RAIN IN ASWAN brought there for the special purpose of weighing passengers' luggage ; it was another sign of the times, but also a contrivance of the Frangi, or European, which the natives would have been quite willing to do without.

The desert on one side of the line was covered with a thin layer of mud, which was cracking and warping in all directions, and the courteous railway superintendent, who happened to be a passenger on the train, told me that it had been caused by the recent floods of rain, which, he asserted, were more frequent than formerly.

In the previous winter large quantities of rain had fallen, and it was declared that during the extremely cold nights which followed, thin layers of ice had been seen among the rocks. It is a mistake to suppose that rain never fell in Upper Egypt, but it is certain that the rainfall has much increased in recent years.

According to some, this is the result of the cutting of the Suez Canal ; and according to others, the efforts of the Irrigation Department are responsible for the change. It may be as well to mention here the rain-storm which broke over Aswan in January, 1887, when as yet the Irrigation Department had hardly begun its labours. The rain began to fall gently before noon one Tuesday, but about three o'clock in the afternoon the gentle rain turned into a fierce downpour, which was accompanied by frequent and vivid flashes of lightning and long peals of thunder. The Rest Camp wherein I lived was soon inches deep in liquid mud, and the lightning played among the palms, and seemed to glide over the surface of the water. The mud roofs of the houses in the town sucked in the water like sponges, and in a very short time dissolved and dropped into the rooms below them in the form of little streams of liquid mud. On the rising ground outride the town the water washed down the sand and pebbles which covered the graves of the Muhammadan population, and many corpses were left exposed ; the next morning, when the rain ceased, a gruesome sight met the eye of the spectator, for the jackals had been busy during the night.

On arriving at Shellal, almost before the train stopped, it was boarded by crowds of labourers, who began to unload the trucks, and to throw bags of rice and grain, planks, sleepers, &c., upon the ground, where busy hands grasped them and carried them to 71