DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0108
i
AN ELABORATE JOKE. 101
brought me into mental contact with friends at
home, and gave me the credit of having myself
shot a crocodile, any one of which was worth all
the trouble it cost me. If the reader will excuse a
bad pun, in consideration of its being my first and
last, it was not a dry joke ; for in getting the croco-
dile on board I tumbled over, and, very uninten-
tionally on my part, had a January bath in the
Nile. '
During nearly the whole of that day I was walk-
ing on the bank of the river ; there was more tilla-
ble land than usual on the Arabian side, and I con-
tinually saw the Arabs, naked or with a wreath of
grass around their loins, drawing water to irrigate
the ground, in a basket fastened to a pole, like one
of our oldfashioned well-poles.
On the seventeenth we approached Dendera. I
usually dined at one o'clock, because it was then
too hot to go on shore, and also, to tell the truth,
because it served to break the very long and tedi-
ous day. I was now about four hours from Den-
dera by land, of which two and a half were desert,
the Libyan sands here coming down to the river.
It was a fine afternoon, there was no wind, and I
hoped by walking to have a view of the great tem-
ple before night. It was warm enough then ; but
as it regularly became very cold towards evening,
I told my Nubian to follow me with my cloak. To
my surprise he objected. It was the first time he
had done so ! He was always glad to go ashore
with me, as indeed were they all, and it was con-
i2
AN ELABORATE JOKE. 101
brought me into mental contact with friends at
home, and gave me the credit of having myself
shot a crocodile, any one of which was worth all
the trouble it cost me. If the reader will excuse a
bad pun, in consideration of its being my first and
last, it was not a dry joke ; for in getting the croco-
dile on board I tumbled over, and, very uninten-
tionally on my part, had a January bath in the
Nile. '
During nearly the whole of that day I was walk-
ing on the bank of the river ; there was more tilla-
ble land than usual on the Arabian side, and I con-
tinually saw the Arabs, naked or with a wreath of
grass around their loins, drawing water to irrigate
the ground, in a basket fastened to a pole, like one
of our oldfashioned well-poles.
On the seventeenth we approached Dendera. I
usually dined at one o'clock, because it was then
too hot to go on shore, and also, to tell the truth,
because it served to break the very long and tedi-
ous day. I was now about four hours from Den-
dera by land, of which two and a half were desert,
the Libyan sands here coming down to the river.
It was a fine afternoon, there was no wind, and I
hoped by walking to have a view of the great tem-
ple before night. It was warm enough then ; but
as it regularly became very cold towards evening,
I told my Nubian to follow me with my cloak. To
my surprise he objected. It was the first time he
had done so ! He was always glad to go ashore
with me, as indeed were they all, and it was con-
i2