Directly after breakfast this morning we hired donkeys to take us to the second cataract. All was still and silent as we rode over the loose, shifting sand of the desert. Nothing living was to be seen. We passed some skeletons of dromedaries which had been bleached by the sun and wind. They made the silence and desolation seem the greater. After riding for about an hour and a half we came to the first rocky islands. About an hour more brought us to the Rock of Abousir. [Illustration: PAPYRUS ON THE NILE.] The view here was indeed grand. The second cataract covers a space of about seven miles in length. The river bursts its way among numberless rocky islets. Some of these are so small that they are hardly more than large stones; some are rocks of considerable size; others are larger, islands of rock and sand. Between them all the rapids rush headlong, throwing up their foam on every side. There are trees on some of the islands, and five of the largest at the northern extreme of the cataract are inhabited. Far off to the south we saw what looked like a dark-blue cloud, and were told that it was the mountains of Dongola. We wished that we could have gone to them. On the side next the cataract the Rock of Abousir is like a straight wall. On the desert side it is a succession of crags. We found the names of various celebrated travellers on these rocks, amongst others that of Belzoni. We gazed at them with a thrill of interest, and lingered long looking at the beautiful view and scanning the names of the travellers, great and small, who had visited the rock. What would we not have given at that moment to go farther and track the grand river to its source! But it was impossible! We must turn back at this point and begin our homeward journey down the Nile. Wadee Halfeh, the highest point we reached on our journey up the Nile, is very picturesque. The houses are built in groups, and most of them are surrounded by palm-groves. They are of mud, but are generally larger and cleaner than those of the Egyptian peasants. We went into one. Its mistress had a double row of plaits round her forehead, oiled to an extreme degree. The people are generally well dressed and appear comfortable. We left Wadee Halfeh at dawn, on our return down the river to Cairo, and arrived at Aboo Simbel, or Ipsambul as it is sometimes called, in time to see the temples before dusk. The sand-drifts of hundreds and hundreds of years had once covered these temples, so much so that nothing could be seen but the giant head of one statue. Burckhardt was the first traveller who discovered them. In the year, 1817, Belzoni, in company with Captain Irby and Captain Mangles, began to clear away the sand.