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ARTS AND ANTIQUITIES.

The Arab boatmen are provoldngly ingenious in
lengthening out the voyage, as its duration deter-
mines their payment. It is however sometimes dan-
gerous to refuse to listen to their advice. "Whilst I
was in Egypt, Mohammed AH being one day on the
river during a gale obstinately persisted in proceed-
ing. In vain the rheis urged the danger incurred by
carrying sail in such weather. The viceroy replied
perhaps somewhat as Csesar to his pilot, " Csesarem
portas et fortunam ejus." He was inflexible;—the
boat was capsized, and the old man obliged to swim
for his life.

At Hadgar Silsili the Nile runs pent between the
abrupt cliffs of the Arabian and Libyan chains,
through which at some remote period it seems to
have forced a passage. The proximity of the sand-
stone rocks to the river offered facilities for ready
shipment which the Egyptians fully availed them-
selves of: it is here we find the vast quarries which
furnished blocks for most of the great works of the
Thebaid. Extending two or three miles along the
river, they would attest the architectural magnificence

river begins to rise at the end of June and has reached its maximum
by the end of September, remains stationary a fortnight, and by
about the 10th of November has fallen one half, after which it
continues gradually to subside. This mighty hydraulic machinery
of nature, offers one of the most illustrious instances of the wisdom
and beneficence that preside over the world. It is dependant
upon causes operating at the distance of a thousand miles, yet to
the exactness of its annual working a whole nation for 4000 years
have owed their daily bread.
 
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