enjoy the trip; nothing to do but shove the donkeys off our corns and

look at the charming scenery of the Nile.

On the island at our right was the machine they call the Nilometer, a

stone-column whose business it is to mark the rise of the river and

prophecy whether it will reach only thirty-two feet and produce a famine,

or whether it will properly flood the land at forty and produce plenty,

or whether it will rise to forty-three and bring death and destruction to

flocks and crops--but how it does all this they could not explain to us

so that we could understand. On the same island is still shown the spot

where Pharaoh's daughter found Moses in the bulrushes. Near the spot we

sailed from, the Holy Family dwelt when they sojourned in Egypt till

Herod should complete his slaughter of the innocents. The same tree they

rested under when they first arrived, was there a short time ago, but the

Viceroy of Egypt sent it to the Empress Eugenie lately. He was just in

time, otherwise our pilgrims would have had it.

The Nile at this point is muddy, swift and turbid, and does not lack a

great deal of being as wide as the Mississippi.

We scrambled up the steep bank at the shabby town of Ghizeh, mounted the

donkeys again, and scampered away. For four or five miles the route lay

along a high embankment which they say is to be the bed of a railway the

Sultan means to build for no other reason than that when the Empress of

the French comes to visit him she can go to the Pyramids in comfort.

This is true Oriental hospitality. I am very glad it is our privilege to

708

The Innocents Abroad