over. A death-like chill came over me: by a sudden impulse, I rushed
forward, and awoke. With bewildered feelings, I rose on my elbow, and
gazed around. The moon had risen; her cold, clear light making every
object near me either startlingly distinct, or else a mass of dark
shade, while a deep and solemn silence reigned around. All had
vanished--the singer and the dancers--the flaming, sparkling, roaring
fires, and the noisy groups around them; and I might have imagined
that I had awaked to find myself in another world, had it not been for
the heap of black ashes beside me, and the dark outline of the
steam-boat in the distance. I arose, stiff, cold, and drowsy, and
tucking my kitchen under my arm, slowly wended my way on board.

However, there must be an end to all things; and on the third day, we
emerged from the dreary net-work of creeks, and entered into the open
Indus. The scenery still remained much the same. Here and there,
beacons were erected, but they were only of temporary use, for the
channel of the river alters almost every year. The breadth of the
stream varies with the rise of the water consequent on the melting of
the snow on the distant mountains, among which it takes its source. At
Sukkur, it is as broad as the Thames at Blackwall; and nearly two
hundred miles lower down, it is sometimes found of no greater breadth;
while in other spots it spreads into a lake some two or three miles
across, depending upon the level of the surrounding country and the
rise of the river. Scinde has been called Young Egypt, from the
general resemblance of the physical features of the two countries, and
the fact, that the existence of an only river in each is the sole
cause of an immense tract of territory being prevented from becoming
throughout a parched and unprofitable desert. In Upper Scinde, there
are very rarely more than three or four showers in the year, and the
cultivator has to depend entirely upon the overflow of the river for