Or this of Keats, written in competition with Leigh Hunt and Shelley:-'

"Son of the old moon-mountains African!

Stream of the Pyramid and Crocodile!
We call thee fruitful, and that very while
A desert fills our seeing's inward span :
Nurse of swart nations since the world began
Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile
Those men to honour thee, who, worn with toil,
Rest them a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan?
O may dark fancies err! They surely do;
'Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste

Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew

Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste
The pleasant sun-rise. Green isles hast thou too,

And to the sea as happily dost haste."

"Now, as we've nothing to do all this afternoon but watch the Eternal Nile, I propose that we should try and evolve something better than Shelley or Keats. The Scribbler, of course, will do it easily, as he criticises so freely.”

"Excuse me, but that's illogical," said the Scribbler. "Because I criticise the cut of your tailor, it doesn't follow that I'm bound to prove my right to criticise by making a better pair of breeches; but I'm quite willing to undertake finding you something better than those lines you've just read."

"Agreed!" said the Pasha; "and I elect myself judge-competition verses to be read during dinner."

It is in descending the river that you see it at its best. The Gebel Silsileh stand out with a bolder front approaching them from the north than from the south. Edfoo breaks upon you at a sudden bend of the river, from which you see the long reach to El Kab, and then come sweeping down on Esneh, with its rows of palms. The north wind blowing fresh in one's face mitigates the oppressive heat of the sun, and curls up the river in dancing waves. At sunset the Cleopatra was approaching Luxor; the sun setting behind her threw the long shadows of her mast on the water; and ahead the spires of Karnac seemed to be apparent through a broad faint rainbow, which on the horizon spanned from

desert to desert.

"That, if anything, ought to inspire poetry even in the Scribbler," said the Pasha. "Now, then, competitor of Shelley, strike the lyre !"

"My lyre has no pretence to originality," said the Scribbler. "I've heard the Nabob trying for the last half-hour to get an appropriate rhyme to 'face.' Let him begin."

LEIGH HUNT ON THE NILE.

155

"All true poets," said the Nabob, "require time to polish the efforts of their genius; but as I believe I'm the only one who has the moral courage to brave your sneers, I accept the challenge, and await annihilation, Read!" and he passed a paper to the Pasha.

"Father of waters!' I knew every one would begin with that :

'Father of waters! thou whose stream hath borne

Earth's sons for ages past thy banks serene,

So bear thou us; nor visit with just scorn
This band of noisy revellers, who, between
Sun rise and set, with jest and laughter keen,

Deride the beauties of thy classic face.
Forgive our mirth; nor yet for what hath been
Invoke revenge, since now, with soberer face,

In fear we move, and humbly ask for grace.'"'

There was a pause, till, with an effort at appearing unconscious, the Nabob said, "What a splendid propylon!"

"I'm wondering why the banks are 'serene,'" said the Scribbler.

"If you were not possessed with a mean spirit of envy," said the Nabob, "you would recognise that it was the only available rhyme. But now, your own!"

.

"I've none of the divine afflatus, my dear fellow, and wouldn't dare to go into competition with you. It is merely over Shelley that I claim a superiority for Leigh Hunt. I knew these lines before I knew the Nile, and don't think that the river itself has made me know them better:

It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream;
And times and things, as in that vision, seem

Keeping along it their eternal stands,

-

Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands

That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme

Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,

The laughing queen, that caught the world's great hands.
Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,

As of a world left empty of its throng,

And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,

And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake.'"

"Yes, after that we may all be silent," said the Pasha; preparation for Karnac by moonlight, and here we are at Luxor. shore here for at least half-an-hour, but you may as well drop temple, and I'll join you there later."

An hour later the Pasha joined them in the hypostyl hall.

"it's a fitting

I must go on down to the

"Conceal your joy," he said; "I've found you a fellow-passenger. I came to the conclusion we were all getting tired of one another; the Scribbler has exhausted his politics, the Sketcher his block notes, and the Nabob his poetical genius."

"We're doing very well as we are," said the last-named. "Who on earth have you got?"

"A man of one idea, who is dying for converts. We've only got to stand him for a day; and he's original, if nothing else. He's generally known as the Professor, though he resents the title as derogatory, for he tells you that he has passed beyond the professing stage, and considers his theories so absolutely proved that they require no demonstration."

"But what is his particular theory?"

"I wouldn't tell you for worlds-first, because it would anticipate the intellectual repast you are going to have to-morrow; and secondly, because I've never been able to get to the bottom of it. He joins to-morrow morning before we start, and you'll have had more than enough of it before you get to Asyoot. So come on board, turn in, and prepare for a tedious day.

B

CHAPTER XIX.

The new arrival-Sleep a luxury-The sleepless Joseph-Joseph the creator of Egypt -A new theory-Fayoum and the Land of Goshen―The Bahr Fussef the work of Patriarch Joseph-Tradition of Murtadi―The creation of the Fayoum-An original derivation-The field of Zoan and the land of Ham-Israelite exodus— Did they cross the Nile ?—The blessing of Jacob—Jacob's will and testament—A new reading of an old text-Qualified approbation-Back to Shepheard's.

THE

HE next morning the Nabob was awakened by a shrill voice-"Yes, that will do that will do. Thank you-certainly-of course-of course. Throw it on board; don't make a noise, and on no account wake anybody;" and a bulky carpet-bag came against the Nabob's head, and nearly rolled over the side.

"Are there many more coming?" said the Nabob rising, and holding the first projectile as a buffer to ward off any further attack, "or may I fling this overboard?"

"I beg your pardon a thousand times," said the other; "I'm afraid I disturbed you; but I cannot help looking upon your presence there as providential. But for your head, now, that might have rolled overboard," he said with a look which combined gratitude and an appeal for sympathy.

"I confess," said the Nabob, feeling his head, "I regard it in another light. The ways of Providence, at all events, seem to be one-sided in this case."

158

THE SLEEPLESS JOSEPH.

"Ah! yes; I'm afraid it may have hurt you; but if it had gone overboard the loss would have been irreparable-utterly irreparable; not to me-not so much to me--but to the world at large. The future of more than Egypt itself depends upon that bag," he said, taking his seat upon it.

"I'm glad it's safe then," said the Nabob; "but being so, perhaps, as it's early, you won't mind my going to sleep, again with a consciousness that for once my head has saved the world?" and he turned round in his rug.

"Certainly, certainly of course, of course. I never sleep myself never require it- never have done for years. Did you ever try to do with

out it?"

"I can't say I have," said the other.

“Oh, you should—you should; simplest thing in the world; purely matter of habit."

"But I can't say I've any intention of trying to contract the habit just yet; so I'll get a sleep first, and discuss it afterwards."

"Quite right-quite right; at least, no-quite wrong, quite wrong. Do you know now," said the new-comer, argumentatively, "that there's no evidence in the Pentateuch to prove that either Moses or Joseph ever slept; in fact, as regards the latter, it's conclusive that he didn't?"

The high tone of the speaker had now succeeded in awaking all the occupants of the deck. The Nabob gave it up as a bad job.

"And how on earth do you prove that?" asked the Scribbler.

"Because he could never have accomplished the work in Egypt that he did if he did so."

"I thought Joseph dreamed dreams," said the Sketcher.

"Precisely," said the other; " and that proves my proposition, for his brain never slept. So the evidence is conclusive on that point, even if we could assume it possible that he had time to sleep and yet achieve his work in Egypt."

"And what was that ?" asked the Scribbler.

"What was that?" asked the Professor aghast; "what was that? Why, the making of Egypt. The evidence is conclusive that Egypt was the creation of Joseph, as I will prove to you."

"Well, before beginning, we'd better dress and have some coffee," said the Pasha.

The Professor was left pacing the deck and gesticulating to himself; he was evidently arranging an oft-repeated lecture; and hardly were they seated at table before he began.