Thus the day wanes, and the level cliffs keep with us all the way--now breaking into little lateral valleys and _culs-de-sac_ in which nestle clusters of tiny huts and green patches of lupin; now plunging sheer down into the river; now receding inland and leaving space for a belt of cultivated soil and a fringe of feathery palms. By and by comes the sunset, when every cast shadow in the recesses of the cliffs turns to pure violet; and the face of the rock glows with a ruddier gold; and the palms on the western bank stand up in solemn bronze against a crimson horizon. Then the sun dips, and instantly the whole range of cliffs turns to a dead, greenish gray, while the sky above and behind them is as suddenly suffused with pink. When this effect has lasted for something like eight minutes, a vast arch of deep-blue shade, about as large in diameter as a rainbow, creeps slowly up the eastern horizon and remains distinctly visible as long as the pink flush against which it is defined yet lingers in the sky. Finally the flush fades out; the blue becomes uniform; the stars begin to show; and only a broad glow in the west marks which way the sun went down. About a quarter of an hour later comes the after-glow, when for a few minutes the sky is filled with a soft, magical light, and the twilight gloom lies warm upon the landscape. When this goes it is night; but still one long beam of light streams up in the track of the sun and remains visible for more than two hours after the darkness has closed in. Such is the sunset we see this evening as we approach Minieh; and such is the sunset we are destined to see, with scarcely a shade of difference, at the same hour and under precisely the same conditions for many a month to come. It is very beautiful, very tranquil, full of wonderful light and most subtle gradations of tone, and attended by certain phenomena of which I shall have more to say presently; but it lacks the variety and gorgeousness of our northern skies. Nor, given the dry atmosphere of Egypt, can it be otherwise. Those who go up the Nile expecting, as I did, to see magnificent Turneresque pageants of purple, and flame-color, and gold, will be disappointed as I was. For your Turneresque pageant cannot be achieved without such accessories of cloud and vapor as in Nubia are wholly unknown, and in Egypt are of the rarest occurrence. Once, and only once, in the course of an unusually protracted sojourn on the river, had we the good fortune to witness a grand display of the kind; and then we had been nearly three months in the dahabeeyah.