Peeps at Many Lands - Egypt

ISBN: 1438573871

Author: Kelly, Professor R Talbot

Condition: New

Excerpt: ...the cool green of the banks the high hills rise mysteriously purple against the sunrise, or catch the first gleam of gold on their rugged bluffs. As the sun mounts higher a delicate pink tinge suffuses all, and the hanging mists are dispersed by the growing heat to form little flecks of white which float in the deep blue of the sky above you. Meanwhile the life of the river and the fields has recommenced, and the banks again become animated, and innumerable Nile boats dot the surface of the stream. At midday the landscape is enveloped in a white heat, while the bluffs and buttresses of the rocks cast deep purple shadows on the sweeping sand-drifts which lie against their base. It is a drowsy effect of silver and grey, when Nature seems asleep and man and beast alike are inclined to slumber. Towards evening, glorified by the warm lights, how rich in colour the scenery becomes! The western banks, crowned by dense masses of foliage, whose green appears almost black against the sunset, are re 46 flected in the water below, its dark surface broken by an occasional ripple and little masses of foam which have drifted down from the cataract hundreds of miles away. Beyond the belt of trees the minarets of some distant village are clear cut against the sky, for the air is so pure that distance seems to be annihilated. Looking east, the bold cliffs face the full glory of the sunset, and display a wonderful transformation of colour, as the white or biscuit-coloured rocks reflect the slowly changing colour of the light. They gradually become enveloped in a ruddy glow, in which the shadows of projections appear an aerial blue, and seem to melt imperceptibly into the glowing sky above them. Gradually a pearly shadow creeps along the base of the cliffs or covers the whole range, and one would suppose that the glory of the sunset was past. In about a quarter of an hour, however, commences the most beautiful transformation of all, and one which I think is peculiar...