MOULDED BY THE WEAR OF THE WAVES. 271 -alter like dissolving pictures on a screen-so here, while the shadows crept about these whimsical colossi, and the low sunshine played athwart the huge boulders, grotesque or fair, which stood for mimic heads, helmets, or limbs, we now and then struck out of them characteristics of singular majesty and calm— a dignity of composition and posture not surpassed even in great Memnon himself; or in those wondrous rock-giants of, Aboo Simbel. Formed and moulded they had been, into rough symmetry, by the fret and attrition of many a surging flood, even as men's characters are formed and moulded by the wear and sufferings of this transitory life; and here they stood fast-rooted for ever, and the waters of the great river seethed and curdled harmlessly at their feet. CHAPTER XXVII. ON CAMEL-BACK IN THE DESERT. "For still he traveild through wide wastefull ground WE spent a night in one of the inner sanctuaries of the temple of Isis, at Philæ, much to the bewilderment of a family of bats located there, in whose select society, and in that of sundry light-robed gods and goddesses, the silent and solemn genii of that dark chamber of imagery, we whiled away the hours. It came about in this wise. We fell in with some old friends at Syene, who had preceded us up the stream, and whose dahabeeyah we found moored in advance of our own. They had arrived at the limit of their travel, and were bent on descending. "Our boat," said these gentlemen, "is too big to mount the cataract, and we do not care to charter a kangia for the two hundred miles to Aboo Simbel; so we intend giving up Nubia. Philæ, though, must not be missed, and our dragoman tells us we can hire camels and make THE RIVER-BANK AT SYENE. 273 a circuit through the desert to arrive there. We mean to take our cook and plenty of supplies, you know. Will you join us?" We agreed. And so, early one fair morning, there came a troop of camels from under the palms, who settled down on the busy shadow-flecked shore of Syene, ready to take us off;- camels caparisoned with barbaric splendour, gorgeous in many-coloured trappings; holiday camels, vain-glorious, fussy, full of importance, gurgling and spluttering with great inward discontent-peevishly, and with a funny show of old maidenish superciliousness, jostling past the donkeys and glossy-skinned Nubians hanging about the boats. They finally tucked their legs under them, and subsided in the dust, fretful, however, and vaporous still. The Syene bank was cumbered with a medley of merchandise, brought by caravans from Senaar, in charge of wild, fiery-eyed, beetle-browed Arabs, and shot down to be shipped on the stream. Elephants' tusks, sticking savagely out of rough buffalo-hide packages, like colossal bulbous roots half sprouted ; bales of odoriferous gums, bound up with twisted palm fibre; ostrich feathers, ebony, senna-littered at random among the sundry hulks and ghastly lank-ribbed skeletons of defunct kangias, bleaching high and dry up the slope-crowned the coast, and, in fact, constituted a kind of Tom Tiddler's ground. Little sunny striplings, swarthy boys and girls, in all the joyous freedom of nature's undress, were there romping and picking up the gold and silver of happy childhood. Such was the scene we surveyed while breakfasting upon our upper deck. Flocks of the vulture tribe, planing above us in the balmy morning air, eyed hungrily each mouthful we ate, and poised themselves ready to pounce down on any crumb cast into the stream. Beneath, on tiptoe, on the river's brink, there stood a group of Nubian maidens, reaching up eager arms and shouting, "Buy, buy! O Howagee, buy!" Dusky nymphs of the border land these, graceful as Echo, who had baskets of woven palm-leaf for sale, ebony clubs, arrows curiously tipped and barbed with iron, war spears, daggers, shields of hippopotamus hide, silver rings, all of rough native industry. Their big black eyes and white teeth glistened as, bending over the bulwarks, we took up one and another of their chattels to examine. Among other curiosities we bought specimens of that characteristic article of female attire, the rahah-a costume far too light and airy for our northern climes, but pretty enough and becoming to these swarthy lissom-limbed children of the south. Young girls wear the rahah until they are fourteen SIMPLE COSTUME OF THE NATIVE GIRLS. 275 or fifteen. It is a cincture or fringe of leather-a short petticoat of a thousand thin strands. The most dandified of the lasses load it with glass beads and cowrie shells, that tinkle and chatter as they walk along. This is their sole dress, save, indeed, an unguent of castor-oil, which they say keeps the skin soft and supple. Bah! it is an abomination, that castor-oil. The villages reek with the odour of it. The natives, otherwise comely in face and limb, often excite disgust simply in virtue of that anointing; for, dripping from the hair, where every one of the tiny plaits which surround the head is saturated, you may see it meandering over the skin, and becoming a harbour for dust or any foulness that may be afloat. Happily, insects will not live in Nubia. The climate is too dry. Your first ride on camel-back is a memorable event. Racked and broken, your bones feel out of joint for days afterwards. It is a lesson of humility. Bow and bend to each swinging step of the camel, and you succeed pretty fairly; but if obstinately you persist in sitting bolt upright, as most beginners do, woe betide you! The novelty of the situation and wayside scenes passing in rapid succession will deaden the fatigue at first; but soon the smart, as from a fiery finger, creeping up and down the spine will make you shrink and shift into every |