jars. The cattle here are about
the same size as ours, but they have a lump on their back and their
horns run straight back. The colour of most of these cattle is blueish.
Where the fertile strip of land is wide, canals are dug in curves to
bring the water back near, to the sand mountains. The cattle feed along
the river bank, which is left uncultivated for about twenty feet from
the water, and I have seen a number of them of all kinds, feeding on
this poor strip and never touch the rich crops alongside, although left
to themselves and I was told that they were taught that way. The sheep
look like dogs dragging long tails on the ground and the dogs look much
like the Esquimaux dogs I have seen in Manitoba.

After seven or eight days travel we left the sand mountains and began to
see rock on both sides, more particularly on the east bank the rock
looked to me like plaster of Paris. The natives quarried it and loaded
it into small dibeers. "Dibeers" are sailing crafts with a small cabin
aft, whilst, "Nuggars" are plain barges, with a very peculiar sail, the
boom of which is rolled into the sail by way of furling the latter. I
heard one blast go off and this being Sunday, the 19th October, I made
up my mind that the people here have no Sundays. We passed some ruins on
both shores, some appeared to be cut into the solid rock, which here is
of a brownish colour. I could not tell what kind of rock but the courses
varied from four to twenty feet as seen between the temples and they
laid very even. The perpendicular seams were perfectly straight. The
temples all faced the river. We also passed some immense figures, some
standing, some sitting on chairs, some looking towards the river, some
showing their profile, the highest of these I judged to be 60 feet high.
It was a pity that we could not get the slightest information from the
Egyptian crew with us, who seemed very averse to us, so much so, that I
could not even learn their names far less any of their language. About
this time some of the boys gave out that we would be shown the exact
spot, where Moses was picked up, but nobody knew exactly. Our fleet did
not run at nights, and it always happened that we halted in some
uninhabited place, where nothing could be learned. Some of the cities we
passed presented a beautiful appearance from the distance, temples, high
towers and so forth all looking very white, some mud houses were two or
three stories high and of blue mud color.