At Siout we met the boat that ascended the Nile two weeks ahead of us, and was now on its return. We were regaled with stories of quarrels, and it seemed that almost from the day of starting there had been a row of some kind on board. The disturbance had not quite reached the point of pistols and coffee, but was very near it, and one of the passengers told me he expected to fight a duel before reaching Cairo. One of the misfortunes of these vexed parties is the liability to quarrel; persons are thrown so closely together, that there must be a great deal of forbearance and concession on the part of everybody to avoid trouble.
The river above and below Siout winds considerably, and sometimes the dahabeeahs are greatly retarded, going around the bends. Nature has very well arranged the navigation of the Nile. The general course of the stream is nearly due North; during the winter the wind blows almost steadily from the North, so that you can be quite sure of reaching your destination without great delay. You can sail up stream with the wind, and in going down the boat floats and is rowed just enough to give her steerage way.
When an ascending boat is becalmed, the crew is sent on shore with a tow rope, to which they are harnessed like so many oxen. They can make twelve or fifteen miles a day by this sort of work, and we frequently saw them engaged at it.
The first of the temples of ancient Egypt as we ascend the river, is the one known as that of Sethe I, and called also the temple of Abydos. All along the river above Siout, there are the remains of temples and traces of ruined cities, and every year fresh discoveries are made, which throw light upon the history of the country.
We landed at Girgeh—named after St. George of Dragon notoriety—to make a visit to Abydos. Girgeh was once at quite a distance inland, but the river has worn away the soil, so that the town has been reached by the stream, and a portion of it has fallen in. It was once an important place, but is now of little consequence, and the inhabitants were not particularly pleasing in appearance. They flocked to the bank with various things to sell, and the Professor was in his element, as he found a good supply of old coins. One man had a scorpion which he wished to sell, and after he had hung around me for some time, I offered him a piastre if he would eat the venomous insect. He indignantly refused, much to the amusement of the rest of the crowd.
It was about breakfast time when we arrived, and as the donkeys had been telegraphed for, they were already waiting for us. We started soon after breakfast, as we had a ride of three hours before us, and it was necessary to get to Abydos before the sun was at meridian.
The road lay through fields of peas in blossom, through other fields of beans, and others of sugar cane and doura stalks. Everywhere the verdure was thick and luxuriant, and remember that we were in the month of January.
We passed several villages and saw many groups of natives at work in the fields, and here and there we saw camels and buffaloes tied to stakes, and feeding upon the rich grass. An animal is tied where he can have a range of forty or fifty feet, and he is not moved until he has eaten the herbage down to the roots, so that there shall be no waste.
The villages consisted of little groups of mud houses, that possessed no attractions, and when one sees the dirt and general wretchedness about them, the surprise is that the inhabitants do not die before reaching a dozen years of age.
The villages are built on mounds to keep them out of the way of the inundation which covers all the flat country and makes it difficult to move about.