Whenever we felt
ourselves going aground on a sand-bank we just reversed the engines
and backed off again, or else put on extra steam and ground our way
through it. In the whole three weeks we were not aground five minutes,
although we passed one wreck settling in the water, with the bedding
and stores piled up on the bank, and the passengers sailing away in
the swallow-winged feluccas, which had swooped down to their rescue
like so many compassionate birds.
Afternoon tea on the Nile is an unforgetable function. Everybody comes
on deck and sits under the awning and watches the sun go down. Each
day the sunsets grow more beautiful. Each day they differ from all the
rest. Such yellows and purples! Such violet shadows on the golden
water! Such a marvellously sudden sinking of the sun in a crimson
flame behind the flat brown hills! And then the stillness of the Nile
in the opal aftermath! Those sunsets are something to carry in the
memory forever and a day.
At night the sailors lower the side awnings, crawling along the
railings with their naked prehensile feet.
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