THE OLD WAY AND THE NEW.

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HA

CHAPTER XI.

ASCENDING THE NILE.-SIGHTS AND SCENES ON THE RIVER.

AVING explored Cairo and its neighborhood to their satisfaction, our friends turned their attention to the Nile. They wished to make a voyage up the mysterious river as far as the first cataract. The time at their disposal did not permit them to plan a more extended journey.

They found on investigation that there were two ways of ascending the Nile, and each had its advantages and disadvantages.

The old way of making the journey is by sailing-boat, or dahabeeah. The more modern system is by steamboat, and before many years it will be possible to go by rail along the banks of the river to the first cataract, and ultimately to Khartoum and Gondokaro, if the present scheme of railways in Egypt is carried out.

The most comfortable form of travel on the Nile is by dahabecah, but it is also the most expensive, and requires more time than the steam

boat. From Cairo to the first cataract and back will require from six to eight weeks by dahabeeah, and if the journey is prolonged to the second cataract, two or three weeks must be added. Three weeks will cover the

ANCIENT BOAT ON THE NILE.

round trip to the first cataract and back by steamboat, and five weeks will include the second cataract.

For the steamboat trip you have no trouble except to buy your ticket, go on board at the appointed day and hour, and submit patiently to the various impositions devised by the contractors who manage the business. The movements of the boat are carefully arranged beforehand, and the time for visiting the various temples, tombs, and other interesting things on the journey, is all on the schedule of the dragoman or conductor. Travellers of various nationalities are herded together, and must move at the beck and call of the conductor. There is a printed programme of the places to be visited and the hours for visiting them, and if no accident happens you can count on being back in Cairo in twenty days and four hours from the time of starting.

A facetious traveller, who made the Nile journey by steamboat, says that the conductor of his party had a private programme on which was marked the time to be devoted to sentiment as well as to sight-seeing. As they approached the great hall of the Temple of Karnak the conductor glanced at his programme and said,

"Gentlemen, prepare for sublime emotion!"

Of course due preparations were made, and when the grandeur of the hall was visible they gave utterance to the regulation number of "ohs!" and "ahs!" When these were ended, and silence came again, the guide looked at his watch and called out,

"Five minutes for sublime emotion!"

When time was up they moved on. At another place they had "five minutes for musing on the decayed glories of ancient Egypt,” and at

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another they were requested to "think of the havoc that the centuries have wrought."

In travelling by dahabeeah you charter the boat, and make up your own party. In a general way you are your own master, and can say where, and for how long, you will stop. During the winter the wind blows pretty steadily from north to south, so that you sail up the Nile with the breeze in your favor. On the return the great sail is lowered, and the crew row the boat with the current. Their rowing is just enough to give steerage-way, and the flowing river brings you safely back to Cairo. The steamboat fare to the first cataract and back is £50 ($250), and to the second cataract £80 ($100). This includes meals, guides, donkeys, and some of the fees for seeing temples and tombs, but does not include saddles for riding the aforesaid donkeys, nor does it embrace the use of a chair for the deck of the boat. There are constant demands for backsheesh for various things, and the passengers are expected to make up a liberal purse at the end of the voyage for distribution among the officers, crew, and servants. About £5 ($25) will be needed for these inevitable "extras."

The dahabeeah journey will usually cost $1500 for two persons to the first cataract and back, and $2000 for four persons; about $500 should be added in each case for the second cataract. For these figures you can get a large, well-fitted boat, and will be entitled to live with every possible comfort. Smaller and plainer boats may be had for less money, and the food supplied by the dragoman will be correspondingly less luxurious. Prices vary according to the season, and the number of trav ellers desiring to make the journey, and it sometimes happens that a good boat may be had for less than the figures named above.

The dahabeeah journey can be made by time or by the course; either way is not altogether satisfactory, and a traveller who has made it by one method generally advises his friends to try the other. If you go by time, the dragoman manages to delay you as much as he can, and will invent unheard-of excuses for stopping the boat; if you go by the course, he hurries you along altogether too rapidly, and you often find that you have sailed by a place you specially desired to visit. All things considered, the best plan is to charter the boat by the course, with a stipulation for a certain number of days for stoppages at the interesting points. From fourteen to twenty days are the ordinary stipulations for stoppages, and the whole journey can be made from Cairo to the first cataract and back in about fifty days. [For forms of contract see Murray's "Handbook for Egypt."]

A dahabeeah journey would have made our friends too late for their contemplated trip to Palestine and Syria, and so they decided to go by steamboat.

They left Boulak one pleasant afternoon a few minutes past three o'clock, and steamed slowly up the river. The boys sat beneath the

awning that covered the deck and watched the gray walls of Cairo, the palaces and hovels, the gardens of the island of Rhoda, and the green fields that stretched out from the western bank till they met the glistening sands of the desert near the platform where the Pyramids of Gizeh rise toward the sky. On the other side of the river the Mokattam hills bounded the horizon, and marked the beginning of the Libyan Desert; the tufted palm-trees waved here and there, sometimes in clusters or groups, and at others standing solitary in the surrounding waste. On the land there were trains of stately camels, and on the water the boats of the natives ploughed slowly along, many of them laden till their gunwales were dangerously near the water. As the boat steamed onward, the Citadel of Cairo, with the slender minarets of the Mosque of Mohammed Ali, faded away in the distance, the broad valley became more and more enclosed, the hills seemed to shut in upon the river, and when the sun went down the great pyramids were little more than specks on the horizon, and just visible through the palm-trees.

Having seen the Doctor and his young friends well under-way toward the South, we will rely for a while on the journal which was kept by Frank and Fred. After recording their departure from Cairo, and briefly describing the scenes on the river, the journal says:

"We were told that the steamers did not run at night on account of the liability to get on sand-bars, and the possibility of collisions with sail

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ing boats. True to the promise, the boat came to anchor soon after sunset; or, rather, it was brought to the bank and made fast. We were just below a small village, and wanted to go to see it, but the guide said it was unsafe to venture there after dark, on account of the number of dogs prowling about. Egyptian dogs have a great antipathy to foreigners, as we have already learned, and are not to be carelessly approached.

"The Orientals regard the dog as an unclean beast, and do not keep him for a pet, as is the custom of Europe and America. Consequently, nearly all the dogs you see around an Eastern city are houseless and homeless, and a very ordinary set of curs they are. There are great numbers of them, and they manage to pick up a living by serving as scavengers, and by stealing whenever they have a chance. They do not disturb the natives, but have such a hatred for strangers that they are

often dangerous; they have no terror for sticks and whips, and the only way to drive them is by pelting them with stones. In the daytime they rarely do more than bark and growl; but at night they are bolder, and as they can sneak up to you under cover of the darkness, you must look out for their teeth.

"We were off by daybreak the next morning, and as there was a mist hanging over the river the scenery was of no special consequence. About eight o'clock we stopped at a village to get some milk; Fred and I followed the conductor, and were soon in a tangle of narrow lanes and mud huts that seemed a perfect labyrinth. The dogs barked, chickens cackled and flew to shelter, as if they knew that the advent of strangers was the signal for them to be killed, and two or three cows took fright at our