DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11715#0083
CAIRO TO ASSOUAN.
■servant eye an ever-varying charm. The mornings are delightful, clear and cool and
bright, with no mist to blur the outlines or veil the sun. Toward mid-day, all color
seems to be discharged from the landscape, which is wrapped in a white, blinding glare.
Yet even now it is pleasant to lie under an awning on deck, and with a feeling of de-
licious indolence listen to the lapping of the water against the sides of the boat, and
watch the banks glide past us as in a dream. With the drawing on of evening a glory
of color comes out in the light of the setting sun. Purple shadows are cast by the
mountains. The reds and greys of sandstone, granite, and limestone cliffs blend exquis-
itely with the tawny yellow of the desert, the rich green of the banks and the blue of the
river, giving combinations and contrasts of color in which the artist revels. The cold
grey twilight follows immediately upon sunset ; but in a few minutes there is a marvel-
ous change. The earth and sky are suffused with a delicate pink tinge, known as the
after-glow. This is the most fairy-like and magical effect of color I have ever seen.
NILE CLIFFS.
Swiss travelers are familiar with something like it in the rosy flush of the snowy alps be-
fore sunrise and after sunset. The peculiarity in Egypt is that light and color return
after an interval of ashy grey, like the coming back of life to a corpse, and that it is not
confined to a part of the landscape, but floods the whole. I have seen no explanation
of this beautiful phenomenon, and can only conjecture that it is connected with the re-
flection and refraction of the light of the setting sun from the sands of the Libyan Desert.
Then comes on the night—and such a night! The stars shine with a lustrous brilliancy
so intense that I have seen a distinct shadow cast by the planet Jupiter, whilst his satel-
lites were easily visible through an ordinary opera-glass.1 Orion was an object of inde-
scribable splendor. Under which of her aspects the moon was most beautiful I cannot
say—whether the first slender thread of light, invisible in our denser atmosphere, or in
her arowinof bricditness, or in her full-orbed radiance. Addison's familiar lines gained a
new meaning when read under this hemisphere of glory :
1 On one occasion we believed that we could see the principal satellite with the naked eye. Is this possible ?
79
■servant eye an ever-varying charm. The mornings are delightful, clear and cool and
bright, with no mist to blur the outlines or veil the sun. Toward mid-day, all color
seems to be discharged from the landscape, which is wrapped in a white, blinding glare.
Yet even now it is pleasant to lie under an awning on deck, and with a feeling of de-
licious indolence listen to the lapping of the water against the sides of the boat, and
watch the banks glide past us as in a dream. With the drawing on of evening a glory
of color comes out in the light of the setting sun. Purple shadows are cast by the
mountains. The reds and greys of sandstone, granite, and limestone cliffs blend exquis-
itely with the tawny yellow of the desert, the rich green of the banks and the blue of the
river, giving combinations and contrasts of color in which the artist revels. The cold
grey twilight follows immediately upon sunset ; but in a few minutes there is a marvel-
ous change. The earth and sky are suffused with a delicate pink tinge, known as the
after-glow. This is the most fairy-like and magical effect of color I have ever seen.
NILE CLIFFS.
Swiss travelers are familiar with something like it in the rosy flush of the snowy alps be-
fore sunrise and after sunset. The peculiarity in Egypt is that light and color return
after an interval of ashy grey, like the coming back of life to a corpse, and that it is not
confined to a part of the landscape, but floods the whole. I have seen no explanation
of this beautiful phenomenon, and can only conjecture that it is connected with the re-
flection and refraction of the light of the setting sun from the sands of the Libyan Desert.
Then comes on the night—and such a night! The stars shine with a lustrous brilliancy
so intense that I have seen a distinct shadow cast by the planet Jupiter, whilst his satel-
lites were easily visible through an ordinary opera-glass.1 Orion was an object of inde-
scribable splendor. Under which of her aspects the moon was most beautiful I cannot
say—whether the first slender thread of light, invisible in our denser atmosphere, or in
her arowinof bricditness, or in her full-orbed radiance. Addison's familiar lines gained a
new meaning when read under this hemisphere of glory :
1 On one occasion we believed that we could see the principal satellite with the naked eye. Is this possible ?
79