DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0117
SIUT TO DENDERAH. 99
CHAPTER VII.
SIUT TO DENDERAH.
We started from Siut 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 away in two huge lockers on the upper deck.
The sparrows and water-wagtails had a good time while the
drying went on; but no one seemed to grudge the toll they
levied.
We often had a " big wind " now; though it seldom
began to blow before ten or eleven a.m., and generally fell
at sunset. Now and then, when it chanced to keej) up,
and the river was known to be free from shallows, we went
on sailing through the night; but this seldom happened,
and, when it did happen, it made sleep impossible—so that
nothing but the certainty of doing a great many miles
between bedtime and breakfast could induce us to put up
with it.
We had now been long enough afloat to find out that we
had almost always one man on the sick list, and were
therefore habitually short of a hand for the navigation of
the boat. There never were such fellows for knocking
themselves to pieces as our sailors. They were always
bruising their feet, wounding their hands, getting sun-
strokes, and whitlows, and sprains, and disabling them-
selves in some way. L------, with her little medicine chest
and her roll of lint and bandages, soon had a small but
steady practice, and might have been seen about the lower
deck most mornings after breakfast, repairing these
damaged Alis and Hassans. It was well for them that we
carried "an experienced surgeon," for they were entirely
helpless and despondent when hurt, and ignorant of the
commonest remedies. Nor is this helplessness confined to
natives of the sailor and fellah class. The provincial 2~>ro-
prietors and oflicials are to the full as ignorant, not only of
CHAPTER VII.
SIUT TO DENDERAH.
We started from Siut 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 away in two huge lockers on the upper deck.
The sparrows and water-wagtails had a good time while the
drying went on; but no one seemed to grudge the toll they
levied.
We often had a " big wind " now; though it seldom
began to blow before ten or eleven a.m., and generally fell
at sunset. Now and then, when it chanced to keej) up,
and the river was known to be free from shallows, we went
on sailing through the night; but this seldom happened,
and, when it did happen, it made sleep impossible—so that
nothing but the certainty of doing a great many miles
between bedtime and breakfast could induce us to put up
with it.
We had now been long enough afloat to find out that we
had almost always one man on the sick list, and were
therefore habitually short of a hand for the navigation of
the boat. There never were such fellows for knocking
themselves to pieces as our sailors. They were always
bruising their feet, wounding their hands, getting sun-
strokes, and whitlows, and sprains, and disabling them-
selves in some way. L------, with her little medicine chest
and her roll of lint and bandages, soon had a small but
steady practice, and might have been seen about the lower
deck most mornings after breakfast, repairing these
damaged Alis and Hassans. It was well for them that we
carried "an experienced surgeon," for they were entirely
helpless and despondent when hurt, and ignorant of the
commonest remedies. Nor is this helplessness confined to
natives of the sailor and fellah class. The provincial 2~>ro-
prietors and oflicials are to the full as ignorant, not only of