the "Golden Wire," the traverse being marked by conflicts several times renewed with a party of Maghrabin, or Moorish pilgrims, and brief delays at Tur, and at Wijh. The effects of the sun upon this trip are depicted with painful truthfulness. "The morning beams oppress you with a feeling of sickness; their steady glow, reflected by the glaring waters, blinds your eyes, blisters your skin, and parches your mouth; you now become a monomaniac; you do nothing but count the slow hours that must minute by' before you can be relieved."

Yambu, one of the "Gates of the Holy City," is built of limestone and coral-rag, on the edge of a barren plain that extends between the mountains and the sea, the walls, full of fossils, crumbling away like almond cake. The people of this place are among the most bigoted and quarrelsome in El Hejaz. At this point Mr. Burton once more changed his dress to that. of an Arab, and having purchased a shugduf, or litter, he

started, in company with a large party of pilgrims of various races, and an escort of irregular Turkish cavalry, for El Medinah.

The first station on the road was El Hamra, or "the Red," a collection of stunted houses, or rather hovels, upon the Darb Sultan, or the Sultan's Highway to Meccah. Here they were joined by another caravan, a not unwelcome reinforcement, as the Bedouins were amusing themselves with robbing the pilgrims throughout the country, and together they wended their dubious way to Bir Abbas, a mere station in the desert, with some stone forts, palm-leaved hovels, and a coffee-shed. Between this station and Shuhada, or "the Martyrs," was a pass of bad repute, called "the Pilgrims' Pass," in forcing their way through which the party lost no less than twelve men killed by the fire of the Bedouins from the rocks above and around. One more miserable station-Suwaykah-then a valley-the Wady-el-Akik-both of which are familiar to Arabian history and poetry-and the Mudawaj, a huge flight of steps, roughly cut in a long broad line of black scoriaceous basalt, led the way as if by natural portals to El Medinah!

We halted our beasts as if by word of command. All of us descended, in imitation of the pious of old, and sat down, jaded and hungry as we were, to feast our eyes with a view of the Holy City. "O Allah! this is the Haram of the Prophet; make it to us a protection from hell-fire, and a refuge from eternal punishment! Oh, open the gates of thy mercy, and let us pass through them to the land of joy!" And, "O Allah, bless the last of the Prophets, the seal of prophecy, with blessings in number as the stars of heaven, and the waves of the sea, and the sands of the waste-bless him, O Lord of Might and Majesty, as long as the corn-field and the date-grove continue to feed mankind!" And again: "Live, for ever, O most excellent of Prophets !-live in the shadow of happiness during the hours of night and the times of day, whilst the bird of the tamarisk (the dove) moaneth like the childless mother whilst the west wind bloweth gently over the hills of Nejd, and the lightning flasheth bright in the firmament of El Hejaz !"

Such were the poetical exclamations that, according to our traveller, rose all around him, showing how deeply tinged with imagination becomes the language of the Arab under the influence of strong passion or religious enthusiasm. Nor was the scene that presented itself to their earnest gaze, apart from its religious associations, altogether unworthy of such enthu siasm. As the travellers looked eastward, the sun arose out of the horizon of low hill, blurred and dotted with small tufted trees, which from the morning mists gained a giant stature, and the earth was stained with gold and purple. Before them lay a spacious plain, bounded in front by the undulating ground of Nejd; on the left was a grim barrier of rocks, the celebrated Mount Ohod, with a clump of verdure and a white dome or two nestling at its base. Rightwards, broad streaks of lilac-coloured mists were thick with gathered dew, there pierced and thinned by the morning rays, stretched over the date-groves and the gardens of Kuba, which stood out in emerald green from the dull, tawny surface of the plain. Below, at the distance of about two miles, lay El Medinah; at first sight it appeared a large place, but a closer inspection proved the impression to be an erroneous one. A tortuous road from the pass to the city wound across the plain and led to a tall rectangular gateway, pierced in the ruinous mud wall which surrounds the suburb. This is the "Ambari” entrance. It is flanked on the left by the domes and