en apparently a gay set of youngsters.
Little Gassim or Achmed, in the single unchanged and unwashed garment
that covers their little brown bodies, dance and roll and sing and drive
the loathly black buffaloes to the water and eat scraps of sugar-cane,
and are as happy as the day is long. They work hard, it is true, from
the time they can toddle, but so does everyone else, and all the animals
do their share of toil, day in and day out. "I can't understand why they
don't find a way of harnessing the turkeys," says the American
sarcastically as we pass a lordly camel, stepping, with protest in every
movement, alongside a sturdy bullock who helps to drag a primitive
plough. The plough merely scratches the surface of the ground, but that
is enough, for the Egyptian will never go deeper than he need.

[Illustration: A WATER-CARRIER.]

We are getting very hungry indeed! Six hours more! How are we going to
stand it?

Hurrah! A bit of luck! The American has been along the corridor and come
across some friends who are getting out at the next station. They have
presented him with the remains of a lunch-basket supplied by their
hotel, and he is generously willing to share it with us. Never was
prize-packet opened with greater eagerness; suppose it should only
contain enough for one?

[Illustration]

Amid the white wrappings of the open pannier we find slices of tongue,
rolls of bread, chicken legs, hard-boiled eggs, and a bottle of
soda-water!

Never did food taste better! We sit gnawing the chicken bones and
blessing the American!

Meantime the sun falls and a splendour you never yet have imagined fills
the air. Streaks of flaming colour shoot athwart the sky, bursting up
behind the tufted palms; the eastern sky catches the reflection and
shows softest blues and pinkest pinks in contrast. A veil of amber light
hangs like a curtain overhead and changes to orange and again to apricot
as the afterglow sweeps the sky before darkness falls like the curtain
on a scene at the theatre.

[Illustration: COLUMNS IN THE TEMPLE AT LUXOR.]

CHAPTER VI

A MIGHTY MAN

Our beds face the windows, which open like high glass doors, French
fashion; before retiring we set them wide, and close outside the long
shutters made of slats of wood. In the morning we are awakened suddenly,
almost at the same instant, by a red flame glowing between the slats as
fire glows between the bars of a grate. Springing from our curtains we
fling