Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/246

at which he is to touch on his upward journey. Luxor, where he will stop only on his return voyage to Cairo, has still its preparations to make; but Keneh, as indeed we could see half a mile off, on our approach to it, is determined to show that—like Todgers's—it "can do it when it likes." A specially constructed flight of landing-steps, gorgeous with crimson cloth, ascends the high river bank some hundred yards or so above the point at which we are moored, and at the entrance of the long straight road which leads to the town of Keneh rises a lofty arch of really light and graceful line, flanked on each side by a row of smaller ones, all of them thickly hung from base to summit with coloured lamps. A score or two of yards below us crowds quite a little fleet of dahabiyehs, every one of them all a-flutter with flags from hull to topmost "top-joint" of its fishing-rod of a yard. And exactly opposite us, though, indeed, by no undesigned coincidence, appears the most curious sight of all—the native crowd.