1 70 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

which appears so hot and cumbrous, is in reality cool, and im* pervious to the fiercest sun that ever blazed.

After dinner, I seated myself at the tent door, wrapped in my capote, and gave myself up to the pipe of meditation. It was a splendid starlit evening. Not a blade of the palmleaves was stirring, and the only sounds I heard were the melancholy drone of sakias along the river, and the cry of the jackal among the hills. The Nile had already become my home, endeared to me not more by the grand associations of its eldest human history than by the rest and the patience which I had breathed in its calm atmosphere. Now I was to leave it for the untried Desert, and the strange regions beyond, where I should find its aspect changed. Would it still give me the same health of body, the same peace and contentment of soul ? " Achmet," said I to the Theban, who was sitting not far off, silently smoking, "we are going into strange countries— have you no fear ?" " You remember, master," he answered, " that we left Cairo on a lucky day, and why should I fear, since all things are in the hands of Allah ?"