Such were the scenes that now passed before my eyes, and mingled with the reveries that floated through my mind, as our boat, with its high, capacious sail, swept over the flood. Though the occurrences of the last few days appeared to me one series of wonders, yet by far the most miraculous wonder of all was, that she, whose first look had sent wild‐ fire into my heart,—whom I had thought of ever since with a restlessness of passion, that would have dared any thing on earth to obtain its object,—was now sleeping sacredly in that small pavilion, while guarding her, even from myself, I lay calmly at its threshold. Meanwhile, the sun had reached his meridian. The busy hum of the morning had died gradually away, and all around was sleeping in the hot stillness of noon. The Nile‐goose, folding her splendid wings, was lying motionless on the shadow of the sycamores in the water. Even the nimble lizards upon the bank seemed to move more languidly, as the light fell upon their gold and azure hues. Overcome as I was with watching, and weary with thought, it was not long before I yielded to the becalming influence of the hour. Looking fixedly at the pavilion,—as if once more to assure my senses, that I was not already in a dream, but that the young Egyptian was really there,—I felt my eyes close as I looked, and in a few minutes sunk into a profound sleep. CHAP. XII. It was by the canal through which we now sailed, that, in the more prosperous days of Memphis, the commerce of Upper Egypt and Nubia was transported to her magnificent Lake, and from thence, having paid tribute to the queen of cities, was poured out again, through the Nile, into the ocean. The course of this canal to the river was not direct, but ascending in a south‐easterly direction towards the Saïd; and in calms, or with adverse winds, the passage was tedious. But as the breeze was now blowing freshly from the north, there was every prospect of our reaching the river before night‐fall. Rapidly, too, as our galley swept along the flood, its motion was so smooth as to be hardly felt; and the quiet gurgle of the waters underneath, and the drowsy song of the boatman at the prow, alone disturbed the deep silence that prevailed. The sun, indeed, had nearly sunk behind the Libyan hills, before the sleep, in which these sounds lulled me, was broken; and the first object, on which my eyes rested, in waking, was that fair young Priestess,—seated under a porch by which the door of the pavilion was shaded, and bending intently over a small volume that lay unrolled on her lap.