lustration: 009.jpg A LINE OF LADEN CAMELS EMERGES FROM A HOLLOW OF
THE UNDULATING ROAD. 1]

1 From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
Insinger, taken in 1884.

There are light groves of the date-palm, groups of acacia trees and
sycamores, square patches of barley or of wheat, fields of beans or of
bersim,[*] and here and there a long bank of sand which the least breeze
raises into whirling clouds. And over all there broods a great silence,
scarcely broken by the cry of birds, or the song of rowers in a passing
boat.

* Bersim is a kind of trefoil, the _Trifolium Alexandrinum_
of LINNAEUS. It is very common in Egypt, and the only plant
of the kind generally cultivated for fodder.

Something of human life may stir on the banks, but it is softened into
poetry by distance. A half-veiled woman, bearing a bundle of herbs upon
her head, is driving her goats before her. An irregular line of asses or
of laden camels emerges from one hollow of the undulating road only to
disappear within another. A group of peasants, crouched upon the shore,
in the ancient posture of knees to chin, patiently awaits the return of
the ferry-boat.

[Illustration: 010.jpg]

1 From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
Insinger, taken in 1886.

A dainty village looks forth smiling from beneath its palm trees. Near
at hand it is all naked filth and ugliness: a cluster of low grey huts
built of mud and laths; two or three taller houses, whitewashed;
an enclosed square shaded by sycamores; a few old men, each seated
peacefully at his own door; a confusion of fowls, children, goats, and
sheep; half a dozen boats made fast ashore. But, as we pass on, the
wretchedness all fades away; meanness of detail is lost in light, and
long before it disappears at a bend of the river, the village is again
clothed with gaiety and serene beauty. Day by day, the landscape repeats
itself. The same groups of trees alternate with the same fields, growing
green or dusty in the sunlight according to the season of the year. With
the same measured flow, the Nile winds beneath its steep banks and about
its scattered islands.

[Illustration: 011.jpg PART OF GEBEL SHEKH HERIDI. 1]

1 From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by Insinger,
taken in 1882.

One village succeeds another, each alike smiling and sordid under its
crown of foliage. The terraces of the Libyan hills, away beyond the
Western Nile,