while the ladies talked of nothing but widow Cliquot, the culture of the grape and fine wines.

On the morning of the 27th (no tears), our dahabeah moved from her moorings, and, firing a parting salute, was towed rapidly past the gorgeous palace of the Viceroy, and stood up the stream, bound to be due at Thebes in six days and at Korosko in thirteen. The first night we lay moored off shore at Kafr-el-Ayat (having made thirty miles during the day), a mud river port for the vagrant naviga tion of the Nile.

CHAPTER IV.

A CHAPTER FOR THE TOURIST.

ON Saturday, December 30, our tow, the Viceroy's steamer-Happy Bird-put into the port of Minieh for coal. Three days of the Nile above Cairo, winding through sugar plantations, passing the lazy, drone-like dahabeahs, with occasional shots at distant and unwilling game, had made us sigh for shore. But these three days had been deliciously balmy and soft, and the very air had been full of a refreshing, bracing vitality, laden with the perfumes and vapors from orange groves.

The first one hundred and fifty miles of the river to southward of Boulac are, however, comparatively barren of interest. Two hours after starting, the pyramids fade from view, and the ruins of ancient Memphis are lost beyond the horizon of the desert. The quarries of Masarah, the false pyramid, and the towns of Bedreshayn Tibbin, Kafr-el-Ayat, Rigga, Atfeeh, Goman and Benisooef are points generally visited by travelers who are making an accurate survey of the country.

The scenery between Cairo and Minieh partakes of the richly verdant and the terribly bald. No contrast can be more effective than to see the shores of the grandest of rivers lined on either side with a belt of the most productive soil in the world, of an average width of two miles, each square foot giving its certain unvarying yield; each year renewing its own fruitfulness; each century redeeming its claim to perpetual youth, and then to raise the eye and let it wander over a dreary, sandy waste, seemingly without a purpose, history or tradition. All the available territory under cultivation is a plain; and no ground in Egypt can be utilized unless it be flat. There may be one exception to this rule, in the flooding of desert basins; yet, even in such a case, the seeding of the soil would have to await the tedious uncertainty of evaporation. Thus the wealth of river scenery and travel is finely graded; the nuggers, dahabeahs, steamers, barges, and the life and animation of tacking, jibing, fishing, shooting, racing and saluting, are matters of general view along the broad belt of the lordly Nile. Touching the shores, we find the mud huts of an Arab vil lage; the squalid streets of more pretentious habitations; the nude native hoisting water by his ancient

shadof; some frigid sheik exclaiming "backsheesh” as a tribute to his years; a score of sable urchins imploring bread; a Coptic priest crying for a small donation; a distant minaret burnished by the setting sun; the quickening vegetation on the long and narrow plains; the palm and date trees, and then the mountains of crumbling red granite; a small excavation along the slope; the entrance to the buried temples, and, as the eye speeds on, those skies which are falsely ascribed alone to Italy. Such, in brief, is Egypt; not the Egypt of the tourist, but the whole of Egypt. There is no

country in the world that can be so completely inspected by the traveler. Not a square acre escapes your observation if you ascend the Nile to Khartoum, and sail along its delta branches to Alexandria, Rosetta and Damietta. You find its domestic life, its manufactures and agriculture; and, as the land knows neither rain nor snow, these are strikingly manifested in the streets and fields. You have at once the modern and the ancient, the fruitful and the barren, and the opportunity of examining the only harmless people who still retain the customs and manners of 3,000 years ago. The book is before you. You have only to read the first

page at Alexandria, and turn over leaf after leaf as you linger by the cities of Cairo, Minieh, Roda, Thebes, Esna and Assouan, finding its printed chapters in magnificent ruins and thriving industries. This is what makes the Nile travel so desirable. Amid luxury and fine companions, you can leisurely examine all that the land contains, within a few hundred yards of your "dahabeah," and there is no uncertainty about the temples. Their history is written in decipherable hieroglyphics upon their columns and panels.

One morning we visited the famous temple of Esna-now completely underground, with a city built over its roof-showing, as its surroundings do, the debris of thirty centuries. What will all that remains of the impecunious Manhattanite think, when, ages hence, in seeking a foundation for his hut, his pick shall strike the spire of Trinity church; or when some industrious farmer may sink his well into the parquet of Booth's theatre? This is putting the ancient Egyptian in modern clothesif not recalling the familiar attitude of Macauley's famous "New Zealander."

All that is delightful in travel is found on board the Nile dahabeah. Its domesticity is neat and