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PART II

A NOTEBOOK OF THE NILE

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F

HASSAN

EBRUARY 28. This morning we embarked on

the steamer Egypt. We found her moored at the western shore of the Nile, alongside what is known as the Kasr-el-Nil, in the midst of a numerous company of craft. The others were mostly small private steamers and dahabiyehs, out of whose throng the Egypt towered like Saul in the assembly of the people.

Our first impressions are highly agreeable. The Egypt is to all appearance a fine ship, something more than one hundred and thirty feet long-which is as long as any Nile craft can be and still pass the locks at Assiut and Esneh. I am credibly informed also that she draws only a trifle over three feet of water, despite her size; which is desirable, because every Cairo newspaper nowadays relates that the river is falling at the rate of several centimetres a day, and

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