Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/223

 than match. It is in the lights and colours of the entire firmament taken as a whole that the difference here is felt, in the far-reaching translucency of the northern and southern quarters of the heaven, and in that sensation of an infinitely widened world which is an effect of the clearness of the atmosphere.

A second point in which a Nile sunset distances all competitors elsewhere is in its performances, so to speak, as a "water colourist." No one who has not seen this artist at work can have the faintest conception of the astonishing feats which he performs with the smooth surface of the river for his sketching-block, or of the daring "slapdash" with which he flings his pigments upon it, or of the transcendent success of the result. He reserved his most startling effect till the very last day of our trip. On that evening the sun went down in a perfect sea of flame, which overflowed into the Nile waters. As good luck would have it, the wake of our steamer was racing straight through this flaming flood,