of the water; for each year a portion
of the banks is lost, and in many places large numbers of palm-trees
and dwellings are swept away, for the native seems incapable of
learning how unwise it is to build at the water's edge. Sometimes
whole fields are washed away by the flood, and the soil, carried
down-stream, forms a new island, or is perhaps deposited on the
opposite side of the river many miles below. When this occurs, the new
land so formed is held to be the property of the farmer or landowner
who has suffered loss.

These changes of the river-banks are often rapid. One year vessels may
discharge their passengers or cargoes upon the bank whereon some town
or village is built, and which the following year may be separated
from the river by fields many acres in extent; and each year in going
up the Nile one may notice striking changes in this way.

As the Nile winds in its course the rocky hills on either side
alternately approach close to the river, revealing a succession of
rock-hewn tombs or ancient monasteries, or recede far into the
distance, half hidden in the vegetation of the arable land; but,
speaking generally, the river flows principally on the eastern side of
the valley, while all the large towns, such as Wasta, Minyeh, Assiut,
or Girgeh are built upon the western bank, where the largest area of
fertility is situated.

As we ascend the river the vegetation slowly changes; cotton and
wheat, so freely grown in the Delta, give place to sugar-cane and
Indian corn, and the feathery foliage of the sunt and mimosa trees is
more in evidence than the more richly clad lebbek or sycamore.

In many places are fields of the large-leaved castor-oil plants, whose
crimson flower contrasts with the delicately tinted blossoms of the
poppies which, for the sake of their opium, are grown upon the
shelving banks. The dom palm also is a new growth, and denotes our
approach to tropical regions, while the type and costume of the people
have undergone a change, for they are darker and broader in feature
than the people of Lower Egypt, and the prevailing colour of their
clothing is a dark brown, the natural colour of their sheep, from
whose wool their heavy homespun cloth is made.

The limestone hills which have been our companions since leaving Cairo
also disappear, and a little way above Luxor low hills of sandstone
closely confine the river in a very narrow channel. This is the Gibel
Silsileh, which from the earliest ti