DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0301
THE SECOND CATARACT. 283
CHAPTEK XVII.
THE SECOND CATARACT.
A fresh breeze, a full sail, and the consciousness of a
holiday well earned, carried us gayly along from Abou
Simbel to Wady Halfeh. We started late in the afternoon
of the first day, made about twelve miles before the wind
dropped, and achieved the remaining twenty-eight miles
before noon the next day. It was our last trip on the Nile
under canvas. At Wady Halfeh the Phike was doomed to
be dismantled. The big sail that had so long been our
pride and delight would there be taken down, and our
good boat, her grace and swiftness gone at one fell swoop,
would become a mere lumbering barge, more suggestive of
civic outings on the Thames than of Cleopatra's galley.
For some way beyond Abou Simbel, the western bank is
fringed by a long line of volcanic mountains, as much
alike in height, size, and shape, as a row of martello
towers. They are divided from one another by a series of
Perfectly uniform sand-drifts; while on the rounded top of
each mountain, thick as the currants on the top of a cer-
tain cake, known to schoolboys by the endearing name of
' black-caps," lies a layer of the oddest black stones in the
World. Having more than once been to the top of the
rock of Abshek (which is the first large mountain of the
chain, and strewn in the same way) we recognized the
stones, and knew what they were like. In color they are
purplish black, tinged here and there with dull rod. They
£Ing like clinkstone when struck, and in shape are most
fantastic. L------picked up some like petrified bunches of
grapes. Others are twisted and writhen like the Vesuvian
lava of 1871. They lie loose upon the surface, and are of
a'l sizes; some being as small as currants, and others as
large as quartern loaves. Speaking as one having no kind
°f authority, I should say that these stones are unquestion-
ably of fiery parentage. One seems to see how, boiling
CHAPTEK XVII.
THE SECOND CATARACT.
A fresh breeze, a full sail, and the consciousness of a
holiday well earned, carried us gayly along from Abou
Simbel to Wady Halfeh. We started late in the afternoon
of the first day, made about twelve miles before the wind
dropped, and achieved the remaining twenty-eight miles
before noon the next day. It was our last trip on the Nile
under canvas. At Wady Halfeh the Phike was doomed to
be dismantled. The big sail that had so long been our
pride and delight would there be taken down, and our
good boat, her grace and swiftness gone at one fell swoop,
would become a mere lumbering barge, more suggestive of
civic outings on the Thames than of Cleopatra's galley.
For some way beyond Abou Simbel, the western bank is
fringed by a long line of volcanic mountains, as much
alike in height, size, and shape, as a row of martello
towers. They are divided from one another by a series of
Perfectly uniform sand-drifts; while on the rounded top of
each mountain, thick as the currants on the top of a cer-
tain cake, known to schoolboys by the endearing name of
' black-caps," lies a layer of the oddest black stones in the
World. Having more than once been to the top of the
rock of Abshek (which is the first large mountain of the
chain, and strewn in the same way) we recognized the
stones, and knew what they were like. In color they are
purplish black, tinged here and there with dull rod. They
£Ing like clinkstone when struck, and in shape are most
fantastic. L------picked up some like petrified bunches of
grapes. Others are twisted and writhen like the Vesuvian
lava of 1871. They lie loose upon the surface, and are of
a'l sizes; some being as small as currants, and others as
large as quartern loaves. Speaking as one having no kind
°f authority, I should say that these stones are unquestion-
ably of fiery parentage. One seems to see how, boiling