stration: 'TWAS SCENES LIKE THESE WE LOOKED UPON.]

Before taking the trip on the Nile we had thought that the days on the
river might become monotonous and tiresome; but we found, on the
contrary, that every hour was full of interest. Each day some excursion
on shore was taken. One day the patient donkeys carried the tourists on
a long trip to the ruins of the great temple of Seti at Abydos to view
its sculptured columns and famous list of kings. On another day
carriages conveyed us to the rock tombs on the limestone hills above
Assiout and we visited the bazaars and the noted potteries of that busy
town. On the last day of our sail the donkeys of Bedrashen were called
into service for a ride through the palm forest and green fields, past
the fallen columns of Ramses, to Sakkara, the tombs of the sacred bulls,
and the pictured tombs of Ptahhotep and Ti.

[Illustration: TROD ROUND AND ROUND THE WHEEL.]

[Illustration: THE COLUMNS AT ABYDOS ARE OF GREAT SIZE.]

"This is the height of enjoyment," said a member of our party one day
while we were lounging in easy chairs taking afternoon tea on the deck,
and lazily watching the panoramic scenes as the Amasis steamed down the
river.

[Illustration: DOTTED WITH PILES OF YELLOW WATER-JARS.]

It was scenes like these we looked upon. Along the banks of the river at
short intervals, the shadoof man, or drawer of water, with his shadoof
resembling an old-fashioned spring-pole or well sweep, drew up his
dripping bucket and lowered it again, his only garment an apron at the
waist.

All through the day the red-brown man
Stands on his perch in the red-brown bank;
Waters never more gratefully ran,
Cucumbers never more greedily drank.

--Canon Rawnsley.

Where the bank was very high, a series of two, three, or four natives,
each with his spring-pole, raised the water one to the other until it
reached the top and was poured into the little channels that carried it
over the rich, but very thirsty soil of a rainless land. On the
river-bank, also, interspersed with the shadoofs of the poorer class of
agriculturists, the more prosperous farmers, who were the happy
possessors of buffaloes or camels, lifted the irrigating water from the
stream by means of sakiyehs, or wooden power wheels, which creaked
unceasingly as the patient camels or buffaloes, with eyes covered by
blinders of mud, trod round and round the wheel.

Rough clout upon his patient head,