We arrived too late to get a run up the Nile, as the boats had
ceased to ply for the season. There remained but Cairo and
Alexandria to visit, and a few days spent at each place exhausts
the sights; but we concluded that nothing could be more enjoyable
than a three-months' sail upon the Nile, in one's own boat,
breathing the remarkably pure and dry air as it comes from the
desert, moving day by day from one to another scene of the far
past, and at night enjoying the unequalled sunsets, when it seems,
as some one has beautifully said, that "the day was slowly dying
of its own glory." This is the trip of trips for an invalid, or
for one overtaxed by work or oppressed with sorrow; and for a
bridal tour--to give the lovers plenty of time and opportunity to
become thoroughly acquainted with each other--it can be highly
recommended.
The rapid rise of our western rivers is very different from the
gradual swelling of the Nile, which begins at Khartoum, at the
junction of the White and Blue Niles, as early as April each year,
but which is not felt at Cairo until after the summer solstice,
while the greatest height is not reached till autumn. A good flood
gives a rise of forty feet at the first cataract, and about
twenty-five at Cairo; a scanty rise is when only between eighteen
or twenty feet occurs at Cairo.
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