"The Nile, out of gratitude, no doubt, for our hearty greeting and effusive welcome, regales us with a curious spectacle. Picture to yourself an _al fresco_ washing establishment, a congregation of copper-coloured washerwomen, young and pretty, and boasting no other garment than a short, petticoat reaching from the waist to the knees. "These pretty girls were doing their washing to an accompaniment of song and dance, using their feet, instead of their hands, as 'dollies' to press out the clothes after they have rinsed them in the river and spread them along the bank. They stand first on one foot and then on the other, never on both at the same time, and stamp in unison in slow and measured time. "Our arrival did not discompose them in the least; they continued to perform their little operation, laughing the while and showing us their white teeth. This unexpected tableau was all the more pleasing to us, as, since we left Souakim, with the exception of our Abyssinian travellers, we had not met amongst the Bischaris tribes any but very unprepossessing specimens of the female race. "And so at last we rest at Berber, or El-Mecherif, on the right bank of the Nile, in a real house, a perfect palace to us, in real beds, with real mattresses, an accumulation of comforts which, I assure you, plunges us into a sort of ecstacy. "And now we see what an able leader we have in Madame de Guéran. With what skill she has traced out our route for us! How well she has prepared us for long journeys and severe exertion! How excellently she has arranged our various transitions! If, at one fell swoop, she had compelled us to traverse some far-stretching desert, if she had led us far away from all civilization, straight into the centre of barbarism, without any chance of resuming our wonted habits, she would have run the risk of disgusting some of us. Périères and I, it is true, would have certainly followed her, but with a certain amount of uneasiness, and, possibly, discouragement. But Delange would have been quite capable of cancelling our contract and hurrying back to Paris to start a baccarat bank. The Baroness, however, had let us see just so much of Africa as was calculated to arouse our curiosity without satisfying it, to tire us without affecting our health, to inure us to fatigue without wearing us out. She introduced us to a little bit of a desert, which, so far from frightening us, whetted our appetites and gave us visions of horizons more vast, of plains more extended, of dangers more serious. As yet we only know a kind of toy Africa, harmless and without churlishness, spring-like and temperate, with its oases, its wells, its mountains, its miniature storms, all that makes life agreeable, variety, accident, everything to inspire a love of travel and incite to great discoveries.