endless groups of masts and
sails. The western shore is like a rich painting, with its palms and
Pyramids, while opposite, half hidden in shining dark acacias, are
palaces of the pashas, with their silent-looking harems and latticed
windows. Cangias (small row-boats) are fastened to the banks, and the
moan and creak of the sakias (water-wheels) tell us we are indeed upon
the enchanted Nile.

Behind us rise the shining minarets of the city, and the Pyramids follow
us as we go, photographing their outlines on our memory forever; the
soft green plain slopes gently to the river; and as if stirred to life
by the witchery of the surroundings, our bird-like boat flings her great
wings to the breeze, and skims the waters, bounding along, as if with
conscious joy, between the green plains of the Nile Valley.

The river is alive with boats, all bound southward, fine diahbeehs
sweeping along, and looking proudly down on the lesser craft, and huge
lumbering country boats laden with grain.

The landscape is not monotonous, though there is a sameness in its
character, for the lines in that crystal air are always changing, and
day after day the panorama unrolls, with its fields of waving tobacco
and blossoming cotton, where workers are lazily busy.

We are passing the ruins of ancient cities as we sail onward, or are
dragged along by the crew harnessed together by ropes, which task they
call tracking. They never perform this labor reluctantly, or with any
ill temper, but always accompanying their work with a monotonous
sing-song in a slightly nasal twang, till the air is filled with these
perpetual sounds of "Allah, haylee sah. Eiya Mohammed."

We see in this a relic of by-gone days, for the ancient Egyptians are
painted on the tombs accompanying their work with song and clapping of
hands.

As we are borne on through and into the creamy light of this glowing
atmosphere, where the sunshine seems to pour into and blend with
everything, we can hardly wonder that sun worship was an instinct of the
earliest races, or that the little child believes that the East lies
near the rising sun.

On, on we go, past the ruins of ancient cities, never pausing in the
upward journey: it is only on the return that you visit the places of
renown.

There lies Karnac, with its myriads of gigantic columns. Yonder sits
Memnon, "beloved of the morning," which was said to give forth a note of
music when the rising sun shone upon it. There is Luxor, D