Greece fulfilled Egypt. To the austere grandeur of simple natural forms, Greek art succeeded as the flower to foliage. The essential strength is retained, but an aerial grace and elegance, an exquisite elaboration followed; as Eve followed Adam. For Grecian temples have a fine feminineness of character when measured with the Egyptian. That hushed harmony of grace-even the snow-sparkling marble, and the general impression, have this difference.

Such hints are simple and obvious-and there is no fairer or more frequent flower upon these charmed shores, than the revelations they make of the simple naturalness of primitive art.

VIII.

Cracking.

OUR angels of annunciation, this Christmas eve, were the crews of the boats at Benisoeth, the first important town upon the river. They blew pipes, not unlike those of the Pifferari in Rome, who come from the Abruzzi at the annunciation, and play before the Madonna shrines until her son is born. The evening was not too cool for us to smoke our chibouques on the upper deck. There in the gray moonlight too, Aboo Seyd was turned to Mecca, and genuflexing and ground-kissing to a degree that proved his hopeless sinfulness.

Courteous reader, that Christmas eve, for the first time the Howadji went to bed in Levinge's bag. It is a net, warranted to keep mosquitoes out, and the occupant in, and much recommended by those who have been persuaded to buy, and those who have them to sell. I struggled into mine, and was comfortable. But the Pacha of two shirt tails was in a trying situation. For this perplexing problem presented itself—the candle being extinguished to get in, or being in, to blow out the candle. "Peace on earth' there may be," said the Pacha, holding with one hand the

candlestick, and with the other the chimney of the bag, "but there is none upon the water," and he stood irresolute, until, placing the candlestick upon the floor, and struggling into the bag, as into an unwilling shirt, the hand was protruded—seized the candlestick, and Genius had cut the Gordian knot of Doubt.

A calm Christmas dawned. It was a day to dream of the rose-radiance that trembles over the Mountains of the Moon: a day to read Werne's White Nile Journal, with its hourly record of tropical life among the simple races of the Equator, and enchanting stories of acres of lotus bloom in Ethiopia. It was not difficult to fancy that we were following him, as we slid away from the shore and saw the half-naked people, the mud huts, and every sign of a race forever young.

We sprang ashore for a ramble, and the Pacha took his gun for a little bird-murder. Climbing the bank from the water we emerged upon the level plain covered with an endless mesh of flowering lupin. The palm-grove beckoned friendlily with its pleasant branches, through which the breath of the warm morning was whispering sweet secrets. I heard them. Fine Ear had not delicater senses than the Howadji may have in Egypt. I knew that the calm Christmas morning was toying with the subtlewinged Summer, under those palms-the Summer that had fled before me from Switzerland over the Italian vintage. Over my head was the dreamy murmurousness of summer insects swarming in the warm air. The grain was green, and the weeds were flowering at my feet. The

repose of August weather brooded in the radiant sky. Whoso would follow the Summer will find her lingering and loitering under the palm-groves of the Nile, when she is only a remembrance and a hope upon the vineyards of the Rhine, and the gardens of the Hudson.

Aboo Seyd followed us, and we suddenly encountered a brace of unknown Howadji. They proved to be Frenchmen, and had each a gun. Why is a Frenchman so unsphered, out of Paris? They inquired for their boat with a tricolor, which we had not seen, and told us that there were wild boars in the palm-groves. Then they stalked away among the coarse, high, hilfeh grass, with both gunbarrels cocked. Presently the charge of one of them came rustling around our legs, through the grass. We hailed, and informed the hunters that we were pervious to shot. They protested and demanded many thousand pardons, then discovered their boat and embarked to breakfast, to recount over their Bordeaux the morning hunt of sangliers and Anglais, for one of which, they probably mistook us.

We returned too, and eat pomegranates, but went ashore again, for this was a tracking day-a day when there is no wind, but the boat is drawn a few miles by the crew. There was a village near us under the palms, and the village smoke, aerialized into delicate blue haze, made with the sunset a glowing atmosphere of gold and blue, in which a distant palm-grove stood like a dream of Faery. Querulous dogs were barking in the vicinity of the mud city, for it deserved that name, a chaos of mud huts and

inclosures, built apparently at random, and full of an incredible squalor, too animal to be sad. The agile Gauls were plunging across the plain, scrambling up little hillocks with their cocked muskets, causing us rueful reflections upon the frailty of human legs. Pop-pop, went the desperadoes of hunters at the tame pigeons on the palms. We wended through the fields of sprouting beans. A few women and children lingered still, others were driving donkeys and buffaloes homeward-for these hard clay hovels were homes too.

I foresee that the Egyptian sunsets will shine much, too much, along these pages. But they are so beautiful, and every sunset is so new, that the Howadji must claim the law of lovers, and perpetually praise the old beauty forever young.

This evening the sun swept suddenly into the west, drawing the mists in a whirlpool after him. The vortex of luminous vapor gradually diffused itself over the whole sky, and the Ibis floated in a mist of gold, its slim yards and masts sculptured like Claude's vessels in his sunsets. It paled then, gradually, and a golden gloom began the night.

We emerged from the palms, on whose bending boughs doves sat and swung, and saw the gloom gradually graying over the genial Nile valley. As we neared the Ibis we met our third Mohammad, a smooth Nubian of the crew, and Seyd, the one-eyed first officer, whom the Commander had sent to search for us. They carried staves like beadles or like Roman consuls, for they were to see that we