Evening.--We are lying eight miles below Thebes, which we expect to reach early to-morrow morning, and to receive and dispatch letters. So I must close this. We are writing at nine P.M., with almost all the cabin windows open. The day has been like one of July in England,--in one respect unusually like, for the sky has been overcast with light clouds, and the air sultry, ending as such a day might with a sudden and brief storm--of wind only, though it seemed about to rain; but it is now still, and the stars are shining out of a clear sky. TO CHARLES WRIGHT. NUBIA, BELOW DERR, January 21, 1869. Let me begin a line to you from this Æthiopian region. The object is to inclose to you some fresh seeds of Ficus sycomorus, the true sycamore or fool fig,--not bad to eat. They were gathered at the first cataract of the Nile, at ancient Syene, or between it and Philæ. I think you may like to send a part to Don José, for culture in Cuba, where it will be a good thing to have. And the rest, let Guerrineau try to raise some, that we may have one in the conservatory. I shall send, along with heavy things, some nuts of the Doum palm, Hyphæne Thebaica, which branches and is picturesque. That and the date palm are the principal trees here. Besides, there is Acacia Nilotica (the sont) and one or two other acacias, and an occasional sycamore. Below, a jujube tree was not uncommon, and plenty of the fine Acacia (or Albizzia) Lebbek, with its great flat pods and large leaflets. But none in Nubia. Up here the cultivable valley of the Nile is just the slope of the banks bared as the river subsides after the inundation, making a strip of green crops from five feet to five rods wide,--all else desert, either rock or sand as the case may be. We came twenty-four hours ago within the tropics,--a new thing for me, and I thought of Cuba and you. But it is just comfortably warm, 70° in the shade as I write,--has been 76°,--the nights down to 60° or so; just nice and comfortable if you keep out of the sun, which, though seemingly not hot, has an overpowering effect I never knew at home. Our winds are steady from north and northwest, pushing us up the river steadily. About sixty miles more, or may be seventy, is the second cataract, and our limit. Then we turn our faces north again, and descend, making our principal stops by the way. For thus far, we have stopped only little or briefly, taking only such sight-seeing as came in our way or took us little out of it. Yet we have had a glance at several of the greatest things. Abou-Simbel--the great rock temples of this region, and the main thing to go up into Nubia for--we hope to reach to-morrow or day after. We should have been there now, but were delayed at Assouan by long negotiations before we could get put up the Cataracts, and afterwards lost forty-eight hours by breaking the rudder of our larger boat. No letters till we get back to Thebes (Luxor)--some weeks hence. There I trust there is something from you....