topped cliffs of Lower Egypt, the melancholy yielded, and our minds recovered from the shock. But the gloom cast over our recollections of Luxor will be permanent.

We were already back in the famine district, or, rather, it had crept further up the river. A little later the relief, sent more than two months too late by the government of Mr. Wilson, opened funds at various places, including Luxor, and a short notice of what was done there will be found among the letters I have collected in the Appendix.1

I have also placed there the descriptions of several eye-witnesses, all of whom are known to me, and for fairness' sake, the two very uncourteous replies,—the only attempts at reply, indeed, which were made,— by Mr. Wilson and Hamam Effendi,

It is hardly worth while now to show the fallacy of either of these replies, as our reports are more than justified by Professor Robertson Smith, by the Times' own correspondent, and by the "trustworthy informant." But it may be well to observe that Hammam Effendi does not mention the source from which we derived our information: so that his letter is beside the mark, and I can only suppose it refers to events which took place after our visit. There is, of course, an alternative interpretation.

Mr. Wilson's letter betrays a curious ignorance of the state of the country he was supposed to govern. 1 See p. 378.

But I will only notice here one sentence of it :—“ Two months ago the government despatched two Englishmen with carte blanche," &c.

Unfortunately for this statement I can refer to an article written in the best-known London weekly paper in March, 1878, that is to say, twelve months before the date of Mr. Wilson's letter. In the course of that article mention is made of the belief prevalent among all travellers in Upper Egypt during the winter of 1877-78, that an extraordinary Nile must result in a famine. It seems that what was visible to any inquiring tourist was invisible to the government of Mr. Wilson. Relief sent in the end of January was at least three months too late.

But there is no use in going back through a long series of mistakes and crimes to find first causes. The first cause of the famine is the excessive taxation and though the famine itself was foreseen a year before, no effort was made by the government to anticipate the effects of a scarcity by any form of relief. The effort made by Mr. Wilson in January, 1879, to send money, was no doubt praiseworthy, and if he had not by his letter to the Times endeavoured to make out that it was sufficiently early, I should have nothing but praise to bestow on it. Unfortunately, it is only on that account another example of the failure he everywhere evinced to see the true position of affairs in Egypt.

It was at Belianeh on the 5th February that we

saw the most miserable assembly of starving people. Their aspect is fully described in some of the letters I print in the Appendix (see p. 371), and I will now but too willingly quit a most disagreeable part of my subject, and briefly detail a few impressions of what, but for these distressing sights, would have been a most delightful voyage.

Though every day of our ride from Sioot to Luxor is clearly impressed on my memory, I have but an indistinct recollection of the events of the return voyage. I remember long days of sunshine on the river, days when we glided along with the stream under tall cliffs of white limestone, marked here and there with the square-headed doorways of ancient tombs; or, while the crew sang their quaint lovesongs, swept past the high brown banks, watching the patient labours of the shadoof, under the mounds of old towns where low mud hovels clustered round white minarets, and where blue-robed women in long procession came to draw water in their tall earthen jars. I remember evenings when we saw the moon rise over the eastern mountains, gleaming from behind some distant peak as if a volcano had broken out, and gradually developing into a glorious disk, shining with a radiance unknown except in the clear dry air of Egypt. I remember mornings when we watched the moon set behind the western palm-groves while the sun rose above the cliffs of the opposite shore and dispelled the white

mist which had hung about the dawn. We lay under our awning and read: we studied the history and the hieroglyphs of old Kam, or tried our scanty Arabic in conversations with the sailors, or wrote letters announcing our speedy return to Cairo. Sometimes at a bend of the river we landed and walked across to rejoin the boat through fields already whitening to the first harvest of the year, and lost our way among intersecting canals, or drank coffee on the benches of rural villages, or ferreted out goldsmiths and dyers among the Coptic quarters of larger towns. Strange anteekas were brought to us,-broken European candlesticks, very rare and fine, according to the owners-a silver pencil-case in one place, a yard measure in another. Sometimes a great steamer would pass, puffing and rattling, sometimes a dahabeyah in full sail before the wind, sometimes a fleet of country boats on their way to market.

We pitched successively at Geseeret e' Shendoweel, where we were alarmed in the night by the fall of a portion of the bank close to the tent; at Michaela, whose name preserves the memory of the archangel of the Christians; and one night in a little village on the eastern bank whose name I cannot recall, but it seemed by its length out of all proportion to a minute assemblage of about a dozen houses. Here, as it was blowing hard, we availed ourselves of the hospitality of the sheykh, placing the tent in his court-yard for shelter: and returned his

courtesy by a grand instrumental concert on the musical box. I well remember the looks of awe with which the brown faces beamed as one after another each man present was allowed to hold it to his ear for a moment, and the interminable hand-shakings which marked the conclusion of the performance.

We

On the morning of the 8th February Sioot was in sight, and before mid-day our voyage was over. felt quite at home in the old town, and had a hearty welcome from our donkey boys who had made their return journey in safety in five days. They must have hurried the unloaded donkeys home at a tremendous pace, but with the moon to light them they were probably able in the night to make forced marches, impossible for us. We sent our tents and baggage to the railway station and roamed about the bazaars till bed-time. The Scot adventured his body