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As, with the exception of its oppressiveness, the Kramsin did not appear to bring very terrible evils, we went ashore with our fowling pieces, and went in search of the river-birds. We strolled along the banks like true sportsmen of the plains of St. Denis, only that we had a greater abundance of game. We killed some herons, and a quantity of larks and pigeons.

Towards evening a cry of recall, followed by songs, brought us back to the bark, where we found our crew in jubilation. The Kramsin was over, and our sailors leaped for joy, and to refresh themselves bathed their arms and persons in the water of the Nile. This European form of bathing restored my individuality, so I resolved that the fête should not terminate without my having a share. I undressed myself in a moment and making a spring from the bark, plunged head foremost into the river. When I came to the surface of the water I saw the entire crew gazing at me with fixed attention. I knew that there were no crocodiles in the Nile below the first cataract; so that conceiving no other danger, I could not explain the interest which all seemed to take in a way so flattering to my vanity. My strength and skill were redoubled; I showed them all the tricks, motions, and bounds in the repertory of natation; but just as I was about to display "the stiff-float," I received in the right leg

an electric shock, so violent, that half my body was paralyzed. I turned over to swim to the vessel, but felt that I could not reach the boat without assistance. Half laughing, half shreiking, I asked for the pole, holding my right arm out of the water and trying to support myself with the left; my right leg was quite numbed and incapable of any motion. Luckily, Mohammed, as if he had foreseen the accident which happened, remained on board the jerm, holding a rope which he threw me; I griped one end, he pulled by the other, and I got on board the bark in a far less triumphant manner than I had left it. Still, judging by the jocular carelessness with which the Arabs surrounded me, I supposed that the adventure had nothing in it very perilous; but I did not the less desire to know the cause, that it might serve as a warning in future.

Mohammed told me that besides a vast number of fishes, delicious to the epicure and interesting to the naturalist, the Nile contained a species of torpedo, whose electrical powers were so well known to the Arabs, that dreading the painful sensation I had experienced, they were content, as I had seen, to wash with precaution their hands and faces in the river. What appeared to me clearer than the rest was, that if electricity was disagreeable to them for themselves, they had no objection to study its effects upon Europeans. The explanation lasted

rather longer than the pain; before Mohammed had finished, my leg and arm resumed their accustomed functions.

The wind suddenly lulled. We resolved to dine on the produce of our sporting excursion; the meal was served on board. After dinner we examined our carpets, for fear that some scorpion might be disposed to renew the joke of the torpedo, which would have been rather more inconvenient. This time it was the Arabs who recommended such a precaution. This care accomplished, we went to sleep in hopes of seeing Cairo the next morning, from which we were only seven or eight leagues distant.

61

V. CAIRO.

THE next morning at daybreak we weighed anchor, and rapidly approached the pyramids, which on their side seemed to come forward and salute us. At the base of the naked and sterile Libyan chain, we began to perceive the towers and domes of mosques surmounted by bronze crescents, through a dense sandy mist. By degrees this curtain, driven before us by the north wind which wafted our bark, was raised up over Cairo, revealing to us the lofty pinnacles of the city, while the base was concealed by the elevated banks of the river. We advanced rapidly, and were soon abreast of the pyramids of Ghizeh. At a little distance on the same bank, was a waving forest of palm-trees, which occupies the site of ancient Memphis, and shades the bank where the daughter of Pharaoh walked, when she saved Moses from the waters. Above these palms, in a fog not of mist but of sand, we distinguished the ruddy summits of the pyramids of Sakkara, those venerable ancestors of the pyramids of Ghizeh. We passed several boats laden with slaves; one of them contained females. When our patron saw them, he drove a knife into the mast, and threw salt into the river. This double operation was designed to avert

the influence of "the evil eye." The spell was efficacious; an hour after, we disembarked at Shubra, on the right bank of the Nile. They showed us at some distance the Pacha's country-house; it was a charming residence, surrounded with bloom and verdure.

We found again donkeys and drivers; the former finer and larger than those of Alexandria; the latter more pressing and more vigorous competitors, if possible, than their brethren on the sea-coast. This time, warned by experience, we managed matters quietly, and taking our road through a delicious whose dark dome intercepted the grove of sycamores, rays of the sun, we set off at a pace likely to carry us soon over the league which we had to travel.

All the difference which landing had made in our mode of travelling was, that instead of ascending the Nile in a boat, we galloped along the banks on donkeys. As we were elevated about thirty feet above the river, our horizon was now more extensive; we saw opposite us the isle of Rondah, the base of the monument where the Nilometer is kept, an instrument designed to measure the height of the inundations of the Nile: lines traced on it indicate the years when the rise of the river, attaining an unusual elevation, brought seasons of memorable fertility. Here annually the sheikhs of the mosques, by publishing the height of the waters, give the exact

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