Once More In Our Boat
We Make Our Way Slowly Towards The Sad Rock Which To-Day Is Philae.
The Wind Has Fallen With The Night, As Happens Almost Invariably In
This Country In Winter, And The Lake Is Calm.
To the mournful yellow
sky has succeeded one that is blue-black, infinitely distant, where
the stars of Egypt scintillate in myriads.
A great glimmering light shows now in the east and at length the full
moon rises, not blood-coloured as in our climates but straightway very
luminous, and surrounded by an aureole of a kind of mist, caused by
the eternal dust of the sands. And when we return to the baseless
kiosk - lulled always by the Nubian song of the boatmen - a great disc
is already illuminating everything with a gentle splendour. As our
little boat winds in and out, we see the great ruddy disc passing and
repassing between the high columns, so striking in their archaism,
whose images are repeated in the water, that is now grown calm - more
than ever a kiosk of dreamland, a kiosk of old-world magic.
In returning to the temple of the goddess, we follow for a second time
the submerged road between the capitals and friezes of the colonnade
which emerge like a row of little reefs.
In the uncovered hall which forms the entrance to the temple, it is
still dark between the sovereign granites. Let us moor our boat
against one of the walls and await the good pleasure of the moon.
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