324 Egyptian Village Life. 



•which our vessel rested peacefully. The high bank, broken 

 into picturesque form by the fall of the rich earth of which it 

 was composed, testified its priceless agricultural value ; it was 

 diversified by groups of villagers, who had come forth to greet 

 with smiles the boat of the stranger from afar. Their figures 

 were grand in their simplicity ; their slight clothing had never 

 impeded the free action of every limb ; its coarse texture gave 

 breadth and boldness to every fold as the parting gleams of 

 sunlight fell full upon them. Young mothers modestly sat by 

 the doors of their picturesque mud- cabins, shrouding their 

 features with a native grace from the glance of the male 

 stranger, but unable to hide the clear and lustrous eye that 

 sparkled beneath the blue head-dress, and beamed with fond- 

 ness on the infant nestling in the folds of her ample robe, for 

 no clothing impeded the free movements of these children of 

 nature. Thus were nurtured the muscular men who stood by 

 them, and such had been the healthy and venerable patriarchs 

 who sat and smoked their evening pipes in the shadow of their 

 native village. From the humble roofs of many cabins a 

 graceful curl of silvery smoke told of the frugal meal preparing 

 at the close of day. The sun was setting amid gorgeous hues, 

 and a light wind playing coquettishly with the tall and graceful 

 palm-trees, waved them grandly in the air, as if bidding fare- 

 well to the sun, as he sank behind the western hills, and gilded 

 with his parting rays the solemn desert beyond. 



the same. — (Oouleur-de-jaune.) 



Night was approaching, and the captain of our boat, whose 

 obstinacy gave us frequent reason for just complaint, anchored 

 the vessel in the very centre of a dirty village, a position to be 

 -carefully avoided by all travellers on the Nile. The current 

 had washed a semicircular hole in the side of a steep 

 bank, and under pretence of its shelter we were doomed to 

 pass the night in a sort of mud puddle, where all the filthy 

 rags of the dirty people were washed, when ablution became a 

 necessity with them. A steep, broken bank of mud was all 

 that met the eye, on the summit of which crouched many of 

 the half-civilized inhabitants of the place, dressed in rags that 

 neither served for warmth or concealment. Wretched women 

 •crouched at their doors, pretentiously hiding faces that are 

 -squalid when young, and hideous when old ; miserable naked 

 children nestled in their ragged robes; muscular men, of 

 sinister aspect, showed the effect of this early nurture; and 

 dirty elders, in whom age ceased to be venerable, sat in heaps 

 of congenial dirt, telling unpleasant truths to the observant of 

 what the romantic call " pastoral simplicity.-" A dense smoke 



