ple shadows among the rocks, strengthening the lights on the
sands, gilding and beautifying everything, and making the whole scene
live. The river, whose windings make it look like a lake, turns from
muddy brown to silver-grey. The sky from a dull blue deepens into violet
in the west. Everything under that magic touch becomes vivid and alive.
And then the sun sinks altogether behind the rocks, the colors fade out
of the sky, the flush off the sands, and gradually everything darkens
and grows grey--like a man's cheek when he is bleeding to death. We are
left sad and sorrowful in the dark, until the stars light up and remind
us that there is always something beyond.

In a land whose beauty is the beauty of a moment, whose face is
desolate, and whose character is strangely stern, the curse of war
was hardly needed to produce a melancholy effect. Why should there be
caustic plants where everything is hot and burning? In deserts where
thirst is enthroned, and where the rocks and sand appeal to a pitiless
sky for moisture, it was a savage trick to add the mockery of mirage.

The area multiplies the desolation. There is life only by the Nile. If a
man were to leave the river, he might journey westward and find no human
habitation, nor the smoke of a cooking fire, except the lonely tent of a
Kabbabish Arab or the encampment of a trader's caravan, till he reached
the coast-line of America. Or he might go east and find nothing but sand
and sea and sun until Bombay rose above the horizon. The thread of
fresh water is itself solitary in regions where all living things lack
company.

In the account of the River War the Nile is naturally supreme. It is
the great melody that recurs throughout the whole opera. The general
purposing military operations, the statesman who would decide upon grave
policies, and the reader desirous of studying the course and results
of either, must think of the Nile. It is the life of the lands through
which it flows. It is the cause of the war: the means by which we fight;
the end at which we aim. Imagination should paint the river through
every page in the story. It glitters between the palm-trees during the
actions. It is the explanation of nearly every military movement. By
its banks the armies camp at night. Backed or flanked on its unfordable
stream they offer or accept battle by day. To its brink, morning and
evening, long lines of camels, horses, mules, and slaughter cattle hurry
eagerly. Emir and