252 DR. HOOKER’S MISSION TO INDIA. 
costly and splendid style, short of solid gold and jewels. Only Lord 
and Lady Dalhousie enjoyed this splendour, however, for we messed 
on deck ; and the accommodations for the rest of us, including the 
prime minister of Egypt, were comparatively poor, and consisted 
of little cabins with sofas, and no washing appurtenances. We had 
to sleep two in each cabin, happily the weather was remarkably 
cold, and for washing we were sore put to, till we bethought 
ourselves of the tin cocked-hat boxes, which, opening through the 
middle, made two basins at once. Our repasts were sumptuous, 
served in the French fashion, and with French cookery, on silver 
and gold plate. 
Next morning we were half-way to Cairo: the Nile looked 
a tame river, but association gave interest to its ordinary features. 
It was about as broad as the Thames at Kew, turbid and 
rapid, the stream flowing three miles an hour, bringing mud 
from Upper Abyssinia, the fabled Mountains of the Moon, 
Lake Dembir, and all the countries I used to read of, years ago; 
in Bruce’s and Salt’s travels. The banks are cliffs of mud, ten to 
twenty feet high, steep, and showing the successive layers of 
deposited soil, to which Egypt owes all its scanty store of vegeta- 
tion. On these cliffs, or rather banks, we saw the Camel or lonely 
Dromedary stalking along, with his Arab master before, or upon 
him ; the latter turbaned and clothed, as all our associations picture 
him to be. At other places we observed groups of tents, with 
camels and donkeys around, an Acacia or Sycamore on one side, 
and a Palm on the other; little scenes, wholly oriental, and as 
different from anything English as are those of the other countries 
I had visited, many thousand miles further from home. Beyond 
the immediate banks spread wide deserts of sand, wholly un- 
tenanted and uninhabitable, except by the wandering Arab. 
Here and there-a little irrigation is attempted, by means of 4 
broad wheel with many buckets attached to the whole circum- 
ference, and worked by a bullock. Of houses there were very 
few, and built near trees of Palm (Date), Sycamore, Acacia 
Lebekh, but no other that I could see. Boats were numerous; ——— 
such as are figured in Bruce’s Journey, and many subsequent = 
