Seen in the half-light of a tropical after-glow--the purple mountains coming down in detached masses to the water’s edge on the one side; the desert with its volcanic peaks yet rosy upon the other--we thought the approach to Korosko more picturesque than anything we had yet seen south of the cataract. As the dusk deepened the moon rose; and the palms that had just room to grow between the mountains and the river turned from bronze to silver. It was half-twilight, half-moonlight, by the time we reached the mooring-place where Talhamy, who had been sent forward in the small boat half an hour ago, jumped on board laden with a packet of letters and a sheaf of newspapers. For here, where the great caravan-route leads off across the desert to Khartûm, we touched the first Nubian postoffice. It was only ten days since we had received our last budget at Assûan; but it seemed like ten weeks. CHAPTER XIV. KOROSKO TO ABOU SIMBEL. It so happened that we arrived at Korosko on the eve of El-Id el-Kebîr, or the anniversary of the sacrifice of Abraham; when, according to the Moslem version, Ishmael was the intended victim and a ram the substituted offering. Now El-Id el-Kebîr, being one of the great feasts of the Mohammedan calendar, is a day of gifts and good wishes. The rich visit their friends and distribute meat to the poor; and every true believer goes to the mosque to say his prayers in the morning. So, instead of starting as usual at sunrise, we treated our sailors to a sheep and waited till past noon, that they might have a holiday. They began the day by trooping off to the village mosque in all the glory of new blue blouses, spotless turbans and scarlet leather slippers; then loitered about till dinner-time, when the said sheep, stewed with lentils and garlic, brought the festivities to an end. It was a thin and ancient beast and must have been horribly tough; but an epicure might have envied the childlike enjoyment with which our honest fellows squatted, cross-legged and happy, round the smoking cauldron; chattering, laughing, feasting; dipping their fingers in the common mess; washing the whole down with long draughts of Nile water; and finishing off with a hubble-bubble passed from lip to lip and a mouthful of muddy coffee. By a little after midday they had put off their finery, harnessed themselves to the tow-rope and set to work to haul us through the rocky shoals which here impede the current. From Korosko to Derr, the actual distance is about eleven miles and a half; but what with obstructions in the bed of the river, and what with a wind that would have been favorable but for another great bend which the Nile takes toward the east, those eleven miles and a half cost us the best part of two days’ hard tracking.