Category: Travel Writing
The Rule of the Nile--The Shâdûf--Beni Suêf--Thieves by Night--The Chief of the Guards--A Sand-storm--“Holy Sheik Cotton”--The Convent of the Pulley--A Copt--The Shadow of the World--Minieh--A Native Market--Prices of Provisions--The Dôm Palm--Fortune-telling--Ophthalmia 65
The Rule of the Nile--The Shâdûf--Beni Suêf--Thieves by Night--The Chief of the Guards--A Sand-storm--“Holy Sheik Cotton”--The Convent of the Pulley--A Copt--The Shadow of the W...
6. CHAPTER VI.7. CHAPTER VII.8. CHAPTER VIII.9. CHAPTER IX.10. CHAPTER X.11. CHAPTER XI.12. CHAPTER XII.13. CHAPTER XIII.14. CHAPTER XIV.15. CHAPTER XV.16. CHAPTER XVI.The Colossi--Portraits of Rameses the Great--The Great Sand-drift--The Smaller Temples--“Rameses and Nefertari”--The Great Temple--A Monster Tableau--Alone in the Great Temple--...
17. CHAPTER XVII.18. CHAPTER XVIII.19. CHAPTER XIX.20. CHAPTER XX.21. CHAPTER XXI.Luxor Again--Imitation “Anteekahs”--Digging for Mummies--Tombs of Thebes--The Ramesseum--The Granite Colossus--Medinet Habu--The Pavilion of Rameses III--The Great Chronicle--An...
22. CHAPTER XXII.Last Weeks on the Nile--Spring in Egypt--Ninety-nine in the Shade--Samata--Unbroken Donkeys--The Plain of Abydus--Harvest-time--A Biblical Idyll--Arabat the Buried--Mena--Origin...
23. CHAPTER I.It is the traveler’s lot to dine at many table-d’hôtes in the course of many wanderings; but it seldom befalls him to make one of a more miscellaneous gathering than that which...
24. CHAPTER II.The mosque of Sultan Hassan, confessedly the most beautiful in Cairo, is also perhaps the most beautiful in the Moslem world. It was built at just that happy moment when Arabian...
25. CHAPTER III.A rapid raid into some of the nearest shops for things remembered at the last moment--a breathless gathering up of innumerable parcels--a few hurried farewells on the steps of t...
26. CHAPTER IV.Having arrived at Bedreshayn after dark and there moored for the night, we were roused early next morning by the furious squabbling and chattering of some fifty or sixty men and...
27. CHAPTER V.It is the rule of the Nile to hurry up the river as fast as possible, leaving the ruins to be seen as the boat comes back with the current; but this, like many another canon, is...
28. CHAPTER VI.It is Christmas day. The M. B.’s are coming to dinner; the cooks are up to their eyes in entrées; the crew are treated to a sheep in honor of the occasion; the new-comers are un...
29. CHAPTER VII.We started from Siût with a couple of tons of new brown bread on board, which, being cut into slices and laid to dry in the sun, was speedily converted into rusks and stored awa...
30. CHAPTER VIII.Coming on deck the third morning after leaving Denderah, we found the dahabeeyah decorated with palm-branches, our sailors in their holiday turbans, and Reïs Hassan _en grande t...
31. CHAPTER IX.Hurrying close upon the serenest of Egyptian sunsets came a night of storms. The wind got up about ten. By midnight the river was racing in great waves, and our dahabeeyah rolli...
32. CHAPTER X.The green Island of Elephantine, which is about a mile in length, lies opposite Assûan and divides the Nile in two channels. The Libyan and Arabian deserts--smooth amber sand-sl...
33. CHAPTER XI.At Assûan one bids good-by to Egypt and enters Nubia through the gates of the cataract--which is, in truth, no cataract but a succession of rapids extending over two-thirds of t...
34. CHAPTER XII.Having been for so many days within easy reach of Philæ, it is not to be supposed that we were content till now with only an occasional glimpse of its towers in the distance. On...
35. CHAPTER XIII.Sailing gently southward--the river opening wide before us, Philæ dwindling in the rear--we feel that we are now fairly over the border; and that if Egypt was strange and far fr...
36. CHAPTER XIV.It so happened that we arrived at Korosko on the eve of El-Id el-Kebîr, or the anniversary of the sacrifice of Abraham; when, according to the Moslem version, Ishmael was the in...
37. CHAPTER XV.The central figure of Egyptian history has always been, probably always will be, Rameses II. He holds this place partly by right, partly by accident. He was born to greatness; h...
38. CHAPTER XVI.We came to Abou Simbel on the night of the 31st of January and we left at sunset on the 18th of February. Of these eighteen clear days we spent fourteen at the foot of the rock...
39. CHAPTER XVII.A fresh breeze, a full sail, and the consciousness of a holiday well earned, carried us gayly along from Abou Simbel to Wady Halfeh. We started late in the afternoon of the firs...
40. CHAPTER XVIII.We came back to find a fleet of dahabeeyahs ranged along the shore at Abou Simbel and no less than three sketching-tents in occupation of the ground. One of these, which happene...
41. CHAPTER XIX.There are fourteen temples between Abou Simbel and Philæ; to say nothing of grottoes, tombs and other ruins. As a rule, people begin to get tired of temples about this time and...
42. CHAPTER XX.Going, it cost us four days to struggle up from Assûan to Mahatta; returning, we slid down--thanks to our old friend the sheik of the cataract--in one short, sensational half-ho...
43. CHAPTER XXI.We had so long been the sport of destiny that we hardly knew what to make of our good fortune when two days of sweet south wind carried us from Edfu to Luxor. We came back to fi...
44. CHAPTER XXII.Our last weeks on the Nile went by like one long, lazy, summer’s day. Events now were few. We had out-stayed all our fellow-travelers. Even the faithful Bagstones had long since...