Edwards, Amelia B.: A thousand miles up the Nile (New York, [1888])

PHLLuV TO KOROSKO. 215

got in a land where every green blade is precious to the
grower.

Now, too, tlie climate becomes sensibly warmer. The
heat of the sun is so great at midday that, even with the
north breeze blowing, we can no longer sit on deck between
twelve and three. Toward sundown, when the wind
drops, it turns so sultry that to take a walk on shore
comes to be regarded as a duty rather than as a pleasure.
Thanks, however, to that indomitable painter who is
always ready for an afternoon excursion, we do sometimes
walk for an hour before dinner; striking off generally into
the desert; looking for onyxes and carnelians among the
pebbles that here and there strew the surface of the sand,
and watching in vain for jackals and desert-hares.

Sometimes we follow the banks instead of the desert,
coming now and then to a creaking sakkieh turned by a
melancholy buffalo ; or to a native village hidden behind
dwarf-palms. Here each hut has its tiny forecourt, in the
midst of which stand the mud oven and mud cupboard of
the family—two dumpy cones of smooth gray clay, like
big chimney-pots—the one capped with a lid, the other
fitted with a little wooden door and wooden bolt. Some of
the houses have a barbaric ornament palmed off, so to say,
upon the walls; the pattern being simply the impression of
a human hand dipped in red or yellow ocher and applied
while the surface, is moist.

The amount of " bazaar" that takes place whenever we
enter one of these villages is quite alarming. The dogs
first give notice of our approach; and presently we
are surrounded by all the women and girls of the place,
offering live pigeons, eggs, vegetable marrows, necklaces,
nose-rings and silver bracelets for sale. The boys pester us
to buy wretched, half-dead chameleons.- The men stand
aloof, and leave the bargaining to the women.

And the women not only know how to bargain, but how
to assess the relative value of every coin that passes current
on the Nile. Rupees, roubles, reyals, dollars and shillings
ai'e as intelligible to them as paras or piasters. Sovereigns
are not too heavy nor napoleons too light for them. The
tunes arc changed since Belzoni's Nubian, after staring
contemptuously at the first piece of money he had ever
s°on, asked: "Who would give anything for that small
piece of metal?"