A thousand miles up the Nile

by Amelia B. Edwards

We gave him a small backshîsh, however, in return for this mysterious piece of information, and went our way with all possible speed; intending to row across and see the mounds on the opposite bank before sunset. But we had not calculated upon the difficulty of either threading our way among a chain of sand-banks, or going at least two miles farther north, so as to get round into the navigable channel at the other side. We of course tried the shorter way, and after running aground some three or four times, had to give it up, hoist our little sail, and scud homeward as fast as the wind would carry us.

The coming back thus, after an excursion in the felucca, is one of the many pleasant things that one has to remember of the Nile. The sun has set; the after-glow has faded; the stars are coming out. Leaning back with a satisfied sense of something seen or done, one listens to the old dreamy chant of the rowers and to the ripple under the keel. The palms, meanwhile, glide past, and are seen in bronzed relief against the sky. Presently the big boat, all glittering with lights, looms up out of the dusk. A cheery voice hails from the poop. We glide under the bows. Half a dozen smiling brown faces bid us welcome, and as many pairs of brown hands are outstretched to help us up the side. A savory smell is wafted from the kitchen; a pleasant vision of the dining-saloon, with table ready spread and lamps ready lit, flashes upon us through the open doorway. We are at home once more. Let us eat, drink, rest, and be merry; for to-morrow the hard work of sight-seeing and sketching begins again.

CHAPTER XVIII.
DISCOVERIES AT ABOU SIMBEL.

We came back to find a fleet of dahabeeyahs ranged along the shore at Abou Simbel and no less than three sketching-tents in occupation of the ground. One of these, which happened to be pitched on the precise spot vacated by our painter, was courteously shifted to make way for the original tenant; and in the course of a couple of hours we were all as much at home as if we had not been away for half a day.

Here, meanwhile, was our old acquaintance—the Fostât, with her party of gentlemen; yonder the Zenobia, all ladies; the little Alice, with Sir J. C—— and Mr. W—— on board; the Sirena, flying with stars and stripes; the Mansoorah, bound presently for the Fayûm. To these were next day added the Ebers, with a couple of German savants; and the Bagstones, welcome back from Wady Halfeh.

What with arrivals and departures, exchange of visits, exhibitions of sketches and sociabilities of various kinds, we had now quite a gay time. The Philæ gave a dinner-party and fantasia under the very noses of the colossi and every evening there was drumming and howling enough among the assembled crews to raise the ghosts of Rameses and all his queens. This was pleasant enough while it lasted; but when the strangers dropped off one by one and at the end of three days we were once more alone, I think we were not sorry. The place was, somehow, too solemn for

“Singing, laughing, ogling and all that.”

It was by comparing our watches with those of the travelers whom we met at Abou Simbel, that we now found out how hopelessly our timekeepers and theirs had gone astray. We had been altering ours continually ever since leaving Cairo; but the sun was as continually putting them wrong again, so that we had lost all count of the true time. The first words with which we now greeted a new-comer were: “Do you know what o’clock it is?” To which the stranger as invariably replied that it was the very question he was himself about to ask. The confusion became at last so great that, finding that we had about eleven hours of day to thirteen of night, we decided to establish an arbitrary canon; so we called it seven when the sun rose and six when it set, which answered every purpose.

It was between two and four o’clock, according to this time of ours, that the southern cross was now visible every morning. It is undoubtedly best seen at Abou Simbel. The river is here very wide and just where the constellation rises there is an opening in the mountains on the eastern bank, so that these four fine stars, though still low in the heavens, are seen in a free space of sky. If they make, even so, a less magnificent appearance than one has been led to expect, it is probably because we see them from too low a point of view. To say that a constellation is foreshortened sounds absurd; yet that is just what is the matter with the Southern Cross at Abou Simbel. Viewed at an angle of about thirty degrees, it necessarily looks distort and dim. If seen burning in the zenith, it would no doubt come up to the level of its reputation.

It was now the fifth day after our return from Wady Halfeh, when an event occurred that roused us to an unwonted pitch of excitement and kept us at high pressure throughout the rest of our time.