rough it, and Tom said it was the Nile. It made my heart jump again,
for the Nile was another thing that wasn't real to me. Now I can tell
you one thing which is dead certain: if you will fool along over three
thousand miles of yaller sand, all glimmering with heat so that it makes
your eyes water to look at it, and you've been a considerable part of
a week doing it, the green country will look so like home and heaven to
you that it will make your eyes water AGAIN.

It was just so with me, and the same with Jim.

And when Jim got so he could believe it WAS the land of Egypt he was
looking at, he wouldn't enter it standing up, but got down on his knees
and took off his hat, because he said it wasn't fitten' for a humble
poor nigger to come any other way where such men had been as Moses and
Joseph and Pharaoh and the other prophets. He was a Presbyterian, and
had a most deep respect for Moses which was a Presbyterian, too, he
said. He was all stirred up, and says:

"Hit's de lan' of Egypt, de lan' of Egypt, en I's 'lowed to look at
it wid my own eyes! En dah's de river dat was turn' to blood, en I's
looking at de very same groun' whah de plagues was, en de lice, en de
frogs, en de locus', en de hail, en whah dey marked de door-pos', en de
angel o' de Lord come by in de darkness o' de night en slew de fust-born
in all de lan' o' Egypt. Ole Jim ain't worthy to see dis day!"

And then he just broke down and cried, he was so thankful. So between
him and Tom there was talk enough, Jim being excited because the
land was so full of history--Joseph and his brethren, Moses in the
bulrushers, Jacob coming down into Egypt to buy corn, the silver cup in
the sack, and all them interesting things; and Tom just as excited too,
because the land was so full of history that was in HIS line, about
Noureddin, and Bedreddin, and such like monstrous giants, that made
Jim's wool rise, and a raft of other Arabian Nights folks, which the
half of them never done the things they let on they done, I don't
believe.

Then we struck a disappointment, for one of them early morning fogs
started up, and it warn't no use to sail over the top of it, because we
would go by Egypt, sure, so we judged it was best to set her by compass
straight for the place where the pyramids was gitting blurred and
blotted out, and then drop low and skin along pretty close to the ground
and keep a sharp lookout. Tom took the hellum, I stood by to let go the
anchor, and Ji