I.
The Nile had overflowed its bed. The luxuriant corn fields and blooming gardens on its shores were lost beneath a boundless waste of waters; and only the gigantic temples and palaces of its cities (protected from the force of the water by dikes), and the tops of the tall palm-trees and acacias could be seen above its surface. The branches of the sycamores and plane-trees drooped and floated on the waves, but the boughs of the tall silver poplars strained upward, as if anxious to avoid the watery world beneath. The full moon had risen; her soft light fell on the Libyan range of mountains vanishing on the western horizon, and in the north the shimmer of the Mediterranean could faintly be discerned. Blue and white lotus flowers floated on the clear water, bats of all kinds darted softly through the still air, heavy with the scent of acacia-blossom and jasmine; the wild pigeons and other birds were at roost in the tops of the trees, while the pelicans, storks and cranes squatted in groups on the shore under the shelter of the papyrus reeds, and Nile-beans. The pelicans and storks remained motionless, their long bills hidden beneath their wings, but the cranes were startled by the mere beat of an oar, stretching their necks, and peering anxiously into distance, if they heard but the song of the boatmen. The air was perfectly motionless, and the unbroken reflection of the moon, lying like a silver shield on the surface of the water, proved that, wildly as the Nile leaps over cataracts, and rushes past the gigantic temples of Upper Egypt, yet on approaching the sea by different arms, he can abandon his impetuous course, and flow along in sober tranquility.
On this moonlight night in the year 528 B.C. a bark was crossing the almost currentless canopic mouth of the Nile. On the raised deck at the stern of this boat an Egyptian was sitting to guide the long pole-rudder, and the half naked boatmen within were singing as they rowed....
As Phanes uttered these words they landed at the garden wall, washed by the Nile.... The garden of Rhodopis was as full of sound, and scent and blossom as a night in fairy land. It was one labyrinth of acanthus shrubs, yellow mimosa, the snowy gueldres rose, jasmine and lilac, red roses and laburnums, overshadowed by tall palm-trees, acacias and balsam-trees. Large bats hovered softly on their delicate wings over the whole, and sounds of mirth and song echoed from the river.
This garden had been laid out by an Egyptian, and the builders of the Pyramids had already been celebrated for ages for their skill in horticulture. They well understood how to mark out neat flower-beds, plant groups of trees and shrubs in regular order, water the whole by aqueducts and fountains, arrange arbors and summer-houses, and even inclose the walks with artistically clipped hedges and breed gold-fish in stone basins....
At noon on the following day the same boat, which, the evening before, had carried the Athenian and the Spartan, stopped once more before Rhodopis' garden. The sun was shining so brightly, so warmly and genially in the dark blue Egyptian sky, the air was so pure and light, the beetles were humming so merrily, the boatmen singing so lustily and happily, the shores of the Nile bloomed in such gay, variegated beauty, and were so thickly peopled, the palm-trees, sycamores, bananas and acacias were so luxuriant in foliage and blossom, and over the whole landscape the rarest and most glorious gifts seemed to have been poured out with such divine munificence that a passerby must have pronounced it the very home of joy and gladness, a place from which sadness and sorrow had been forever banished.
—An Egyptian Princess.