f mud, baked in the sun, the palm-trees of Africa, either
singly or in mighty clusters, rise superbly and cast on these little
habitations the shade of their palms which sway in the wind. Not long
ago, although indeed everything in these little towns was mournful and
stagnant, one would have been tempted to stop in passing, drawn by that
nameless peace that belonged to the Old East and to Islam. But, now,
before the smallest hamlet--amongst the beautiful primitive boats, that
still remain in great numbers, pointing their yards, like very long
reeds, into the sky--there is always, for the meeting of the tourist
boats, an enormous black pontoon, which spoils the whole scene by its
presence and its great advertising inscription: "Thomas Cook & Son
(Egypt Ltd.)." And, what is more, one hears the whistling of the
railway, which runs mercilessly along the river, bringing from the
Delta to the Soudan the hordes of European invaders. And to crown all,
adjoining the station is inevitably some modern factory, throned there
in a sort of irony, and dominating the poor crumbling things that still
presume to tell of Egypt and of mystery.

And so now, except at the towns or villages which lead to celebrated
ruins, we stop no longer. It is necessary to proceed farther and for the
halt of the night to seek an obscure hamlet, a silent recess, where we
may moor our dahabiya against the venerable earth of the bank.

And so one goes on, for days and weeks, between these two interminable
cliffs of reddish chalk, filled with their hypogea and mummies, which
are the walls of the valley of the Nile, and will follow us up to the
first cataract, until our entrance into Nubia. There only will the
appearance and nature of the rocks of the desert change, to become the
more sombre granite out of which the Pharaohs carved their obelisks and
the great figures of their gods.

We go on and on, ascending the thread of this eternal current, and
the regularity of the wind, the persistent clearness of the sky, the
monotony of the great river, which winds but never ends, all conspire
to make us forget the hours and days that pass. However deceived and
disappointed we may be at seeing the profanation of the river banks,
here, nevertheless, isolated on the water, we do not lose the peace of
being a wanderer, a stranger amongst an equipage of silent Arabs, who
every evening prostrate themselves in confiding prayer.

And, moreover, we are moving towards the so