the weather was heavenly. If the millennium really does come I shall
take a good bit of mine on the Nile. At Assouan I had been strolling
about in that most poetically melancholy spot, the granite quarry of old
Egypt and burial-place of Muslim martyrs, and as I came homewards along
the bank a party of slave merchants, who had just loaded their goods for
Senaar from the boat on the camels, asked me to dinner, and, oh! how
delicious it felt to sit on a mat among the camels and strange bales of
goods and eat the hot tough bread, sour milk and dates, offered with such
stately courtesy. We got quite intimate over our leather cup of sherbet
(brown sugar and water), and the handsome jet-black men, with features as
beautiful as those of the young Bacchus, described the distant lands in a
way which would have charmed Herodotus. They proposed to me to join
them, 'they had food enough,' and Omar and I were equally inclined to go.
It is of no use to talk of the ruins; everybody has said, I suppose, all
that can be said, but Philae surpassed my expectations. No wonder the
Arab legends of Ans el Wogood are so romantic, and Abou Simbel and many
more. The scribbling of names is quite infamous, beautiful paintings are
defaced by Tomkins and Hobson, but worst of all Prince Puckler Muskau has
engraved his and his _Ordenskreuz_ in huge letters on the naked breast of
that august and pathetic giant who sits at Abou Simbel. I wish someone
would kick him for his profanity.

I have eaten many odd things with odd people in queer places, dined in a
respectable Nubian family (the castor-oil was trying), been to a Nubian
wedding--such a dance I saw. Made friends with a man much looked up to
in his place (Kalabshee--notorious for cutting throats), inasmuch as he
had killed several intrusive tax-gatherers and recruiting officers. He
was very gentlemanly and kind and carried me up a place so steep I could
not have reached it. Just below the cataract--by-the-by going up is
nothing but noise and shouting, but coming down is fine fun--_Fantasia