Landing from time to time when the boat was close in shore, we found the order of planting everywhere the same, lupins and lentils on the slope against the water-line; an uninterrupted grove of palms on the edge of the bank; in the space beyond, fields of cotton and young corn; and then the desert. The arable soil was divided off, as usual, by hundreds of water channels, and seemed to be excellently farmed as well as abundantly irrigated. Not a weed was to be seen; not an inch of soil appeared to be wasted. In odd corners where there was room for nothing else, cucumbers and vegetable-marrows flourished and bore fruit. Nowhere had we seen castor-berries so large, cotton-pods so full, or palms so lofty. Here also, for the first time out of Egypt, we observed among the bushes a few hoopoes and other small birds; and on a sand-slope down by the river a group of wild ducks. We--that is to say, one of the M. B.’s and the writer--had wandered off that way in search of crocodiles. The two dahabeeyahs, each with its file of trackers, were slowly laboring up against the current about a mile away. All was intensely hot and intensely silent. We had walked far and had seen no crocodile. What we should have done if we had met one I am not prepared to say. Perhaps we should have run away. At all events, we were just about to turn back when we caught sight of the ducks sunning themselves, half asleep, on the brink of a tiny pool about an eighth of a mile away. Creeping cautiously under the bank, we contrived to get within a few yards of them. They were four--a drake, a duck, and two young ones--exquisitely feathered and as small as teal. The parent-birds could scarcely have measured more than eight inches from head to tail. All alike had chestnut-colored heads with a narrow buff stripe down the middle, like a parting; maroon backs; wing-feathers maroon and gray; and tails tipped with buff. They were so pretty, and the little family party was so complete, that the writer could not help secretly rejoicing that Alfred and his gun were safe on board the Bagstones. High above the Libyan bank on the sloping verge of the desert, stands, half-drowned in sand, the little temple of Amada. Seeing it from the opposite side while duck-hunting in the morning, I had taken it for one of the many stone shelters erected by Mohammed Ali for the accommodation of cattle levied annually in the Soudan. It proved, however, to be a temple, small but massive; built with squared blocks of sandstone; and dating back to the very old times of the Usurtesens and Thothmes. It consists of a portico, a transverse atrium, and three small chambers. The pillars of the portico are mere square piers. The rooms are small and low. The roof, constructed of oblong blocks, is flat from end to end. As an architectural structure it is in fact but a few degrees removed from Stonehenge.