Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ... back and falling in long folds to her feet. She smiled, put out her hand, and murmured "Backsheesh!" Her fingers were covered with rings, and her arms with silver bracelets. She begged because to beg is honourable, and customary, and a matter of inveterate habit; but she evidently neither expected nor needed the backsheesh she condescended to ask for. A few moments more and the sunset has faded, the village is left behind, the last half-mile of plain is trotted over. And now--hungry, thirsty, dusty, worn out with new knowledge, new impressions, new ideas --we are once more at home and at rest. CHAPTER V. Bedreshayn to Minieh. 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 by no means of universal application. The traveller who starts late in the season has, indeed, no other course open to him. He must press on with speed to the end of his journey, if he would get back again at low Nile without being irretrievably stuck on a sand-bank till the next inundation floats him off again. But for those who desire not only to see the monuments, but to follow, however superficially, the course of Egyptian history as it is handed down through Egyptian art, it is above all things necessary to start early and to see many things by the way. For the history of ancient Egypt goes against the stream. The earliest monuments lie between Cairo and Siout, while the last temples to the old gods are chiefly found in Nubia. Those travellers, therefore, who hurry blindly forward with or without a wind, now sailing, now tracking, now punting, passing this place by night, and that by day, and never resting till they have gained the...