Well-seasoned Nile-travellers confirm our experience; and as we had
rowed and floated within a calculated time from Assouan to Ombos, and
from Ombos to Silsilis, so did we proceed to Edfou, and to the stations
beyond, with few exceptions of obstinately adverse weather.

True, some portions of the view are missed during the hours of
night-travelling; but these have most probably been seen during the
ascent. Besides, though the scenery of the Nile is certainly not
monotonous enough to weary the eye, yet there is a general sameness in
its details, a want of those bold, original features which in other
countries stamp the character of particular localities. Two parallel
lines of mountains ever within sight of each other, now advancing
towards the river through a sea of verdure in promontories, always
nearly with the same level outline, now receding in semicircular sweeps;
a narrow flat plain, loaded with crops and palm-groves, and intersected
by canals and dikes, sometimes equally divided by a tortuous stream of
vast breadth, but sometimes thrown, as it were, all to one side, east or
west; occasionally a long line of precipices descending sheer into the
very water; once only a regular defile with rocks on either hand;
islands in the river, sandbanks, broad, winding reaches--such, in a few
words, is a description of Egypt. It is the variety of colour produced
by that mighty painter, the sun, that gives all the beauty to the
landscape; and of this it is almost impossible to convey an idea. The
chaste loveliness of the dawn, the majestic splendour of noon, and the
marvellous glories of the sunset-hour--the thousand hues that glow and
tremble, and melt and mingle around through all the scenes of this great
drama of light--words have not yet been invented to describe.

And then the night! Who can sit down and recall and count over the
impressions which fly like a troop of fairies over the thrilling senses