Towards evening we arrived at the town of Atfeh - half land, half
houses, half palm-trees, with swarms of half-naked people crowding
the rustic shady bazaars, and bartering their produce of fruit or
many-coloured grain. Here the canal came to a check, ending
abruptly with a large lock. A little fleet of masts and country
ships were beyond the lock, and it led into THE NILE.
After all, it is something to have seen these red waters. It is
only low green banks, mud-huts, and palm-clumps, with the sun
setting red behind them, and the great, dull, sinuous river
flashing here and there in the light. But it is the Nile, the old
Saturn of a stream - a divinity yet, though younger river-gods have
deposed him. Hail! O venerable father of crocodiles! We were all
lost in sentiments of the profoundest awe and respect; which we
proved by tumbling down into the cabin of the Nile steamer that was
waiting to receive us, and fighting and cheating for sleeping-
berths.
At dawn in the morning we were on deck; the character had not
altered of the scenery about the river. Vast flat stretches of
land were on either side, recovering from the subsiding
inundations: near the mud villages, a country ship or two was
roosting under the date-trees; the landscape everywhere stretching
away level and lonely. In the sky in the east was a long streak of
greenish light, which widened and rose until it grew to be of an
opal colour, then orange; then, behold, the round red disc of the
sun rose flaming up above the horizon. All the water blushed as he
got up; the deck was all red; the steersman gave his helm to
another, and prostrated himself on the deck, and bowed his head
eastward, and praised the Maker of the sun: it shone on his white
turban as he was kneeling, and gilt up his bronzed face, and sent
his blue shadow over the glowing deck. The distances, which had
been grey, were now clothed in purple; and the broad stream was
illuminated. As the sun rose higher, the morning blush faded away;
the sky was cloudless and pale, and the river and the surrounding
landscape were dazzlingly clear.
Looking ahead in an hour or two, we saw the Pyramids. Fancy my
sensations, dear M -: two big ones and a little one -
! ! !
There they lay, rosy and solemn in the distance - those old,
majestical, mystical, familiar edifices. Several of us tried to be
impressed; but breakfast supervening, a rush was made at the coffee
and cold pies, and the sentiment of awe was lost in the scramble
for victuals.
Are we so blases of the world that the greatest marvels in it do
not succeed in moving us?
