We passed Edfou in the night, and awoke to the view of scenery altogether differing from that which had accompanied us so long. A low line of hills had started up from the level land, here and there pinnacled by a ruined tower, a sole survivor and testimony of cities, nameless now even to the imagina. tive antiquary. These hills open into glens, once gardens, perhaps, or populous thoroughfares; but now the lonely Arab goatherd, or the wolf, is the only distu: ber of their silence. Not a village is in sight, but a belt of the richest vegetation borders the river; waving corn, some green, some golden; lupines in flower, beans, and other fragrant blossoms. This is bordered by a line of rushes, and then the desert spreads abroad its interminable tracts of low sandy undulations. We are now approaching the utmost boundary of ancient. Egypt, beyond which lay Ethiopia, where Jupiter used to dine. once a year, in a quiet way, with the religious fashionables of that respectable nation. As we approach the ancient Syene, the hills grow loftier and darker. Palm groves again ornament the valleys, enormous masses of granite shoot up from the river, a pretty villa appears on the left, a ruined castle on the right, and we come into sight of the most romantic spot of Egypt, which seems, like an artful tragedy, to keep its best scene for its last. CHAPTER XXII. ASSOUAN, AND THE CITIES OF EGYPT. We have passed over cities in song renowned; Silent they lie with the desert around: We have passed o'er the river whose tide hath rolled F. HEMANS. ASSOUAN, called in Coptic, Souan, which means "an opening," stands at the entrance of the valley of the Nile. Here the river, narrowed into a rocky channel, displays a sportiveness and activity elsewhere unknown to it, except among the cataracts. The island of Elephantina, very rich in very broken ruins, divides the river opposite the town; shaded with palm-trees, and carpeted with gay weeds, it seems still to lay claim to its ancient epithet of the "Isle of Flowers." A grove of palms stands between the modern town and the river; and above and beyond this grove, tower dark-red granite cliffs, crowned with ruins, that give it a very picturesque appearance. Beyond this, lie traces of the ancient Syene; and, among the rocky eminences, the track of wheels still points out where ran the ancient streets. The denunciation of Ezekiel is indeed fulfilled:-"The tower of Syene has fallen from her pride of power;" and nothing can be imagined more utterly lonely than this deserted city. Not a sound was to be heard, except the roar of the cataract and the twitter of the solitary sparrow. Ornithologists assert that this hermit-bird is only to be found at Rome, Agrigentum, and some other place; but, if the only creature of his kind found in a place like this, does not bear that name, he deserves it. Many Cufic inscriptions and some hieroglyphics are visible on these rock-ruins; and in the quarries the mark of the chisel is as fresh as if the workmen were at dinner round the corner there, whilst a huge obelisk stands out from its quarry ready for removal. There is a cemetery, too, in the neighborhood, which seems less lonely in its silence than the city to whose millions it once afforded their only real rest; and, that nothing might be wanted to the desolation of the scene, a vaguely-wailing wind came over the desert as we watched the sun go down, and seemed full at once of foreboding and of mournful memories. Immediately on our landing, a crowd came down from the village to sell their little commodities, or to stare at the white strangers. Darker, but more regular features, and smooth, shining hair, bespoke a change of population. These are, for the most part, Nubians; but there is a considerable mixture of Saracenic and even of Bosniak blood, left here three hundred and thirty years ago, in garrison, by Sultan Selim. A slave-caravan has just arrived from the interior; and we found numerous groups of slaves, apparently unguarded, strewn about among the palm groves. Some of the old women were making bread of millet-flour on a smooth stone, but the greater part were either sleeping, or chatting under the shadow of their familiar palm. In the evening, the Greek, to whom I have alluded in the tenth chapter, paid us a visit. He was a physician, and endeavored to support himself by his profession, but he complained that the people were dreadfully healthy; and the few patients he had were so poor, that they could not afford to be cured of fever, dysentery, ophthalmia, and one or two nameless complaints. We sat chatting with this murderer until very late; when, just over the temple on the isle of Elephantina, I observed a pale column of light flashing from the palm-trees upward into the deep blue sky. We thought it was a lunar rainbow, though the moon was only three days old, and there was not a vapor in all the sky. Our friend, the man of blood, called it "l'Arco di Noà," and the natives, "Abou Saheel," which means the "lucky patriarch." This was the comet that created such a sensation in England; but we of Assouan-Greek, English, and Egyptian-took it to be one of those "Tearless rainbows, such as span Arrived at Assouan, the old Syene, we have reached the boundary betwixt Egypt and Ethiopia; and, before we enter on the latter country, it seems fit to take a survey of that which we are about to leave. Though I have spared the reader the description of many a spot that wearied my foot to explore, and my thought to investigate, let him not therefore suppose that such places were unvisited, or that the spirit of adventure slept among such stirring scenes. It would not be just, however, to Egypt to pass over in utter silence the marvellous objects which her ancient inhabitants have left the modern world to gaze at and puzzle over. I shall therefore run rapidly over the places of chief interest that we visited, as far as Denderah. From thence the country is so rich in wonders that we deferred exploring it until our return northward should afford us more leisure to enjoy it.* * * * * * Who has not voyaged on the Rhine, and, as he glided down that noble river, felt an absorbing interest in the busy cities and calm solitudes; the vineyards and fortresses; the castled crags, where the banners of old History are still visible to the imaginative eye; and the deep glens, where lurks many a legend believed by the imaginative heart; all following in succession as uninterrupted, and more rapid than the thought which strives to follow! Imagine, then, a river, flowing from the undiscovered depths of Africa, wider, larger, mightier far, whose shores are lined with cities, and temples that were already in ruins when the sources of the Rhine were as unknown as are now the sources of the Nile.t For a distance of eight hundred miles you glide along this sacred and mysterious stream; not with the rapid rush of the * The reader will find details relating to the Natural History of Egypt in the Appendix. "The Rhine takes its rise in the most hidden parts of the earth, in a region of perpetual night, amidst forests for ever inaccessible to human footsteps"-Pliny, iii., 24, who writes in a time when the travellers of his day spoke of ruined Egypt as we do now steam-vessel, but tranquilly and thoughtfully, as in a Venetian. gondola, under the shade of the African palm, and among the lotus lilies of Egyptian mythology, fanned by airs redolent of perfumes rare even in our luxurious drawing-rooms. On the desert sands the giraffe and the gazelle are grazing; on the banks the crocodile is basking; the pelican is gliding by, and the ibis soars over the mounds of buried cities "with pale white wing, Like phantom o'er a grave." Here, you pass a column, or a propylon, sole remnant of some city once more populous than the whole surrounding lonely region now; there, some mud-built walls show where the modern Egyptian dwells, in himself as widely differing from his predecessor, probably, as does his clayey shed from their magnificent edifices. You are traversing the same river that has borne the Egyp tian, the Ethiopian, the Assyrian, the Persian, the Roman, and the Saracen; and, between the stream of time which Memory traces, and the practical one on which you float, there seems such a strict, yet confusing analogy, that the Pyramids might almost seem the milestones by which Time counted his progress; and the cities, in their varied stages of decay, brick-and-mortar epochs by which Memory traces the progress of Time's stream. From city to village, and from temple to tomb, there is many a deep glen and wild desert intervening; but these leave no blank to the attentive ear and eye. If the city has its history, and the tomb its epitaph, the mountain and the valley have their legends; and this traditionary lore seems at least as ancient and as pure as the prouder history, that is more indebted to its oral voice than it would fain allow. The temples and the monuments relate their own stories in paragraphs of hawks, bulls, chariots, conquerors, eyes, serpents, and other idolatrous-looking letters; the glen and desert also have their stories, and they are borne witness to by living illustrations. 'Lo, upon yonder mountain that o'ershadows Cairo," says the peasant, "rests the imprint of Mahommed's sacred foot; the |