APPROACH TO UPPER EGYPT. 79 or three loaves of bread on the water, believing that it will be taken up by two large white birds and deposited on the tomb of the Skekk. The wind favored us in passing Aboufayda ; the Cleopatra dashed the foam from the rough waves, and in two or three hours the southern corner of the mountain lay behind us, leaning away from the Nile like the shattered pylon of a temple.

Before sunset we passed the city • of Manfalout, whose houses year by year topple into the mining flood. The side next the river shows only halves of buildings, the rest of which have been washed away. In a few years the tall and airy minarets will follow, and unless the inhabitants continue to shift their dwellings to the inland side, the city will entirely disappear. From this point, the plain of Siout, the garden of Upper Egypt, opened wide and far before us. The spur of the Libyan hills, at the foot of which the city is built, shot out in advance, not more than ten or twelve miles distant, but the Nile, loth to leave these beautiful fields and groves, winds hither and thither in such a devious, lingering track, that you must sail twenty-five miles to reach El Hamra, the port of Siout. The landscape, broader and more majestic than those of Lower Egypt, is even richer and more blooming. The Desert is kept within its proper bounds ; it is no longer visible from the river, and the hills, whose long, level lines frame the view on either side, enhance by their terrible sterility the luxury of vegetation which covers the plain. It is a boun* teous land, visited only by healthy airs, and free from the pestilence which sometimes scourges Cairo. The wind fell at midnight, but came to us again the next morning at sunrise, and brought us to El Hamra before noon.