288 EXTRACTS FROM 
It was therefore all over with the perfect quiet which the 
hyzena demands, so instead of uselessly waiting, I went home, 
meeting on the way the dragoman Paulovich, who had unfor- 
tunately gone out to shoot with Baron Seckendorf at the very 
place where [had been watching. Hoyos at his post near the 
town had killed one jackal and wounded another, and the 
Grand Duke and Eschenbacher were at one time actually sur- 
rounded by howling jackals, but could not get a shot owing 
to the unfavourable nature of the ground. On my way back 
at midnight I had a beautiful view of the picturesque town of 
Assuan, the river, and the fairy-like island of Elephantine, 
all steeped in a magic flood of the purest moonlight. 
At seven o’clock on the morning of the 9th the steamer left 
Assuan, that charming place, so thoroughly African and so 
full of ethnographical interest. We glided down-stream at 
great speed through the now familiar districts, and the hours 
we spent on deck passed quickly, for the return journey 
afforded the desired opportunity of arranging the many notes 
we had collected, and of jotting down the various reminiscences 
of our travels. 
We were sitting in the cabin about the middle of the day 
when the steamer came to a sudden and violent stop, and we 
could distinctly feel the heavy vessel boring into the mud. 
While going up-stream she had frequently run aground, a 
thing which happens to every Nile steamer, owing to the con- 
tinual shifting of the sandbanks, but the rapidity of our down- 
ward course had now driven us in more firmly than ever, and 
as the old Admiral declared that it would take at least two 
hours to get the vessel afloat again, we immediately had our- 
selves rowed ashore. 
We were at a point called Kom-el-Hmir, where high, steep, 
rocky mountains closely approach the stream, forming a short 
but beautiful gorge, succeeded by a well-cultivated plain. 
Our party now separated to shoot in various directions. I 
