Having heard much of the beauty of the full moon at Phylæ, timed my visit to see it, and was entirely delighted. The light was so brilliant that one could read with ease, but at the same time so soft, so rich, and so mellow that one seemed not to see the night, but to be dreaming of the day. The Arabs say of a fine night, "it is a night like milk," but there is more of amber than of milk in the nights of Phylæ. The rising of the moon last night was the first thing of the sort I ever saw; the disc was perfectly golden, not as in a mist, but set sharp and clear in the sky, and exactly like the sun, except that you could look at it without pain to the eyes. The effect of this effulgent light on the shoulder of the hill was magical. The last hour of the afternoon I spent in strolling about the villages, which are picturesque. The cottages are four brown, roofless walls, built of the usual unburnt brick, and coated with mud; but the doorways are always highly decorated with painted geometrical devices which, in the mass of plain, sober brown, have a very cheerful and artistic effect. The people, too, amuse me; a pleasant, gentle, grinning folk these Nubians seem; I like their jargon--after the guttural Arabic it sounds so soft and round, and the women have funny, cooing inflections of voice (pretty voices, often) that are pleasing. Some of the girls are good-looking; chiefly through the brightness of their eyes and the milky whiteness of their teeth. The coiffure of the children is too funny; it consists in tufts of hair of various shapes and patterns left on an otherwise shaven head; often a crest all down the middle and a tuft on each side, exactly like the clown's wig in a pantomime; it is irresistibly droll. A grand sight is to see the villagers keeping the birds from their crops; they all serve in their turn, men, women, and children; they stand each on a rude sort of scaffold which rises about two feet clear of the corn; they are armed with slings from which they hurl lumps of clay at the birds, uttering loud cries at the same time. Their movements are full of grandeur and character. I wonder Gérôme has never treated a subject so well suited to him. Why, too, has he never painted mine enemy the sakkea, which is even more emphatically in his way, for, besides the scope for fine and quaint forms both in the men and the animals that work it, the accessories are abundant and interesting, and there are ropes in great abundance.