The vessel which I selected for our voyage was one of those small pleasure-boats or yachts,—so much in use among the luxurious navigators of the Nile,—[pg 143]in the centre of which rises a pavilion of cedar or cypress wood, gilded gorgeously, without, with religious emblems, and fitted up, within, for all the purposes of feasting and repose. To the door of this pavilion I now led my companion, and, after a few words of kindness—tempered with as much respectful reserve as the deep tenderness which I felt would admit of—left her in solitude to court that restoring rest, which the agitation of her spirits but too much required.
For myself, though repose was hardly less necessary to me, the ferment in which my thoughts had been kept seemed to render it hopeless. Throwing myself upon the deck, under an awning which the sailors had raised for me, I continued, for some hours, in a sort of vague day-dream,—sometimes passing in review the scenes of that subterranean drama, and sometimes, with my eyes fixed in drowsy vacancy, receiving passively the [pg 144]impressions of the bright scenery through which we passed.
The banks of the canal were then luxuriantly wooded. Under the tufts of the light and towering palm were seen the orange and the citron, interlacing their boughs; while, here and there, huge tamarisks thickened the shade, and, at the very edge of the bank, the willow of Babylon stood bending its graceful branches into the water. Occasionally, out of the depth of these groves, there shone a small temple or pleasure-house;—while, now and then, an opening in their line of foliage allowed the eye to wander over extensive fields, all covered with beds of those pale, sweet roses, for which this district of Egypt is so celebrated.
The activity of the morning hour was visible every where. Flights of doves and lapwings were fluttering among the leaves, and the white heron, which had roosted all night in some date-tree, now [pg 145]stood sunning its wings upon the green bank, or floated, like living silver, over the flood. The flowers, too, both of land and water, looked freshly awakened;—and, most of all, the superb lotus, which had risen with the sun from the wave, and was now holding up her chalice for a full draught of his light.
Such were the scenes that now passed before my eyes, and mingled with the reveries that floated through my mind, as our boat, with its high, capacious sail, swept over the flood. Though the occurrences of the last few days appeared to me one series of wonders, yet by far the most miraculous wonder of all was, that she, whose first look had sent wild-fire into my heart,—whom I had thought of ever since with a restlessness of passion, that would have dared any thing on earth to obtain its object,—was now sleeping sacredly in that small pavilion, while guarding her, even from myself, I lay calmly at its threshold.
Meanwhile, the sun had reached his meridian. The busy hum of the morning had died gradually away, and all around was sleeping in the hot stillness of noon. The Nile-goose, folding her splendid wings, was lying motionless on the shadow of the sycamores in the water. Even the nimble lizards upon the bank seemed to move more languidly, as the light fell upon their gold and azure hues. Overcome as I was with watching, and weary with thought, it was not long before I yielded to the becalming influence of the hour. Looking fixedly at the pavilion,—as if once more to assure my senses, that I was not already in a dream, but that the young Egyptian was really there,—I felt my eyes close as I looked, and in a few minutes sunk into a profound sleep.
CHAP. XII.
It was by the canal through which we now sailed, that, in the more prosperous days of Memphis, the commerce of Upper Egypt and Nubia was transported to her magnificent Lake, and from thence, having paid tribute to the queen of cities, was poured out again, through the Nile, into the ocean. The course of this canal to the river was not direct, but ascending in a south-easterly direction towards the Saïd; and in calms, or with adverse winds, the passage was tedious. But as the breeze was now blowing freshly from the north, there was every prospect of our reaching the river before night-fall. Rapidly, too, as our galley swept along the flood, its motion was so smooth as to be hardly felt; and the quiet gurgle of the waters underneath, and the drowsy song of the [pg 148]boatman at the prow, alone disturbed the deep silence that prevailed.