DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0139
130
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
which a citizen of the New World turns to the
storied wonders of the Old, and has roamed over
the mountains and drunk of the rivers of Greece,
will have found himself so often cheated by the
exaggerated accounts of the ancients, the vivid
descriptions of poets, and his own imagination,
that he will hardly feel disappointed when he stands
by this apology for a cataract.
Here the Nubian boys had a great feat to show,
viz., jump into the cataract and float down to the
point of the island. The inhabitants of the coun-
tries bordering on the Nile are great swimmers,
and the Nubians are perhaps the best of all; but
this was no great feat. The great and ever-to-be-
lamented Sam Patch would have made the Nubi-
ans stare, and shown them, in his own pithy
phrase, " that some folks could do things as well as
other folks;" and I question if there is a cataract
on the Nile, at which that daring diver would not
have turned up his nose in scorn. We returned
by the same way we had come, and under the
same guidance, augmented, however, by a motley
collection of men and boys, who had joined us as
our escort. In paying for the boat we showed a
preference for our little boy, which brought down
upon him all the rest, and he had to run to us for
protection. We saved him for the present, but left
him exposed to one of the evils attendant upon the
acquisition of money, all the world over, the diffi-
culty of keeping it, which difficulty in his case was
so great physically, that I have no doubt he was
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
which a citizen of the New World turns to the
storied wonders of the Old, and has roamed over
the mountains and drunk of the rivers of Greece,
will have found himself so often cheated by the
exaggerated accounts of the ancients, the vivid
descriptions of poets, and his own imagination,
that he will hardly feel disappointed when he stands
by this apology for a cataract.
Here the Nubian boys had a great feat to show,
viz., jump into the cataract and float down to the
point of the island. The inhabitants of the coun-
tries bordering on the Nile are great swimmers,
and the Nubians are perhaps the best of all; but
this was no great feat. The great and ever-to-be-
lamented Sam Patch would have made the Nubi-
ans stare, and shown them, in his own pithy
phrase, " that some folks could do things as well as
other folks;" and I question if there is a cataract
on the Nile, at which that daring diver would not
have turned up his nose in scorn. We returned
by the same way we had come, and under the
same guidance, augmented, however, by a motley
collection of men and boys, who had joined us as
our escort. In paying for the boat we showed a
preference for our little boy, which brought down
upon him all the rest, and he had to run to us for
protection. We saved him for the present, but left
him exposed to one of the evils attendant upon the
acquisition of money, all the world over, the diffi-
culty of keeping it, which difficulty in his case was
so great physically, that I have no doubt he was