DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0305
T1IE SECOND CATARACT. 287
and not one believed him. They had seen too many of
these snags already and were not going to let themselves
again be excited about nothing.
The pilot pointed to the cabin where L------and the little
lady were indulging in that minor vice called afternoon
tea.
"Sitteh I" said he, "call sitteh! Crocodilo I"
We examined the object through our glasses. We
laughed the pilot to scorn. It was the worst imitation of
a crocodile that we had yet seen.
All at once the palm-trunk lifted up its head, cocked its
tail, found its legs, set off running, wriggling, undulating
down the slope with incredible rapidity and was gone
before we could utter an exclamation.
We three had a bad time when the other two came up
and found that we had seen our first crocodile without
them.
A sand-bank which we passed next morning was scored
all over with fresh trails and looked as if it had been the
scene of a crocodile-parliament. There must have been at
least twenty or thirty members present at the sitting; and
the freshness of the marks showed that they had only just
dispersed.
A keen and cutting wind carried us along the last
thirty miles of our journey. AVe had supposed that the
farther south we penetrated the hotter we should find the
climate; yet now, strange to say, we were shivering in seal-
skins, under the most brilliant sky in the world and in a
latitude more southerly than that of Mecca or Calcutta.
It was some compensation, however, to run at full speed
past the dullest of Nile scenery, seeing only sand-banks in
the river; sand-hills and sand"flats on either hand; a dis-
used sluiduf or a skeleton-boat rotting at the water's edge;
a wind-tormented Dom palm struggling for existence on
the brink of the bank.
At a fatal corner about six miles below Wady TIalfeh, we
passed a melancholy flotilla of dismantled dahabeevahs—
the Eostat, the Zenobia, the Alice, the Mansoorah—all
alike weather-bound and laid tip helplessly against the
wind. The Mansoorah, with Captain and Mrs. E------on
board, had been three days doing these six miles; at which
]ate of progress they might reasonably hope to reach Cairo
m about a year and a month.
and not one believed him. They had seen too many of
these snags already and were not going to let themselves
again be excited about nothing.
The pilot pointed to the cabin where L------and the little
lady were indulging in that minor vice called afternoon
tea.
"Sitteh I" said he, "call sitteh! Crocodilo I"
We examined the object through our glasses. We
laughed the pilot to scorn. It was the worst imitation of
a crocodile that we had yet seen.
All at once the palm-trunk lifted up its head, cocked its
tail, found its legs, set off running, wriggling, undulating
down the slope with incredible rapidity and was gone
before we could utter an exclamation.
We three had a bad time when the other two came up
and found that we had seen our first crocodile without
them.
A sand-bank which we passed next morning was scored
all over with fresh trails and looked as if it had been the
scene of a crocodile-parliament. There must have been at
least twenty or thirty members present at the sitting; and
the freshness of the marks showed that they had only just
dispersed.
A keen and cutting wind carried us along the last
thirty miles of our journey. AVe had supposed that the
farther south we penetrated the hotter we should find the
climate; yet now, strange to say, we were shivering in seal-
skins, under the most brilliant sky in the world and in a
latitude more southerly than that of Mecca or Calcutta.
It was some compensation, however, to run at full speed
past the dullest of Nile scenery, seeing only sand-banks in
the river; sand-hills and sand"flats on either hand; a dis-
used sluiduf or a skeleton-boat rotting at the water's edge;
a wind-tormented Dom palm struggling for existence on
the brink of the bank.
At a fatal corner about six miles below Wady TIalfeh, we
passed a melancholy flotilla of dismantled dahabeevahs—
the Eostat, the Zenobia, the Alice, the Mansoorah—all
alike weather-bound and laid tip helplessly against the
wind. The Mansoorah, with Captain and Mrs. E------on
board, had been three days doing these six miles; at which
]ate of progress they might reasonably hope to reach Cairo
m about a year and a month.