V. THE NILE AS A HEALTH RESORT.1

MANY English people who are accustomed to spend the winter in one of the relatively cheap towns of the two Rivieras, are often deterred from wintering in the undeniably superior climate of Egypt by the expense of the journey and the high cost of living in Cairo. The City of the Caliphs is, no doubt, one of the most expensive health resorts in the world, not only owing to the high charges of its splendidly equipped hotels, but to its great vogue as a fashionable cosmopolitan winter city. People are, however, beginning to realise that Cairo is not necessarily Egypt, and indeed as a health resort pure and simple, as I have shown in a previous chapter, it is by no means to be recommended unreservedly.

Egypt, however, offers a choice of some four or five health resorts besides Cairo, viz. Helouan, Mena

1 The greater part of this chapter is taken from an article contributed to The North American Review.

House (Pyramids), Luxor, Assouan, and the Nile. As for Assouan it should perhaps be regarded, in spite of its resident doctor and chaplain, and good hotel accommodation, a potential rather than an actual climatic health station. The objection to Luxor is, that its hotels are often over - crowded during the season, and the constant coming and going of the Nile tourists makes the place noisy and bustling. Helouan is apt to be dull and depressing. Mena House, at the Pyramids, is undeniably expensive, and the fashionable society element is too obtrusive to make it desirable winter quarters for the invalid.

The Nile as a health resort suffers from none of these drawbacks, and the climate of the Upper Nile and Nubia is undeniably superior to that of Lower Egypt. The Egyptian climate has, however, been sufficiently described in the chapter "CAIRO AS A HEALTH RESORT."

The fullest benefit from the Egyptian climate is gained from a prolonged Nile voyage, while the ascepticity word beloved by the faculty-of the atmosphere is greater than at Luxor or Assouan. Then the Nile itself is more equable in temperature than its banks. On the other hand, invalid passengers on these miniature pleasure-barges for one is bound to admit that the lines of the dahabeah approximate more nearly to those of a Thames

house-boat than a yacht-are not well protected from cold winds, which makes some physicians look askance on dahabeah trips for persons with delicate lungs. Besides, though the actual extremes of temperature are less on the river than in the desert, the difference is felt more by patients than when protected by the thick walls of an hotel. It is curious, too, that the cold at night seems to increase the further one goes south. These constitute the only real drawbacks to dahabeahs for delicate persons.

Formerly the only orthodox way of doing the Nile voyage was by means of these native sailingboats, but the costliness of this means of locomotion practically confined it to the English milord. Of late years the wholesome competition of the great tourist agencies has brought about a general reduction in the rents of these pleasure craft. With a party of four or five the inclusive cost of the two months' voyage to Assouan and back need not exceed £110 to £120 per head-granting, of course, that the organiser of the trip knows the river, has had some experience of Nile travel, and is able to hold his own with his dragoman.

For the health-seeker as well as the mere holidaymaker the dahabeah voyage is still the ideal method of spending a winter in Egypt. In short, this form

of the New Yachting is to the invalid what the pleasure yachting cruise-the latest development of co-operative travel-is to the ordinary tourist. Though independent, the traveller is not isolated, and can always get in touch with civilisation as represented by the tourist steamers and mail-boats, which virtually patrol the Nile from Cairo to Wady Halfa. Then for the first 350 miles he is never more than a few hours' sail from a railway station, the line for the greater part of its length running along the Nile banks, and almost every station is a telegraph office as well. English doctors and chaplains are to be found throughout the season at the chief goals of the voyage-Luxor and Assouan, while, in cases of emergency, the services of the medical men attached to the tourist steamers are usually available.

The voyage is eminently restful without being dull or monotonous. In fact, the Nile being the great highway of traffic for Nubia and Upper Egypt to Cairo and Alexandria there is constant variety, and the river traffic affords plenty of life and movement. One constantly passes the picturesque trading dahabeahs gliding along with their enormous lateen sails, the artistic effect heightened by contrast with a trim, modern steam-dahabeah-as incongruous a craft as a gondola turned into a steam-launch, and utterly opposed to the traditions of Nile travel-too

reminiscent perhaps of Cookham Reach or Henley. The banks of the river, quite apart from the temples and monuments of antiquity, are also full of interest for the observant voyager, who may congratulate himself on the superiority of his lot to his less fortunate invalid brethren wintering on the Riviera, and "killing time till time kills them "-chained for the greater part of the day, perhaps, to the hotelbalcony or villa garden at Mentone, Monte Carlo, or San Remo.

heads with all the ease Jabbering gamins are curious little buffaloes

Delightful "bits" for the sketch-book are constantly to be met with. At almost every villageand many are passed in a day's sail-native women may be seen filling their earthen jars with water, and carrying them on their and grace of a Capriote girl. driving down the banks the to water. Every now and then we pass a shadoof tended by a fellah with skin shining like bronze, relieving his toil with that peculiar wailing chant, which seems to the imaginative listener like the echo of the Israelites' cry under their taskmasters wafted across the centuries. The shrill note of a steamer-whistle puts to flight these poetical fancies, and one of Messrs. Cook's tourist steamers, looking for all the world like a Hudson or Mississipi riversteamer, dashes past at twelve knots an hour, her