"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."
'TWAS SCENES LIKE THESE WE LOOKED UPON.
Before taking the trip on the Nile we had thought that the days on the river might become monotonous and tiresome; but we found, on the contrary, that every hour was full of interest. Each day some excursion on shore was taken. One day the patient donkeys carried the tourists on a long trip to the ruins of the great temple of Seti at Abydos to view its sculptured columns and famous list of kings. On another day carriages conveyed us to the rock tombs on the limestone hills above Assiout and we visited the bazaars and the noted potteries of that busy town. On the last day of our sail the donkeys of Bedrashen were called into service for a ride through the palm forest and green fields, past the fallen columns of Ramses, to Sakkara, the tombs of the sacred bulls, and the pictured tombs of Ptahhotep and Ti.
TROD ROUND AND ROUND THE WHEEL.
THE COLUMNS AT ABYDOS ARE OF GREAT SIZE.