SPOKT. 21 



crew's work being over, tliey soon fall asleep, while we retire 

 to the cabin to talk over our adventures. 



February Wtli. — We rise early, and after a cup of coffee 

 start out for a couple of hours' shooting before breakfast. 

 The cool fresh air is delicious ; but the grass is very wet 

 from the heavy dew, which glitters on the bright green 

 herbage under the rays of the morning sun. We pass 

 through a portion of the town on the western bank of the 

 river, and then cross the latter by a bridge, where we soon 

 come upon some pools and a half-dry canal, where we find 

 wildfowl tolerably abundant. This canal being about eighty 

 yards broad, the ducks avoid us by flying down the centre, 

 so that we only get a few uncertain long shots at them ; for 

 they are too shy to allow us to stalk them ; and, indeed, the 

 ground throughout Egypt is very bad for that purpose, 

 owing to the want of covert, the banks being of smooth 

 mud from which the water has recently retired. However, 

 we kill a few Shoveller, Pintail, and Pochard ; but Teal most 

 frequently come to the bag. Greenshanks are tolerably plen- 

 tiful here, while, lower down, the Redshanks become most 

 numerous. Whenever we find other game scarce we fall 

 back on the Pigeons, for which Egypt is famous, as they are 

 always welcome to the crew. The number of these birds, 

 which live in a semidomesticated state, is quite marvellous. 

 The natives in most of the villages build a second story to 

 their houses, solely for the sake of these pigeons, which flock 

 to them as soon as they are built ; but they require that their 

 houses should be kept more cleanly than the abodes of the 

 natives ; otherwise they leave for better quarters. What 

 would an English farmer say to having these myriads of 

 pigeons feeding on his land ? Yet there is no denying that 



