We had found Mohammed very active, attentive, and ready in the departments in which we had hitherto employed him, but we were now about to put his culinary abilities to the test.  He spoke very tolerable English, but surprised us a little by inquiring whether we should like an Irish stew for dinner.  A fowl was killed and picked in a trice, and Mohammed had all his own way, excepting with regard to the onions, which were, in his opinion, woefully restricted.  A fowl stewed with butter and potatoes, and garnished with boiled eggs, is no bad thing, especially when followed by a dessert of fresh dates, grapes, and pomegranates.  A clerk of Mr. Waghorn’s, an European, who had the charge of the mails, went up in the boat with us; but as we could not possibly afford him any accommodation in our cabin, his situation at the prow must have been very uncomfortable.  He was attended by a servant; there were ten or twelve boatmen, which, together with Mohammed and the janissary, completely crowded the deck, so that it was impossible for them all to lie down at full length.

I have not said a word about the far-famed river, which I had so long and so anxiously desired to see; the late inundations had filled it to the brim, consequently it could not have been viewed at a more favourable period; but I was dreadfully disappointed.  In a flat country, like Lower Egypt, I had not expected any thing beyond luxuriance of vegetation; but my imagination had been excited by ideas of groves of palms.  I found the date trees so thinly scattered, as to be quite insignificant as a feature in the scene, and except when we came to a village, there were no other.

The wind being strong, we got on at first at a rapid rate, and as we carried a press of sail, the boat lay over completely, as to put the gunwale (as I believe it is called) in the water.  We looked eagerly out, pleased when we saw some illustration of old customs with which the Bible had made us acquainted, or when the janissary, who was an intelligent person, pointed to a Bedouin on the banks.  Miss E. flattered herself that she had caught sight of a crocodile, and as she described the huge jaws of some creature gaping out of the water, I thought that she was right, and envied her good fortune:  however, afterwards, being assured that crocodiles never make their appearance below Cairo, I was convinced that, unaccustomed to see animals belonging to the Bovine group in a foreign element, she had taken the head of a buffalo emerging from the river, for one of the classic monsters of the flood.  When weary of looking out, without seeing any thing but sky and water, and a few palm trees, I amused myself with reading Wordsworth, and thus the day passed away.