s exactly the colour of a new copper kettle. She had
magnificent large eyes; and her face had but a slight leaning towards
the Ethiopian contour. Her bands and feet were wonderfully small and
delicately formed. In short, she was a perfect beauty in her way; but
the perfume of the castor-oil with which she was anointed had so strong
a savour that, when she brought us the eggs and chickens, I always
admired her at a distance of ten yards to windward. She had an
ornamented calabash to hold her castor-oil, from which she made a fresh
toilette every time she swam across the Nile.

I have been three times at Philoe, and indeed I had so great an
admiration of the place that on my last visit, thinking it probable that
I should never again behold its wonderful ruins and extraordinary
scenery, I determined to spend the day there alone, that I might
meditate at my leisure and wander as I chose from one well-remembered
spot to another without the incumbrance of half a dozen people staring
at whatever I looked at, and following me about out of pure idleness.
Greatly did I enjoy my solitary day, and whilst leaning over the parapet
on the top of the great Propylon, or seated on one of the terraces which
overhung the Nile, I in imagination repeopled the scene, with the forms
of the priests and worshippers of other days, restored the fallen
temples to their former glory, and could almost think I saw the
processions winding round their walls, and heard the trumpets, and the
harps, and the sacred hymns in honour of the great Osiris. In the
evening a native came over with a little boat to take me off the island,
and I quitted with regret this strange and interesting region.

I landed at the village of rude huts on the shore of the river and sat
down on a stone, waiting for my donkey, which I purposed to ride through
the desert in the cool of the evening to Assouan, where my boat was
moored. While I was sitting there, two boys were playing and wrestling
together; they were naked and about nine or ten years old. They soon
began to quarrel, and one of them drew the dagger which he wore upon his
arm and stabbed the other in the throat. The poor boy fell to the ground
bleeding; the dagger had entered his throat on the left side under the
jawbone, and being directed upwards had cut his tongue and grazed the
roof of his mouth. Whilst he cried and writhed about upon the ground
with the blood pouring out of his mouth, the villagers came out from
t