w returned to the roof of the cabin, where he
sat down upon a mat, and lighting his pipe, smoked away steadily without
saying a word, while the wet and dripping sailors, as well as the ladies
belonging to the shipwrecked vessel, surrounded him, screaming,
vociferating, and shouting all manner of invectives into his ears; in
which employment they were effectively joined by a number of half-naked
Arabs who had been cultivating the fields hard by. To all this they got
no answer, beyond an occasional ejaculation of "God is great, and
Mohammed is the prophet of God." His pipe was out before the clamour of
the crowd had abated, and then, all of a sudden, he got up and with two
or three others embarked in the little boat for a neighbouring village,
to report the accident to the sheick, who, we were told, would return
with him and inquire into the circumstances of the case.

In about three hours the boat returned with the local authorities, two
old villagers, in long blue shirts and dirty turbans, who took their
seat upon a mat on the bank and smoked away in a serious manner for some
time. Our captain made no more reply to the fresh accusations of the
reassembled multitude than he had done before; but lit another pipe, and
asserted that God was great. At last the two elders made signs that they
intended to speak; and silence being obtained, they, with all due
solemnity, declared that they agreed with the captain that God was
great, and that undoubtedly Mohammed was the prophet of God. All parties
having come to this conclusion, it appeared that there was nothing more
to be said, and we returned to our boat, which the sailors, with the
help of a rough carpenter, had patched up sufficiently to allow us to
sail for a village on the other side of the river.

During the time that we were remaining on the bank I was amused by
watching the manoeuvres of some boys, who succeeded in catching a
quantity of small fish in a very original way. They rolled together a
great quantity of tangled weeds and long grass, with one end of which
they swam out into the Nile, and bringing it back towards the shore,
numerous unsuspecting fish were entangled in the mass of weeds, and were
picked out and thrown on the bank by the young fishermen before they had
time to get out of the scrape. In this way the boys secured a very
respectable heap of small fry.

We arrived safely at the village, where we stayed the night; but the
next morning it appeared tha