' BEDOUIN DIVERSIONS. 143 proposed a race. We left my friend and the water-carriers, bounded across tlie avenue of sphinxes, and took a smooth path leading toward the Desert. My mare needed but a word and a jog of the iron stirrup. Away we flew, our animals stretching themselves for a long heat, crashing the dry dourra-stalks, clearing the water-ditches, and scattering on all sides the Arab laborers we met. After a glorious gallop of two or three miles my antagonist was fairly distanced ; but one race would not content him, so we had a second, and finally a third, on the beach of Luxor. The horses belonged to him, and it was a matter of indifference which was the swiftest ; he raced merely for the delight of it, and so did I.

The same gallant mare was ready for me at night. It was precisely full moon, and I had determined on visiting Karnak again before leaving. There was no one but the guide and I, he armed with his long spear, and I with my pistols in my belt. There was a wan haze in the air, and a pale halo around the moon, on each side of which appeared two faint mockmoons. It was a ghostly light, and the fresh north-wind, coming up the Nile, rustled solemnly in the palm-trees. We trotted silently to Karnak, and leaped our horses over the fragments until we reached the foot of the first obelisk. Here we dismounted and entered the grand hall of pillars. There was no sound in all the temple, and the guide, who seemed to comprehend my wish, moved behind me as softly as a shadow, and spoke not a word. It needs this illumination to comprehend Karnak. The unsightly rubbish has disappeared : the rents in the roof are atoned for by the moonlight they admit ; the fragments shivered from the lips of the mighty capitals are only the crumpled edges of the flower ; a maze of shadows hides the