d with glee, as he waved a small bag of them in
the air:

"What's the use of bothering with Steel common? See what I have got
for a five-dollar bill!"

The sport ran high, and while it was active an Arab appeared on deck
with a basket. He approached me and said he had five sacred kittens
and some scarabs, and as he was not much of a salesman, a little short
in his English and out of funds, he wanted me to auction them off to
help him out. As I had done this kind of thing before, I accepted the
delicate position and in a short time had planted his stock in new and
responsible hands that would not be likely to throw it again on the
market in its present critical condition. He gave me his oriental
blessing and stole out softly into the night; his parents haven't seen
him since.

Perhaps it may have been noticed that wherever we went there were
unusual doings and excitement. This is true, as, long before we
arrived anywhere, our coming was heralded in the papers, and as the
party was exceptionally large, all Southern Europe and North Africa
felt bound to get a whack at our pocketbooks.

Two striking things may be seen on the Nile. One is the irrigation of
the land by hand: this is accomplished by lifting up the water in
buckets by means of poles balanced with a weight equal to that of the
water. This hard work is done by hundreds of thousands of natives, who
are practically naked and do this labor in the hot sun. The banks are
lined with them on each side for more than a thousand miles. When the
length of the Nile is reckoned from its extreme source, it is four
thousand and ninety-eight miles long, making it perhaps the longest
river in the world, although the Mississippi, the Amazon and the Congo
are about as long. Between Khartoum and the sea the Nile has six
cataracts, some of them very rapid. Dry up the Nile and Egypt would be
like the Desert of Sahara in a month; the river is its very heart's
blood and makes it everything it is. Labor is cheap on the Nile: the
men who hoist the irrigating water get only a few cents a day; a hotel
waiter gets a dollar a month, with board and lodging; and so it goes in
proportion.

The other activity that arrests one's attention is the planting of
melon seeds in rows on the flat banks at low water. Later the river
overflows them and when the flood subsides the plants are well on the
way toward bearing. Our negroes call them "water-millions;" that name
would be most a