tall silver poplars strained upward, as if anxious to avoid the watery
world beneath. The full-moon had risen; her soft light fell on the
Libyan range of mountains vanishing on the western horizon, and in the
north the shimmer of the Mediterranean could faintly be discerned. Blue
and white lotus-flowers floated on the clear water, bats of all kinds
darted softly through the still air, heavy with the scent of acacia-
blossom and jasmine; the wild pigeons and other birds were at roost in
the tops of the trees, while the pelicans, storks and cranes squatted in
groups on the shore under the shelter of the papyrus-reeds and Nile-
beans. The pelicans and storks remained motionless, their long bills
hidden beneath their wings, but the cranes were startled by the mere beat
of an oar, stretching their necks, and peering anxiously into the
distance, if they heard but the song of the boatmen. The air was
perfectly motionless, and the unbroken reflection of the moon, lying like
a silver shield on the surface of the water, proved that, wildly as the
Nile leaps over the cataracts, and rushes past the gigantic temples of
Upper Egypt, yet on approaching the sea by different arms, he can abandon
his impetuous course, and flow along in sober tranquillity.

On this moonlight night in the year 528 B. C. a bark was crossing the
almost currentless Canopic mouth of the Nile. On the raised deck at the
stern of this boat an Egyptian was sitting to guide the long pole-rudder,
and the half-naked boatmen within were singing as they rowed. In the
open cabin, which was something like a wooden summer-house, sat two men,
reclining on low cushions. They were evidently not Egyptians; their
Greek descent could be perceived even by the moonlight. The elder was an
unusually tall and powerful man of more than sixty; thick grey curls,
showing very little attempt at arrangement, hung down over his short,
firm throat; he wore a simple, homely cloak, and kept his eyes gloomily
fixed on the water. His companion, on the contrary, a man perhaps twenty