To-day, on account of the barrage established by the English, the water has steadily risen, like a tide that will never recede; and this lake, almost a little sea, replaces the meanderings of the river and has succeeded in submerging the sacred islets.

The sanctuary of Isis--which was enthroned for thousands of years on the summit of a hill, crowded with temples and colonnades and statues--still half emerges; but it is alone and will soon go the way of the others, There it is, beyond, like a great rock, at this hour in which the night begins to obscure everything.
Nowhere but in Upper Egypt have the winter nights these transparencies of absolute emptiness nor these sinister colourings.

As the light gradually fails, the sky passes from copper to bronze, but remains always metallic.

The zenith becomes brownish like a brazen shield, while the setting sun alone retains its yellow colour, growing slowly paler till it is almost of the whiteness of latten; and, above, the mountains of the desert edge their sharp outlines with a tint of burnt sienna.
To-night a freezing wind blows fiercely in our faces.

To the continual chant of the rowers we pass slowly over the artificial lake, which is upheld as it were in the air by the English masonry, invisible now in the distance, but divined nevertheless and revolting.