Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/186

and red sashes as the heart of man or woman could desire. We have eight and twenty of them all told, six men and a noncommissioned officer to each of our four boats. Their duty is to guard the bodies of us helpless tourists from Assuân to Wady Halfa, and they perform it with a fidelity so conscientious as to become almost comic. The temples of this part of Upper Egypt are most of them conveniently near the shore, a climb of a few score feet, or a walk of a few hundred yards being usually all that is necessary to reach them. Swift as are its movements, a band of Dervishes could hardly descend upon us rapidly enough to cut us off from our boats. Nevertheless, there stand our black men-at-arms ready even for this emergency. A couple of them mount guard at the landing-place, two others accompany the sight-seers up the bank, a third pair we find waiting for us at the doors of the temple. In the early morning, when the stern-wheeler has been tied up to the