DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5073#0020
THE NILE.
9
above the villages, and tipping the graceful white
lateen sails of a score of khandjehs and little boats,
going down to Rosetta. We stayed on deck till it was
quite dark, enjoying the new scene, — our last, for a long
time, of such weather — one or two tremendous down-
pours in Alexandria had warned us of what our fate
might be, but from that evening, for eleven successive
days, we had constant storms of rain and wind, the rain
threatening to drown us, as it leaked through deck,
door, and window, and the wind making us pitch and
roll, until we were nearly sea-sick. Once, when look-
ing at the magnificently blue sky in Alexandria, so new
to English eyes, I made some remark to a gentleman
residing there on its beauty: " Ah," he said, " you
have not learned yet to loathe this cloudless sky! We
have not had one drop of rain here since the middle of
last February, and you cannot understand how one
wearies, mind and body, of the changeless expanse,
longing for the ever-varying clouds we think so beauti-
ful, because we so seldom see them, and because they
bring us so much refreshment and vigour." We had
enough of them now, however; so much so, that to
some people, our voyage to Cairo might have been
tiresome, but to us it was not so. We were glad to rest
after the long journey from England,—we had books in
plenty, — our boat dried in the first rays of sunshine,
and sometimes, when the wind forced us to lie thump-
ing on a bank, Ave could manage to find a sheltered
walk in the country, making acquaintance with castor
oil and gum-arabic trees, cotton plants, and the ever
graceful palm groves. Sometimes we examined the
shadoofs* and salciychs*, both on the banks of the
* The shadoof is the very simple machine used for lifting the -water
f the Nile up to the height of the bank: a man, almost naked and
9
above the villages, and tipping the graceful white
lateen sails of a score of khandjehs and little boats,
going down to Rosetta. We stayed on deck till it was
quite dark, enjoying the new scene, — our last, for a long
time, of such weather — one or two tremendous down-
pours in Alexandria had warned us of what our fate
might be, but from that evening, for eleven successive
days, we had constant storms of rain and wind, the rain
threatening to drown us, as it leaked through deck,
door, and window, and the wind making us pitch and
roll, until we were nearly sea-sick. Once, when look-
ing at the magnificently blue sky in Alexandria, so new
to English eyes, I made some remark to a gentleman
residing there on its beauty: " Ah," he said, " you
have not learned yet to loathe this cloudless sky! We
have not had one drop of rain here since the middle of
last February, and you cannot understand how one
wearies, mind and body, of the changeless expanse,
longing for the ever-varying clouds we think so beauti-
ful, because we so seldom see them, and because they
bring us so much refreshment and vigour." We had
enough of them now, however; so much so, that to
some people, our voyage to Cairo might have been
tiresome, but to us it was not so. We were glad to rest
after the long journey from England,—we had books in
plenty, — our boat dried in the first rays of sunshine,
and sometimes, when the wind forced us to lie thump-
ing on a bank, Ave could manage to find a sheltered
walk in the country, making acquaintance with castor
oil and gum-arabic trees, cotton plants, and the ever
graceful palm groves. Sometimes we examined the
shadoofs* and salciychs*, both on the banks of the
* The shadoof is the very simple machine used for lifting the -water
f the Nile up to the height of the bank: a man, almost naked and