496 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

followed, never ceased blowing till they extinguished even the central fires. I was like an incipient comet, snuffed out of existence and made satellite to some frozen planet. My frame was racked with pains, which turned into misery the refreshing indolence of the Nile. I had no medicines, but put my philosophy into practice : the climate of Nubia, I said, has given me this infliction, therefore the country must supply the remedy. So I sent the rais ashore in search of it. He came back with a cup of oil which a shining daughter of the land was about bestowing upon her crispy tresses, and I drank it with a heroic faith in the efficacy of my theory. I was not disappointed, and on the third day sat once more in the sun, in the bow of my boat, trying to regain the effluence I had lost.

The scenery of the Nile below Abou-Simbel is very beautiful. The mountains recede again from the bank, and show themselves occasionally in picturesque peaks. The shores are low and rich and the groves of date-trees most luxuriant. The weather was delightfully calm and warm, and the Nile, though swift, ran smooth and shining as the oil of his own castor bean-fields. During the sweet, quiet hour before and after sunset, we floated down through the lovely region about Bostan and Teshka. Three tall peaks of dark-brown rock rose inland, beyond the groves of the beautiful Ibreemee palm, whose leaves, longer and more slender than those of the Egyptian date-tree, are gracefully parted at the sides — half of them shooting upward in a plumy tuft, while the other half droop around the tall shaft of the tree. The boys worked during the second night with unabated force. I awoke as the moon was rising through black clouds, and found the lofty crags of