Having witnessed the passage of the first few rapids, we were glad to escape from the dahabeeyah and spend our time sketching here and there on the borders of the desert and among the villages and islands round about. In all Egypt and Nubia there is no scenery richer in picturesque bits than the scenery of the cataract. An artist might pass a winter there, and not exhaust the pictorial wealth of those five miles which divide Assûan from Philæ. Of tortuous creeks shut in by rocks fantastically piled--of sand-slopes golden to the water’s edge--of placid pools low-lying in the midst of lupin-fields and tracts of tender barley--of creaking sakkiehs, half-hidden among palms and dropping water as they turn--of mud dwellings, here clustered together in hollows, there perched separately on heights among the rocks, and perpetuating to this day the form and slope of Egyptian pylons--of rude boats drawn up in sheltered coves, or going to pieces high and dry upon the sands--of water-washed bowlders of crimson, and black, and purple granite, on which the wild fowl cluster at midday and the fisher spreads his nets to dry at sunset--of camels, and caravans, and camps on shore--of cargo-boats and cangias on the river--of wild figures of half-naked athletes--of dusky women decked with barbaric ornaments, unveiled, swift-gliding, trailing long robes of deepest gentian blue--of ancient crones, and little naked children like live bronzes--of these, and a hundred other subjects, in infinite variety and combination, there is literally no end. It is all so picturesque, indeed, so biblical, so poetical, that one is almost in danger of forgetting that the places are something more than beautiful backgrounds, and that the people are not merely appropriate figures placed there for the delight of sketchers, but are made of living flesh and blood, and moved by hopes, and fears, and sorrows, like our own.