One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances

inted cangia was descending the Nile as rapidly as fifty long, flat oars, which seemed

tioned, and admirably built for speed; the figure of a ram's head, surmounted by a golden globe

f naos, or tent of honor-colored and gilded, ornamented with p

cond story of lesser height built upon it, like the chateaux gaillards of those fantastic galleys of the sixteenth century draw

ended into the water in rear of the vessel like the webbed feet of a swan; heads crowned with pshents, and bearing the allegorical horn upon th

and all plaited into little cords, full lips, high cheek-bones, ears standing out from the skull-the Egyptian type in all its purity. A

e gunwales, made their presence known only through the symmetrical movements of the oars themselves, which spread open al

the cangia, tied up and bound to the lowered mast with a silken c

t, glaring and blinding in its intensity, poured down in torrents of flame; the azure of the sky whitened in the heat as a metal whitens

y gleam upon the current; and the oars of the cangia seemed with difficulty to tear their way through the fuliginous film of that curdled water. The banks were desolate, a solemn and mighty sadness weighed upon this land, which was never aught else than a vast tomb, and in which the living appeared to be solely occupied in the work of burying the dead. It was a

ng the bullrushes by the river banks; or the sound made by some ibis, which, tired of standing with one leg doubled up against its stomach, and its head sunk between its shoulders, suddenly abandoned its motionless attitude, and, brusquely whipping the blue air with its white wings, flew off to p

d sky so similar in tint that the slender tongue of earth which separated them seemed like a causeway stretching over an immense

es, where the emblematic globe unfolded its mysterious wings like an eagle's vast-extending pinions; temples with enormous columns thick as towers, on which were limned processions of hieroglyphic figures against a background of brilliant white-all the monstrosities of that Titanic architecture. Again the eye beheld only land-scapes of desolate aridity-hills formed of stony fragments from excavations and building works, crumbs of that gigantic debauch of granite which lasted for

a vegetable crab, appeared from time to time in the horizon; or a thorny fig-tree brandished its tempered leaves like sword blades of bronze; or a carthamus-pl

us return to the cangia with its fifty rowers, and, withou

d a little bed, supported upon griffin's feet, having a back resembling that of a modern lounge or sofa; a stool with four steps to enable one to climb into bed; and (rather an odd luxury

of the most perfect woman that ever lived; the most womanly and most queenly of all women; an admirable type of beauty which the imagination of po

d a young girl was moistening with scented water the little reed blinds attached to t

, tapering shape, vaguely recalling the form of a heron, was placed a bouquet of lotus-flowers, som

t day. She had just attended a panegyris,[1] and was returning to her sum

urn from the Mammisi of Hermonthis whereat were worshipped the holy triad of the god Mandou,

rward over the forehead of the wearer, formed together with its little head a kind of horn-shaped ornament, all sparkling with precious stones; a symbolic crest, designed like a tower, completed this odd but elegant headdress. Hair dark as a starless night flowed from beneath this helmet, and streamed in long tresses over the fair shoulders whereof the commencement only, alas! was left exposed by a collarette, or gorget, adorned with many rows of serpentine stones, azodrachs, and chrysoberyls; a linen robe diagonally cut-a mist of material, of woven air, ventus textilis as Petronius says, undulated in vapory whiteness about a lovely body

ght sandals, turned up at the toes, and fastened over the inste

perfectly well dressed. She tossed and turned in her little bed, and her sudden movements momentarily disarranged the folds

he could not make it hotter; the air is like the breath of a furnace!" And she moistened her lips with

petticoat, and a panther-skin thrown over his shoulders, entered with the suddenness of an apparition; with his left hand bala

terity, and placed it before the queen. Cleopatra merely touched the beverage with her lips, laid the cup dow

I am weary

p at a common sanctuary or participate in a national religious festival. The assemblies at the Olympi