y had to part with Monime and Berenice, but
Agias went with them; and Cornelia sent off another letter to Italy,
in renewed hope that the seas would be clear and it would find its way
safely to Drusus.

Very luxurious was the progress of the royal party to Pelusium. The
king, his escort, and his unwilling guests travelled slowly by water,
in magnificent river barges that were fitted with every requisite or
ornament that mind of man might ask or think. They crossed the Lake
Mareotis, glided along one of the minor outlets of the delta until
they reached the Bolbitinic branch of the Nile, then, by canals and
natural water-courses, worked their way across to Bubastis, and thence
straight down the Pelusiac Nile to Pelusium. And thus it was Cornelia
caught glimpses of that strange, un-Hellenized country that stretched
away to the southward, tens and hundreds of miles, to Memphis and its
pyramids, and Thebes and its temples--ancient, weird, wonderful; a
civilization whereof everything was older than human thought might
trace; a civilization that was almost like the stars, the same
yesterday, to-day, and forever. Almost would Cornelia have been glad
if the prows of the barges had been turned up the river, and she been
enabled to behold with her own eyes the mighty piles of Cheops,
Chephren, Mycerinus, Sesostris, Rhampsinitus, and a score of other
Pharaohs whose deeds are recorded in stone imperishable. But the
barges glided again northward, and Cornelia only occasionally caught
some glimpse of a massive temple, under whose huge propylons the
priests had chanted their litanies to Pakht or Ptah for two thousand
years, or passed some boat gliding with its mourners to the
necropolis, there to leave the mummy that was to await the judgment of
Osiris. And down the long valley swept the hot winds from the realm of
the Pygmies, and from those strange lakes and mountains whence issued
the boundless river, which was the life-giver and mother of all the
fertile country of Egypt.

Thus with a glimpse, all too short, of the "Black Land,"[183] as its
native denizens called it, the royal party reached the half-Hellenized
town of Pelusium, where the army was in waiting and a most splendid
camp was ready for Ptolemaeus and his train. Cleopatra had not yet
advanced. The journey was over, and the novelty of the luxurious
quarters provided in the frontier fortress soon died away. Cornelia
could only possess her soul in patience, and wonder how l