“But, sir,” interrupted the lawyer--for Mr Lascelles Hamilton having commenced, might have spoken for half an hour without a pause--“you are aware the Arabs call the Nile El Bahr, or the sea.” “Perfectly aware of the fact--though they don’t pronounce the word exactly as you do,” exclaimed the speaking machine, “and consider it another proof what a humbug that said Nile is. Why, you may see him at the Vatican with thirty children about him; while after all he has only seven here in Egypt, where you can count their mouths as they kiss the sea.” “But, sir, you must take into consideration the fertilising effects of the waters of the river, which made Homer say that they descended from heaven.” “Why, so they do: old Homer laid aside _his_ humbug for once; he knew the effects of a monsoon, and meant to say heavy rain makes rivers swell--so the Nile’s a river and nothing like the sea. Let me ask you now, Mr Ringlady--can you tell me why the Arabs call the Nile the sea, before we proceed?” The learned Mr Ringlady was not quite prepared to answer this sudden query; so he replied at random-- “The Arabs think it looks like the sea.” “Not a bit of it. They call it the sea because it is not the least like the sea. Just as you call Britain Great because it is not enormously big, and France _la belle_, because it’s ugly _par excellence_.” The travellers at last reached the valley called the Wadi Tomlat, which is an oasis running into the desert to the eastward at right angles to the course of the Nile. In ancient times, the waters of the river, overflowing into this valley, and filtering through the sand into the low lands which extend over a considerable part of the Isthmus of Suez, formed the rich pastures called in Scripture the land of Goshen. In this district, the Jewish people multiplied from a family to a nation. Our travellers skirted this singular valley on its southern side, in order to avoid passing through the town in its centre, called Tel el Wadi. And after leaving behind them the utmost boundary of the cultivated fields, they crossed a stream of fresh water even at that season of the year, which, however, soon disappears in a small stagnant lake.