DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0137
128
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
racts of the Nile the two gentlemen I had first met
at Thebes.
We spent the evening together, and I abandoned
my original intention of taking my own boat up
the Cataracts, and agreed to go up with them.
In the morning, after an early breakfast, we
started for the Island of Philos, about eight miles
from Assouan, and above all the Cataracts ; an
island singularly beautiful in situation, and con-
taining the ruins of a magnificent temple. The
road lay nearly all the way along the river, com-
manding a full view of the Cataracts, or rather, if a
citizen of a new world may lay his innovating
hand upon things consecrated by the universal
consent of ages, what we who have heard the roar
of Niagara would call simply the "rapids." We
set off on shaggy donkeys, without saddle, bridle,
or halter. A short distance from Assouan, un-
marked by any monument, amid arid sands, we
crossed the line which, since the days of Pharaoh,
has existed as the boundary between Egypt and
Ethiopia. We passed through several villages,
standing alone at the foot of the granite moun-
tains, without green or verdure around them, even
to the extent of a blade of grass, and irresistibly
suggesting the question, " How do the miserable
inhabitants live ?" It was not the first time I had
occasion to remark the effect of blood on physical
character, and the strong and marked difference
of races among people living under the same sun,
and almost on a common soil. In the first village
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
racts of the Nile the two gentlemen I had first met
at Thebes.
We spent the evening together, and I abandoned
my original intention of taking my own boat up
the Cataracts, and agreed to go up with them.
In the morning, after an early breakfast, we
started for the Island of Philos, about eight miles
from Assouan, and above all the Cataracts ; an
island singularly beautiful in situation, and con-
taining the ruins of a magnificent temple. The
road lay nearly all the way along the river, com-
manding a full view of the Cataracts, or rather, if a
citizen of a new world may lay his innovating
hand upon things consecrated by the universal
consent of ages, what we who have heard the roar
of Niagara would call simply the "rapids." We
set off on shaggy donkeys, without saddle, bridle,
or halter. A short distance from Assouan, un-
marked by any monument, amid arid sands, we
crossed the line which, since the days of Pharaoh,
has existed as the boundary between Egypt and
Ethiopia. We passed through several villages,
standing alone at the foot of the granite moun-
tains, without green or verdure around them, even
to the extent of a blade of grass, and irresistibly
suggesting the question, " How do the miserable
inhabitants live ?" It was not the first time I had
occasion to remark the effect of blood on physical
character, and the strong and marked difference
of races among people living under the same sun,
and almost on a common soil. In the first village