more full of strange shadows and illusions.  On such occasions it is difficult even for the least imaginative to check a thought of what that pale, thoughtful-looking orb, which has watched the changing aspects of this scene for so many thousand years, could tell if it had a tongue!  We gazed inquiringly at it; but as it rose higher and higher, and poured down more light on all objects around, it seemed to smile at our inquisitiveness, and to bid us turn less eager glances towards the dust and rubbish of old times, where perchance we may find a precious stone, perchance a bit of broken glass—­but bend our eyes more steadfastly to the future, the centuries unborn, the inevitable, though not yet created infinite.

Edfou is situated at a little distance inland on the western bank of the Nile.  As usual, the land in the neighbourhood of the river is high in comparison with that which is beyond—­that is to say, there is a continual descending slope to the edge of the desert, where at this time of year there is, as it were, a succession of large ponds, water-channels, and marshes.  It is impossible to reach the desert except by a long, elevated, tortuous dike, which begins near the town and terminates near the foot of a spur of the Libyan chain, some three or four miles distant.  By the aid of the telescope we could distinguish in the niches of the rock a variety of dark spots resembling the entrances of grottos; and, hearing that others had made the same observation, though without undertaking the fatigue of a visit, we determined to set out next morning, and combine a little sporting with antiquity-hunting.

Though the sun was not very high, it was sufficiently warm when we started, and we had good reason for anticipating a broiling ride.  At this point there is not an atom of shade, not the semblance of a tree between the river and the stony desert.  All the palm-groves cluster round the town of Edfou and the villages north and south.  We were soon upon the dusty dike, which, as we proceeded, seemed to lift us higher and higher above the level plain, half bright-green, half sheeted with water, that lay in death-like repose, and reflected the sun’s rays like a burnished mirror.  It soon appeared that our anticipations of good sport were not to be disappointed:  on all sides, as far as the eye could reach, as well as near at hand in the pools at the base of the gisr or dike, appeared innumerable birds, principally aquatic.  Large flocks of paddy-birds, often called the white ibis, speckled the green of the fields; enormous pelicans stood hanging their enormous beaks, as if in drowsy contemplation, over distant pools; storks and herons, single, or arranged, as it were, in military array, accompanied them; and prodigious masses of white birds glittered in the sun on the verge of the marshy plain.  Then the water was alive with cormorants, geese, ducks, divers, teal, coot, that swam about in amazing numbers, or, startled at the slightest noise, flew generally