show,
Whether we wanted to go or no,
And always pleased and made us go?
Mahmoud.

Who whipped the donkey when he fell
And then the donkey boy as well,
And dressed himself a howling swell?
Mahmoud.

Who sat so sweetly at my feet
With red tarbouche and slippers neat
And stirred my heart with many a beat?
Mahmoud.

And now, when all the trip is done
Rides to temples, and tombs, and fun,
We may forget them all save one,
Mahmoud.

[Illustration: THIS IS A PICTURE OF CLEOPATRA AND HER SON.]

Mahmoud took great pride in showing his many references in prose and
rhyme, and the members of our party were glad to contribute in prose to
his collection. But at the end of the week we presented him with another
testimonial of a more practical kind.

"The Nile is a most wonderful river," remarked the professor one evening
as we sat on the open deck watching the moonlight glisten on the green
water. "Several other rivers rival it in length; the Congo is noted for
its size; the Amazon, swelled by great tributaries, discharges a volume
of water immensely greater; and the Missouri, including the Mississippi
to the Gulf, may be longer; but the Nile is unique in that for twelve
hundred miles it flows without a tributary through a rainless region.
Not a drop of rain nor a single brook adds to its volume in all that
distance, and a hot sun, canals, ditches, sakiyehs, shadoofs, and water
carriers are continually taking away from it throughout every mile of
its winding course. The river is wider here but it has less volume than
one thousand miles farther up the stream. It is unique also in the
regularity of the annual inundations, which begin on almost the same
day, continue the same length of time, and rise to an almost similar
height each year, and have done so annually for untold centuries. In our
land a flood is a disaster causing loss and sorrow; in this country it
is a blessing producing wealth and joy. When the slowly rising waters
each year reach the figures on the stone column of the Nilometer which
show that the Nile has spread abroad his fertile bounty by covering the
cultivable lands, and has filled the dams and ditches for future needs,
the news is spread abroad and the people rejoice with festivities and
processions."

[Illu