15>J JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

than the abundant streams of the mirage, on all sides. I drank my last cup of water for breakfast, and then continued my march in the burning sun, with rather dismal spirits. Finally, the Desert, which had been rising since we left the mountain, began to descend, and I saw something like round granite boulders lying on the edge of the horizon. " Effendi, see the doum trees ! " cried Eyoub. I looked again : they were doum-palms, and so broad and green that they must certainly stand near water. Soon we descended into a hollow in the plain, looking down which I saw to the south a thick grove of trees, and over their tops the shining surface of the Nile. " Ali," I called to my sailor-servant, " look at that great balir shaytan ! " The son of the Nile, who had never before, in all his life, been more than a day out of sight of its current, was almost beside himself with joy. " "Wallah, master," he cried, " that is no river of the Devil : it is the real Nile — the water of Paradise." It did my heart good to se.e his extravagant delight. "If you were to give me five piastres, master," said he, " I would not drink the bitter water of Murr-hat." The guide made me a salutation, in his dry way, and the two Nubians greeted me with " a great welcome to you, 0, Effendi ! " With every step the valley unfolded before me — such rich deeps of fanlike foliage, such a glory in the green of the beans and lupins, such radiance beyond description in the dance of the sunbeams on the water ! The landscape was balm to my burning eyes, and the mere sight of the glorious green herbage was a sensuous delight, in which I rioted for the rest of the day.