On the morning of the festival-day they started in a gorgeously decorated
boat, from a point between thirty and forty miles below Memphis, favored
by a good north-wind and urged rapidly forward by a large number of
rowers.

A wooden roof or canopy, gilded and brightly painted, sheltered them from
the sun. Croesus sat by Rhodopis, Theopompus the Milesian lay at her
feet. Sappho was leaning against Bartja. Syloson, the brother of
Polykrates, had made himself a comfortable resting-place next to Darius,
who was looking thought fully into the water. Gyges and Zopyrus busied
themselves in making wreaths for the women, from the flowers handed them
by an Egyptian slave.

"It seems hardly possible," said Bartja, "that we can be rowing against
the stream. The boat flies like a swallow."

"This fresh north-wind brings us forward," answered Theopompus. "And
then the Egyptian boatmen understand their work splendidly."

"And row all the better just because we are sailing against the stream,"
added Croesus. "Resistance always brings out a man's best powers."

"Yes," said Rhodopis, "sometimes we even make difficulties, if the river
of life seems too smooth."

"True," answered Darius. "A noble mind can never swim with the stream.
In quiet inactivity all men are equal. We must be seen fighting, to be
rightly estimated."

"Such noble-minded champions must be very cautious, though," said