From Chambers' Journal.

SOUTHERN GATES OF EGYPT.

white hilly Libyan desert to appear through its groves; but our curiosity was chiefly directed towards the former, and we could scarcely refrain from imitating the native travellers, and hurrying off at once to explore it. There was plenty of time before us, however; and, restraining our impatience, we resolved to persevere in our old method of making ourselves at home in a place ero we went in quest of its neighboring objects of attraction.

THERE is scarcely any place in Egypt more picturesque in appearance, or more interesting, than what may be called its Southern Gates-the whole neighborhood of the first Cataracts. I have read many descriptions thereof executed with great skill, but not one appears to me to convey a correct idea at the same time of the general characteristics of the scene and of the minuter details. It may be that success is impossible, or it may be that travellers have hurried on too rapidly to other classical sites. This last supposition is not unlikely to be true. I have known people "do" the whole district in twenty-four hours. For my own part, during the period I remained there, new objects of interest, new points of view, seemed perpetually presenting themselves; and when I took my de--the ancient Arabic Essouan, with its remains of parture, it was with the impression, that, had I remained twice as long, no yearning for fresh excitement would have arisen.

The modern town of Essouan contains some four or five thousand inhabitants. A principal street, as usual, is devoted to the bazaar-not very remarkable for the richness of the goods exposed for sale. In the neighborhood, especially to the north, are a variety of dusky-looking gardens divided by dusty lanes; but the general effect is that of barrenness and desolation. To the south is a city of ruins

elegant arched buildings stretching far and wide; and beyond, where the ground rises, the commencement of a vast cemetery. Our first walk was in this direction; and we had soon got clear of the new town and the old, and were in the midst of tombs and black rocks, here and there bearing inscriptions. On the summit of the hill are two mosques-one ruined, and one glaring with fresh whitewash. The latter is sacred to the Seventyseven Sheiks, and is regarded with peculiar respect both by the residents and all true Moslem travellers. From its neighborhood a fine view is obtained of the winding course of the Nile to the north; of the desert rising into crags on either side; of the town and its dusty groves; and, above all, of the great black valley along which runs the

We had passed through a narrow defile of rock the previous evening, and moored at Akâbah, a village celebrated for its dates. The morning came bright and sunny, but cool. A gentle north wind filled the sails, and soon wafted us against the rippling current to within sight of Essouan, or rather of the hills and ruins that overlook it, for the town itself was concealed by palm groves. A white-walled palace standing alone on the eastern bank, and a great ruined convent half way up the sandy declivity to the west, were the first buildings that appeared near at hand. A slight turn brought us in sight of the point of Stephantine, its woods and thickets sparkling in the sun, the approach seem-land-route to Phihi. The whole breadth of this ingly impossible by reason of the huge black rocks piled as if fragments of a ruined dike across the river. To the right a winding branch strewed with boulders appeared to lead away into the desert; but to the left, a long line of boats indicated the mooring ground. The great sail was soon got in; and the foresail flapping took us quietly along between two enormous rocks, covered with hieroglyphics and figures of ancient kings and heroes, into a kind of lake or harbor, defended by breakers on the north; the sandy bank covered with old boats, and backed by trees, on the east; the island on the west; and closing in to the south, so as to leave only a narrow passage between an eminence topped with Saracenic ruins, and the great shattered wall of hewn stone supposed to mark the site of the Nilometer.

There was bustle on the beach: our friends coming to salute us, and point out a convenient place where to " peg up;" boatmen exchanging salutations; donkeys, with real civilized saddles, and very uncivilized drivers, crowding down for employment; shipwrights hammering; fifty men, with a measured grunt, hauling a boat ashore; further on, a large space covered with bales of merchandise, sheds, and groups of travellers-so that the border town of Egypt, which, by the way, was still not visible, promised to be at least a lively place of halt. It turned out to be so in fact; and I should have no objection to go back and spend a month or so there, breathing the purest air in the world beneath the finest sky.

Every one knows by report that there are two famous islands in this vicinity, separated by several miles of rapids: one above, called Phihi; and one below, called Stephantine. The latter, as I have said, now lay opposite to us, just allowing the LIVING AGE. VOL. XXX. 14

CCCLXXVI.

valley is covered with shattered mausolea and an infinity of head-stones, generally in good preservation, with long, mysterious-looking Cufic inscriptions. Further on to the south, it seems encumbered with isolated rocks that, thickening in the distance, at length close up the view. On the most conspicuous heights around, tombs of saints, ancient and modern, are perched like watchtowers.

We returned through part of the new town, detecting fragments of ancient buildings in the walls of several of the houses; and, coming down to the river north of our mooring-ground, examined an old Roman bath that projects like a mole into the water. From this the road or path goes through trees, beneath a huge piece of rock, covered with hieroglyphical inscriptions and figures, not of very finished workmanship, and probably recording the visits of mere travellers like ourselves. It could not but strike us that these ancient pilgrims surpassed in taste the moderns. They chose the face of precipices, the naked sides of water-washed boulders, whereon to write the enduring memorial of their visit. But their more civilized successors chose the most conspicuous part of the most elegant and ornamented monument, and are not content unless the name of Smith defaces an oval, or destroys the expressive touches which mark the countenance of Isis or Osiris.

Next day we resolved to extend the circle of our wanderings, and started again southward. This time we traversed the whole length of the cemetery along the centre of the valley, gazing with admiration at the elegant cupolas, finely-turned arches, and graceful pillars, which, though now all broken and deserted, testified amply to the taste that had presided over their creation. One of the innumer

particular friend; and if I were to ask him for the whole crop, he would give it to me."

made out the stripes and stars over a little boat snugly moored along the bank. A few minutes afterwards we heard the barking of dogs, got into a grove of trees, then into the dreaming village of Korore, parted with our sable little guide, and went away under a magnificent moon in search of the valley-road back. The lads who were with us talked of hyænas and jackals and sang with somewhat exaggerated boldness to scare them away; but we heard not a sound, not a rustle, and saw nothing but rocks and moonlight as we jogged quietly back to our boat.

GEYSER FOUNTAINS IN CALIFORNIA. A COMMUNICATION in the San Francisco Picayune, bearing the initials of Prof. Forest Shepherd, late of New Haven, gives the following account of a new order of California wonders:

At Mahatta, as I have hinted, there is nothing to tell of the neighborhood of the Cataracts. I do not remember that, even as the hush of noon came on, the roar of struggling waters reached our ear. It was some time subsequently that I went to view them from the shore. The road from Essouan was the same as that before described, only we had to push further on; and, on turning off again to the right, found ourselves in still more rugged defiles. We were obliged to dismount and scramble up on foot. Evening was drawing nigh; we wished to see the sun set, and made great exertions to reach the summit in time; but when we came almost at a run to the crest of the ridge, and saw the horizon, that had retreated to a vast distance, nothing but waves of purple light remained to greet us. I defy the world to produce a grander spectacle; but my pen has not the cunning to describe it. Indeed, Messrs. Editors:-In answer to your inquiry reI could not get to understand the secret of its gran- specting the geyser fountains on Pluton river, permit deur of the wonderful impression it made upon the me to say that my attention was first arrested at the mind. Was it the very paucity of its elements-remarkably peaceful and quiet thermal springs in billows of black rock congealed, but here and there Napa Valley, by the wonderful metamorphism of the edged, it seemed, with golden foam-valleys of rocks. It occurred to me that the springs, or the gloom, fading off on all sides, as it were, into sta- chemical action causing them, might have been instrutionary banks of smoke? Such was the huge set- mental in producing this change. On diligent inting of the picture. And what was the picture quiry, I learned that the Indians knew of a place itself? A river-a mighty current of water com- I was led to believe this from the fact that the springs where the heat was much greater formerly than now. ing out of one of the largest of these shadowy val- of Messrs. Ritchie and Tucker varied their temperature leys, and then breaking up into a thousand torrents four or five degrees in the space of three or four weeks. embracing a thousand islands, and meeting in a I next visited the place indicated by the Indians, and thousand eddying pools, with a hum, a buzz, a roar, found it perfectly tranquil externally, and nothing on that grew louder as the night came on; so that as the surface to attract special attention. But on digwe dragged along the precipitous path, our voices, ging down about two feet I found the heat increase hushed at first into a whisper by admiration of rapidly, so that I could not bear my hand in the earth. what we beheld, rose imperceptibly into a shout. I inserted the bulb of my thermometer, and the merI know not why in this lonely place, where cury instantly rose to one hundred and twenty deFrom observations already naught but the cataracts and the wind are to speak grees of Fahrenheit. at all—I know not why, I say, as the winds sink made in company with Prof. James Nooney, I was led and go away murmuring to other regions, this to believe there existed a line of thermal action under tumultuous chanting of the waters should increase in company with Mr. P. Cyrus, J. Cyrus, and B. F. the neighboring mountain chains, and, accordingly, in potency-why they should seem to grow more Briggs, (most excellent companions and expert huntrestless when naught but the owl, and the bat, and ers,) I travelled north-westerly in the line of thermal the robber-wolf is abroad, when all else is welcom-action, and after wandering through almost innumering the approach of sleep. Scientific men, eaves- able dense thickets, on the fourth day after leaving droppers of nature, will no doubt find out some explanation in the disposition of different strata of the atmosphere; but at that time I could not help thinking that we had come upon some great meeting of the water-sprites-some parliament of demons engaged in supernatural debate. The light was rapidly fading away over the untrodden desert, and whole troops of thin shadows were coming playing towards us. Islands began to quiver like rapids, and rapids seemed to grow solid like islands. A sad and silent black boy, who came to us, I know not how, hurried us along from bab to bab. We might almost have fancied ourselves guided by a familiar of the place, had he not taken care at length to tell us that he was unwilling to be benighted in that lonely place. He wanted to go home. And where was his home? Behind that great isolated rock at the village of Korore.

We scrambled over the slippery rocks, whilst the moon gradually substituted herself for the sun. To our surprise, as we came upon a little bay above one of the babs or gates, we heard a voice, with a peculiar twang, singing out a queer couplet, the first line of which, I think, was-" Hail, Columbia, happy land!" An American, in trying to get too near this "tarnation tempest in a teapot," had slipped into the water, and presently we actually

the head of Napa Valley, we arrived at an immense chasm full one thousand feet in depth, where the rocks had evidently been rent asunder by great violence. Here, in the bottom of the valley, we found a clear and beautiful river, and its terraced banks covered with a most luxuriant vegetation and spring flowers, on the 8th of February. This extraordinary the river, the earth grew warm under our feet, and as appearance was soon explained, for, on proceeding up we emerged from a thicket of evergreens bordering a deep fissure in the mountain side, the secret workings of the inner world suddenly burst upon our astonished senses. You may judge of my surprise, when I found myself not on the brink of a volcanic crater or salfatara, nor amid the salses of Humboldt, and yet the earth so hot as to burn my feet through the soles of my boots.

At no place was there any appearance of lava, but a powerful catalytic action going on, effecting the dissolution of every kind of rock, the evolution of steam through innumerable orifices, and sometimes in

columns rising, like that from an ocean steamer, one tion of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, the sudden formaor two hundred feet in height-also the decomposition of boiling hot water-the deposition of beautiful crystals of sulphur, and the formation of more or less sulphuric acid and an astonishing amount of metallic oxides, mineral salts, and the cementation of brecciated and conglomerate rock. The scene leads the

mind almost to bewilderment, and you tremble as you | The action on wood is also extraordinary. Prof. S. approach the geysers, lest, like the lamented Pliny, has many specimens of wood, of different kinds, emyou become a victim to your curiosity, especially bedded, and carefully watches the action upon it. In when you find yourself sinking, as did the writer, some banks you may find wood entirely petrified, and into the abyss below, by breaking through the thin in others changed to lignite or charcoal. crust under your feet. The spouting geysers, boiling maelstroms, springs of hot water, steam pipes, &c., probably exceed two hundred on a half mile square. The writer has commenced a series of experiments and improvements at the place, and has made arrangements to cut a road and erect a house on the premises, and in due time hopes to communicate to the public the result of his observations.

From the same paper.

In the space of thirty-six hours a green tree, which we put in, was so disfigured as not to be known, except by the part exposed outside, and beautiful crystals of sulphur formed at the point of contact with the external cold air. It is impossible to describe fully the intense interest this spot awakens. To be appreciated, it must be visited. The route lies through the beautiful valley of Napa, either by Benicia or Vallejo, along past the extraordinary thermal springs of Col. Ritchie; Mount St. Helena, through Beyreasa valley, to Mr. William McDonnell's, where Mr. B. F. Briggs will conduct visitors to this region of wonders. Yours, truly,

C. L. R.

P. S. It may be interesting to the public to know that Prof. S. has, with great care, selected the best route, and employed men to cut a road to the geysers

the road to be completed by the 10th of April next. Arrangements are also made for erecting a house for the accommodation of visitors.

C. L. R.

Correspondence of the San Francisco Courier.
Napa Co., March 22, 1851.

Last week the writer had an opportunity of accompanying Prof. S. to a most romantic and beautiful valley, probably one thousand feet or more in depth, and formed, no doubt, by the rending of mountains asunder, when at once bursts upon the eyes of the astonished spectator one of the most extraordinary scenes ever presented to the contemplation of man. It seemed as if the world's great workhouse was laid open, and Nature's hidden enginery exposed to view. About sunrise you could count from fifty to one hundred columns of steam rushing and shooting up rapidly, from the size of our ocean steamers down to engines of one or two horse-power. This is the view from the overhanging peaks. But as you approach the geysers, the interest increases until it reaches the The geyser fountains, which Prof. Shepherd has highest pitch of sublimity. Connected with some of lately introduced to the world, lay open at one view the steam-pipes are jets of steam and showers of scald- the extraordinary operations of subterranean heat ing water thrown out to a distance of some twenty or caused by chemical action instead of volcanic fire. thirty feet. Prof. S. was once badly scalded by com- The action now going on has evidently affected the ing in contact with one of these extra ejected showers. neighboring mountain chains very extensively, and at While you are gazing at this with your back to the no distant period. In one place, about forty miles sun, you see your own shadow embodied in the new from the geysers, Prof. S. broke open a hard rock of formed cloud, and a beautiful rainbow around your shell limestone, and found in it a perfect shark's head. As you then advance towards some of the tooth, with serrated edges precisely like the living In another place I saw other geysers, you hear the rushing of boiling whirl-species in our own waters. pools under your feet, and you hesitate to go forward, him break open limestone more recently formed, in lest the next step you break through into the fiery which were enclosed land snails, or helices, with per abyss. In the mean time, the ground sinks under fect shells, together with fragments of charcoal. In you, and you fall prostrate on the heated crust, or other places he found carbonized wood, petrified trees, grasp the branch of a tree, or a stone, or anything, to &c. A green tree, which I cut myself and put into save yourself from the certain destruction that awaits one of the steam fountains, was so altered, in less than you, provided you sink beneath. One of these places, forty-eight hours, that you could not distinguish terrific in its appearance, is called Agassiz Maelstrom; whether it was oak, ash, or elder. I have not time another, that boils up with violence above the surface, to speak of the hills of Obsidian, which appear not to and is naturally surrounded with a beautiful basin, have been formed by volcanic fire, but by the action with a powerful stream at its side, is called Silliman's of the geysers, and re-cemented into belts of conglomFountain; another, Pluto's Cauldron, &c. Great erate. In one of the caverns, I found groups of silken numbers of grizzly bears make their beds upon the fibrous crystals, white as snow, resembling the finest warm earth; also panthers, deer, hares and squirrels amianthus, which appeared more like vegetable growth make their habitation in the immediate vicinity. than a mineral formation. In other places, mounds One of the geysers is called Panther geyser, from of mineral salts are thrown up, embodying many the circumstance that Prof. S. roused up a huge pan-thousands of tons. In contemplating these vast and ther that was comfortably warming himself thereby, and seemed quite unwilling to yield the territory to scientific investigation. Vegetation exists in the greatest exuberance in this extraordinary spot, except where mineral salts are found in great profusion. Pure and crystal streams of hot water, as well as those angry and turbid, are flowing from the seat of action to the river Pluton, which is an eastern branch of Russian river. The finest baths, of all temperatures, are to be had here; also shower and vapor baths, hot and cold, as many of the springs have a fall of fifty or one hundred feet. In the opinion of Prof. S., tropical fruits and trees may be grown here on the grounds irrigated by the warm water; and he is already preparing to plant seeds from the isthmus. One thing remarkable is the change upon the rocks. Granite is made soft, so that you can cut it as easily as a loaf of bread. The hardest flint is either mouldered to powder or melted into a new conglomerate rock. The serpentine rocks are consumed like wood.

wonderful operations, the mind loses its strength and sinks into an impenetrable labyrinth; and the spectator is compelled to exclaim, "Marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty!" Such knowledge is too wonderful for us!

The geysers I cannot find language to describe. Curiosity impels you forward, and fear holds you back; and, while you are wavering in astonishment, the ground opens or sinks under your feet, and you arouse yourself with a mighty effort to escape the boiling maelstrom hitherto concealed below.

Had I time, I would like to speak of the beautiful Valley of Napa, the warm springs of Messrs. Ritchie and Tucker, the ascent of Mount St. Helena, and the copper plate engraving erected by the Russians on the summit-all of which I must for the present defer, and remain truly, Yours,

T. ADAMS.