playing a double pipe, other figures making music upon the harp, an ape playing the guitar, the Pharaoh offering festal coronets, flowers, and wine to the goddess of joy, and the little dancing god Bes leaping about and beating a tambourine. The water was not silent here, for the evening breeze ruffled the surface and sent the ripples whispering into the sanctuary; and in answer to the mood of the place we splashed through it, laughed at little Bes, and sat whistling a tune upon a fallen column. Then, as the early stars came out, we dived through a small side-door, submerged almost to the lintel, and, thus leaving the temple, swam across open water towards the kiosk. Looking beneath us as we went, we could sometimes discern the buildings below, and could catch glimpses of strange shapes as we glided over the altars of forsaken shrines and struck the bubbles down into the faces of gods and Pharaohs. The half-seen ruins in the depths of the water took hold of the imagination and suggested much to the mind that would have been scorned in other circumstances. What spirits of the Nile dwelt in these sunken chambers?--what cities of the river were approached through these dusky halls? If only one could have breath to dive down through that dark doorway below the water, down the wide stairs, and along the passage ...! The reflections of the gathering stars suggested that there were little lamps to light the way below; and presently, no doubt, we should swim into the illumination of fairy palaces, and come suddenly upon the enchanted maidens of the deep. They would take hold of us with their cool hands, glide over us with their soft limbs, and entangle us with their hair. The summons of their eyes would lead us onwards till their cold lips touched ours; and thus down to fantastic depths they would beguile us, through chambers of silver lit by a thousand stars, to halls of gold illumined by many a sun. Their hands would hold our hands, feel the muscles of our arms, and touch our faces; and ever they would lead us onwards, till of a sudden we should stand blinded at the doorway of that shining cavern wherein the old god Khnum dispensed the floods of the Nile and ordered their going.