[Illustration: Salem Ghesiri Dragoman.] right bank seemed peopled with silhouettes of camels, donkeys, and men, while the figures on the opposite bank were rose-color. To us the day was cool, but to the crew it must have been cold, for their heads were wrapped in shawls and they huddled together in groups about the deck. The awning over us had been removed, and Ali, the pilot, looked like a partly unwrapped mummy as he sat at the wheel. Those who go up the river in a dahabiyeh like to feel that they are in the same boat with the travelers whose books they read from New York to Port Saïd. This would be a very pleasant feeling, if it did not suggest the responsibility of keeping a record of days that, from all accounts, are sure to be of so much importance. There is a [Illustration: A Karnak Beggar.] [Illustration: All, the Pilot.] sentimental belief that each day on the river is to be of the greatest importance, just as if thousands of tourists on Cook’s steamers were not taking the same journey each year. So overpowering becomes this delusion that even letters home seem to take the form of historic biographies, and sound like messages that are sometimes found floating in bottles thrown overboard by shipwrecked people. The Nile itself seems to insist that all mention of it should be made in the form of a diary, for, with very few exceptions, all accounts adopt that mode of expression when they come to it. Cairo and [Illustration: Statue of Thothmes, Karnak.] Upper Egypt may be treated in the form of essays, but the endless parallel banks of the river immediately suggest that all days will be very much alike and lose their identity, unless they are numbered and described. It seems to be of the greatest importance to find the best way to spell the name of the mud village where you tie up for the night (which name most of the guide-books spell differently)--as if it made any difference to the people at home. But the diaries on the _Nitocris_ during that month were very conscientious and particular about these small things, and I think they will all agree in their spelling, for each one of us waited until all the others had agreed upon the most popular way to spell the names of these various landmarks before we wrote them down. We soon made friends with our crew. There were sixteen of them. They were [Illustration: Lunching in Karnak.] [Illustration: An Assiût Donkey.] from every part of Egypt, and of all colors, shading from the engineer, who was a cream-colored Turk,--when his face was washed,--to Ali, who must have been a Sudanese. Our head steward was almost as black, and the second steward was another of the cream-colored variety. We seldom saw the cook. Sometimes he would put his head and shoulders out of the hatchway, with his arms on the deck, and then we could see that he was a little, white-faced Turk with a large black mustache.