450 ROYAL HONORS FOR THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



Colonel Roosevelt and his family arrived at Wadi-Halfa from 

 Khartoum on the evening of March i8, and boarded the steamer 

 Ibis for Shellal, which lies some 150 miles down the Nile, at the 

 head of the First Cataract, close to the great Assuan reserve dam 

 and adjacent to Philae, where are the temples of Isis and other 

 works of the ancient Egyptians. 



" The desert offers a striking contrast to the green of the 

 wilderness where I've been," observed the Colonel, while making 

 the long journey from Khartoum to Haifa. " The mirages on 

 both sides of the Sotik remind me of those I saw in the Sotik 

 country in British East Africa. In one I saw a rhinoceros which 

 I believed to be standing in a shallow lake, which proved to be a 

 mirage." 



OLD EGYPT'S MAGNETIC ATTRACTIONS. 



In the meantime the ku'e of old Egypt holds Colonel Roosevelt 

 and his family. They passed Sunday inspecting and wondering at 

 the submerged ruins at Philae and the tombs and the great dam 

 at Assuan, the largest in the w^orld, planned to reservoir a thousand 

 million cubic metres of water (234,000,000,000 gallons) to irrigate 

 lower Eg}'pt, under the pitiless sun. They returned weary but 

 enthusiastic to sleep on the Nile steamboat before they start for 

 Luxor, the site of ancient Thebes. 



The express for Luxor was crowded with tourists returning 

 to Europe. A special car had been provided for the Roosevelt 

 family, and they dined by themselves during the trip. The journey 

 was a very dusty one, without special incident. The scenery along 

 the route, how^ever, afforded some diversion, giving, as it does, a 

 practical illustration of the utility of .the great Assuan Dam, which 

 has enabled the natives to cover the countryside with wheat and 

 other crops in the dry season. 



When the former President's party reached the station at 

 Assuan he was greeted by the tourists from the Cataract Hotel 

 and by a number of Egyptian officials. In answ^er to their cordial 

 reception, he made a brief address in which he repeated practically 

 the words spoken previously to the Egyptian officers. 



