Refreshed by the two hours' rest in the temple, our donkeys were able to enter Luxor at a trot without the ignominious stimulant of a thrashing, and we were glad to find that the Collector, who had gone on while we were lunching, had the tent already pitched in a charming palm grove behind the new hotel, well away from the town, and commanding a lovely view of the three peaks of the eastern mountain.

Our ride had taken eight days, the actual distance by river being two hundred miles and a half: so that our daily average was about twenty-five miles, for of course what we made in avoiding bends, we lost by excursions like that to Abood.

A NILE VILLAGE.

CHAPTER XIX.

LUXOR.

Dwelling in Tents-Native Society-Poets-Music-An Arabian Night -The Remains of the 18th and 19th Dynasties-Bulls' Eyes-A Fright at Dinner-Hiring a Boat-Death at the Hotel-A Funeral -The Copt Church-The Cemetery.

I HAVE no intention of prolonging a detailed diurnal of our eight days' stay at Luxor. We found many people there whom we knew, in the hotel or on board the steamers and dahabeeahs which were constantly coming and going on the way up and down the river, and in their company we "did" the regular sights.

The chief excursions from Luxor, to Medinet Aboo, the tombs of the kings, and Karnac, have all been so well and so often described that I need say little about them. We joined Cook's party on more than one occasion and found old friends among them: we dined with the native big-wigs and

little wigs; we entertained on our own account, for everybody was anxious to inspect our tents and taste even for a few hours of camp life: we bought anteekas real and spurious: in short, we enjoyed Luxor to a considerable extent, and should have enjoyed it much more but for a mournful event which occurred just at the end of our stay.

The native society amused us most, though we did not take readily to eating with our fingers. At one of these dinners we had an effendi present who passed for a wit among his fellows. He showed his talent. by reciting a verse at the shortest notice, and considering how easy verse-making is in Arabic purchased his reputation very cheaply. On being asked for a sentiment referring to us he replied at once,

"One night when guests of honour are present is in value better than a thousand."

This remarkable intellectual effort certainly received all the applause it merited. The Collector remembered on one occasion that a great man had bidden him, and "sent his servant at supper-time" to make an announcement in the following terms :

"The marriage has been celebrated, the feast is ready, and we only wait for the rising of the full

moon."

We had many examples of Arabic poetry on our journey very superior to these, and sometimes endeavoured to translate them, but with indifferent success. The point was usually very small. Our sailors, on the

way down, had a favourite song, which never failed to encourage them during the fatigues of a hard day's rowing. The whole "argument" was this, "A son said to his father, 'Get me the little white girl in marriage, or I will go and enlist in the army.'" This not very complicated story was so spun out with choruses and other embellishments, many of them extempore, as to last nearly an hour.

In Cairo, one day, during the Moolid e' Nebi, I remember stopping to listen to an improvising singer, and was much amused to hear him at once make up a verse in honour or in derision, I was not sure which, of El howaga: it was rapturously received by the rest of the audience, and the refrain was chanted with great vigour at short intervals until I retired.

The strange wild music of the Nile is like nothing else I know, but every man, woman, and child seems to have a natural gift, and you hear what we should call glees and catches sung without difficulty-always in admirable time, but as to tune, I, for one, do not feel myself entitled to speak. I doubt, indeed, if any European can learn the Egyptian gamut by ear, but it has its merits, and is unquestionably preferable to the best attempts made by one of the Khedive's bands in the Esbekeeyah Gardens, to play Italian opera music.

Men working at a shadoof have a beautiful wild cadence, a single strain, ending in a trill, which is more like the song of a bird than any human music.

It seems universal in Upper Egypt: but I heard it best executed on the river-path between Karnac and Luxor, and at Assouan, a little below the town. I recommend any traveller who wishes for a new sensation in music to listen for it. What an effect such a song, delivered with the full lung power of a bronze-like Hercules of the shadoof, would make at a Monday Pop, especially if the singer wore his worka-day costume, that is to say, nothing!

A more scientific musician was Aboo Roayha, whom we heard at Mustafa Aga's house at Luxor. I suppose he is the fiddler whose performance is so well described by Miss Edwards (Chap. 21). No Paganini could have had more complete mastery over his instrument, and we could but imagine what he might have done on a Stradivarius. Allowing for the difference of gamut, which makes all Arab music sound at first strange and discordant to English ears, nothing could be more moving than the strains which came from under his bow. He held his head on one side, his eyes half shut as he played, a smile of triumph on his lips, while his distended nostrils alone betrayed the emotions which his own playing awakened in his soul. He had an assistant or pupil, who sat behind him and kept timeArab music, even in the wildest passages, allows for no" ad libitum "—while his chief went through all his wonderful repertory of shakes and trills, single string and double string performances, now breaking into