entirely of stone which he floated down the Nile for six hundred and
fifty miles from the quarries of Assouan (Syêné); and the passage up the
river is for a considerable portion of the year as easy as the passage
down. Northerly winds--the famous "Etesian gales"--prevail in Egypt
during the whole of the summer and autumn, and by hoisting a sail it is
almost always possible to ascend the stream at a good pace. If the sail
be dropped, the current will at all times take a vessel down-stream; and
thus boats, and even vessels of a large size, pass up and down the
water-way with equal facility.

Egypt is at all seasons a strange country, but presents the most
astonishing appearance at the period of the inundation. At that time not
only is the lengthy valley from Assouan to Cairo laid under water, but
the Delta itself becomes one vast lake, interspersed with islands, which
stud its surface here and there at intervals, and which reminded
Herodotus of "the islands of the Ægean." The elevations, which are the
work of man, are crowned for the most part with the white walls of towns
and villages sparkling in the sunlight, and sometimes glassed in the
flood beneath them. The palms and sycamores stand up out of the expanse
of waters shortened by some five or six feet of their height.
Everywhere, when the inundation begins, the inhabitants are seen
hurrying their cattle to the shelter provided in the villages, and, if
the rise of the water is more rapid than usual, numbers rescue their
beasts with difficulty, causing them to wade or swim, or even saving
them by means of boats. An excessive inundation brings not only animal,
but human life into peril, endangering the villages themselves, which
may be submerged and swept away if the water rises above a certain
height. A deficient inundation, on the other hand, brings no immediate
danger, but by limiting production may create a dearth that causes
incalculable suffering.