to the second cataract, happened to visit the island on his return and found that the mutilation had occurred during his absence. He procured a pot of paint, restored the names and wrote beneath the inscription: “Une page d’histoire ne s efface pas!”
One of the most enterprising of modern travellers—so far as recording the fact of his visit is concerned—is a somebody from New York. He came here in 1870 and travelled, literally, not figuratively, with a paint pot and brush in his hand. On the pyramids, on the tombs at Sakkarah, on the walls of the temple at Karnak, at Edfou, Esneh, in fact everywhere along the Nile I saw his initials, “P. T., N. Y., 1870” I was told that his full name is Tucker; I hope it is at any rate, as it is not proper that such a genius should rest in obscurity. He smeared those initials where they were sure to be seen, and was not at all particular if he defaced a fine mural painting or sculpture by so doing. In the temple at Karnak, for example, he painted them in such a way as to deface a mural sculpture, and he did likewise at other places. If he could come here again, and under another name accompany a party like ours up the Nile, he would no doubt listen with pleasure to the compliments passed upon him.
Nearly everybody called him a first-class ass, an idiot, a fool; and some prefixed an adjective of a participial character to the word; and I heard several persons wish to wring his neck. I endeavored to reprove them, but it was of no use; and lest he should go down to the obscurity that he evidently dreaded, I embrace this opportunity to make known his name and valorous deeds.
An Englishman said to me one day while looking at the above inscription, “We have a good many human donkeys in England, but I think your countryman who did that is the grandest ass in the world.” My heart was so full just then that I could not rush to my compatriot’s defence, and I fear that my British friend believed I shared his opinion.
From the island we went to see the cataract, which is nothing more than a succession of rapids. In the time of the highest flood boats can ascend the cataract with the aid of a strong wind by their sails alone, but in ordinary stages they must be taken up by means of tow-ropes. From forty to sixty men are required, and the passage through the five miles of distance will take a whole day. The scene is quite picturesque and full of animation, especially when the rope breaks and lets the boat back over a distance that has been gained with much toil.
There is a sheik who has entire control of the passage of the cataract, and the contract must be made with him. It costs from ten to fifteen pounds to take a boat up from Assouan to Mahatta, a small village at the head of the falls, and sometimes the work will take three or four days.
At Mahatta we found our camels and donkeys, and returned by the bank of the river to Assouan. The Professor was on a camel of enormous size—so large in fact that I suggested the addition of a pilot house and steering gear to keep the animal in the road. We passed two or three villages where the natives offered us necklaces and polished agates for sale, and a few old coins. Skins of crocodiles were offered, and one native tried hard to palm off a lizard on us as a young crocodile.
Crocodiles, by the way, are quite scarce on the Nile below the First Cataract. We saw but one on our whole voyage; twenty years ago you might see two or three dozen of them in a day. In Nubia they are abundant enough, and further up the Nile you can see plenty of hippopotami. Not one of these beasts exists now below the second cataract, though less than sixty years ago one was killed in the delta below Cairo.
After several day’s stoppage at Assouan, we started back for Cairo. All steamboat travellers and most dahabeeah parties do not go beyond Philæ, and nearly all tourists who go further, end their voyage at Wady Haifa, the foot of the Second Cataract, two hundred and forty miles beyond Assouan.
Above Wady Haifa the river makes a wide bend into Dougoula; parties intending to proceed to Khartoum, at the junction of the Blue and White Nile, generally leave the river at Korosko, a hundred miles below Wady Haifa, and make a journey of eight days by camel across the desert to Aboo Hamed, where they take boats again on the river and save going around the bend After passing Khartoum there is good navigation on the Nile, for a long distance, and then—