The Sheik of the Pyramids.
river. Here the crew began their battle with the wind, and by evening, after much chanting and hard rowing on their part, we reached the Nitocris, feeling very much as if our faces had been sandpapered. During our stay at Elephantine we made friends with four little Bisharin girls. They were graceful and pretty, and had the power to make the most dismal tomb cheerful. They followed us to the quarries back of Assuan, and turned the top of the half-finished obelisk into a stage and danced in the sunlight, while the blackest man in Africa played an instrument of his own invention. And the last I remember of Assuan is their
On Grenfell Hill. The Keeper of the Tomb, Assuan, December 29, 1897.
four little figures wrapped in the brightest-colored shawls that could be bought in Lower Egypt, and they waving their hands until a bend in the river hid them.
It was a novelty to find ourselves going with the current, which had been until now against us, and we could count on much bigger runs; but there was double the danger of running on a sand-bar, and from that time on there was always a man with a pole in the bow.
On the 30th we stopped beneath our old friend Komombos, and visited Edfu the next day; and from the top of its pylons we looked into the mud-walled yards of the town, where little fly-covered children stopped playing with goats and called to us, even at that height, for bakshish.
On the 31st we were once more in Luxor, where the donkey-boys and beggars gave us a hearty welcome. Again we visited Thebes, and were followed from tomb to tomb by the usual venders of imitation antiques and shriveled mummy-hands.