May 29, cont, aboard Nile atr. 
This is the raomiiig of the 3l3t of May, It opens warn and with a 
leaden sky, quite in contrast with the clear Hiooqlight overhead last 
night. That with the bright stars petea^ed out toward the horiaon, for 
over in the S, W. corner were cloud banks shot through with heat 
lightening from time to time. Off to the north and west were bright 
spots of fire (clearing land for cultivation) where during the daylight 
hours only palls of smoke were visible. As endless and as largely 
uninhabited as these vast swampy plains seem to be human activity is 
made visible in one way or another, Man is everywhere, though not yet 
occupying every square inch of our limited Earth’s surface. 
The night of the 31st was as uneventful as usual, and as usual 
with its bianps and grinds. About midnight we had a rude awakening, a terrific 
on bar or bank tliat almost parted us from our barges and house- “boats." 
Via just can't escape this method of steering us downstream with a push 
off this and then that bank. Our black captain does know his business, 
currents, charanels, shoals and bars and how to make them all work for 
him, 
We have to make so many sharp turns. As a swimmer in a narrow 
tank, giving himself a push with his foot against the wall, so we too 
work our way down stream, hast night the tewiserature wend down to SOdegrees 
but we were most comfojrtable. It is a peaceful, restful estperience 
gliding (and bumping) our way down the Nile. It is indeed the lotus-land 
of song story, and but for the urge to do, could be an opiate from 
»diich it would be difficult to awake, khile it lasts is msy not be too 
bad for us but forever,— let the l^gyptians have it. The output of htsaan 
energy evidenced 1:^ the Pyramids, which we have yet to see, must have 
been tronendous. It may be, as ELlswojrth Huntington argued, that the 
climate ath the height of the Bgyptian civiliaation was cooler and 
more temperate than today, but it is also a fact that in their way the 
