Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/224

 and the waves streamed aft from the paddle-wheels, a deep purple in their hollows and on every rounded crest a bar of ruddy gold. A German artist sat near me desperately dashing in the colours upon his sketching-block as they glowed before him; but if he values his reputation for veracity he will never show any one that sketch when it is finished, for most certainly no one who sees it will believe it.

Yet, after all, it is not so much the actual sunset itself as its sequel which is the miraculous thing. For what words can describe the magic, the long-drawn sweetness, the strange, wild beauty of the Egyptian afterglow? Everywhere, or at least in all latitudes in which this epilogue of the nightly world drama is given at all, it is impressive; but elsewhere it is short in duration and more or less subdued in tone. In the tropics, as is well known, it is the custom to dispense with it altogether. "The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out; at one stride comes the dark," remarks the Ancient Mariner, describing his