listering heat of the midday hours. It was a wonderful work, this
dam, a great peaceful desert lake above and a turbulent flood below.
They descended by a flight of locks to the quieter water, and steamed
ten or fifteen miles down stream between many islands of red granite,
smoothly polished by the rushing waters of countless centuries. Back
again at Assuan, they embarked on a luxurious river steamer, the
_Sakkara_, and immediately cast off, for down river.

This method of seeing the country took a lot of beating, meditated Mac,
as he lounged back in a low chair on the cool deck, with his sleeves
rolled up, smoking a cigar. The life of the Nile river-bank was deeply
interesting, with a slightly varying background of green fields of
berseem, stately palms and rocky desert hills. How cool the palms
looked, but he knew from experience that the degree of shade ascribed
to them in romantic novels didn't exist in real life. Lulled by the
steady reverberations of the paddle-wheels, conscious internally of a
satisfying lunch and good wine, he fell asleep. When he awoke, they
were manoeuvring carefully up to the bank, and black sailors in Jack
Tar uniform quickly extemporized a landing out of planks.

Drawn up on top of the bank, brightly polished and perspiring, stood a
line of dusky soldiers, presenting arms. At the end of the gang-plank,
his portliness exceeded only by his stateliness, was the great
potentate His Excellency the Mahmoudieh of Assuan. With sweeping
obeisances, he greeted each one in a manner only befitting those who
held his provinces in such deep respect. His demeanour demanded rather
a setting of pillared palace and crimson velvet than a background of
castor-oil bushes and sugar-cane. But he did things properly, did the
Mahmoudieh, showed them Kom Ombo Temple, with all the dignity of the
proprietor, took them to his sugar-mills in his best donkey-drawn
tram-car, and offered them almost everything in his dominions.
Finally, when they re-embarked farther down stream, they warmly bade
farewell to the old boy, told him emphatically of the unapproachability
of his Province, and bowed and waved handkerchiefs until beyond a bend
in the river they lost sight of his memorable shape.

That night the steamer lay moored to the bank near the native town of
Edfu. The skipper was considerably concerned, as he explained with
violent gesticulations, at the possibility of being stranded on the
morrow, as the seaso