then it ceased to occasion remark. Thus easily do even the most
startling novelties grow tame and spiritless to these sight-surfeited
wanderers.

Arrived at Old Cairo, the camp-followers took up the donkeys and tumbled
them bodily aboard a small boat with a lateen sail, and we followed and
got under way. The deck was closely packed with donkeys and men; the two
sailors had to climb over and under and through the wedged mass to work
the sails, and the steersman had to crowd four or five donkeys out of the
way when he wished to swing his tiller and put his helm hard-down. But
what were their troubles to us? We had nothing to do; nothing to do but
enjoy the trip; nothing to do but shove the donkeys off our corns and
look at the charming scenery of the Nile.

On the island at our right was the machine they call the Nilometer, a
stone-column whose business it is to mark the rise of the river and
prophecy whether it will reach only thirty-two feet and produce a famine,
or whether it will properly flood the land at forty and produce plenty,
or whether it will rise to forty-three and bring death and destruction to
flocks and crops--but how it does all this they could not explain to us
so that we could understand. On the same island is still shown the spot
where Pharaoh's daughter found Moses in the bulrushes. Near the spot we
sailed from, the Holy Family dwelt when they sojourned in Egypt till
Herod should complete his slaughter of the innocents. The same tree they
rested under when they first arrived, was there a short time ago, but the
Viceroy of Egypt sent it to the Empress Eugenie lately. He was just in
time, otherwise our pilgrims would have had it.

The Nile at this point is muddy, swift and turbid, and does not lack a
great deal of being as wide as the Mississippi.