A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

44 SUNSET ON THE NILE.
be worse than presumptuous in one so ignorant
as myself to breathe a conjecture upon the sub-
ject. Description had rendered us so familiar
with the form of those gigantic monuments, that
we gazed upon them as we would have done upon
the face of a friend long parted from but not
forgotten, and with an emotion which I should
vainly endeavour to reduce into words—an eager
longing, tempered with mysterious awe, to stand
beneath their vast shadows and penetrate into
their desolate chambers. Nothing that I have
ever seen in any land equalled the sunset of that
evening, and nothing that was ever written could
so well apply to it as Byron's exquisite lines :
" All its hues,
From tlie rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety diffuse :
And now they change ; a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains ;
parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away.
The last still loveliest, till — 'tis gone—and all is gray !
Our only regret was that darkness had set in
ere we reached Boulac (which is the Port of
Cairo), and nothing could be distinguished by us
of the City of the Caliphs. Something of the
same scene of confusion which had characterized
our landing at Atfe again took place at Boulac,
"