Beyond the wiry
tamarisk-bushes, which grow far out from the shore, thousands upon
thousands of wild duck were floating as far as the eyes could see. We
took a strange native boat, manned by two half-naked fishermen, and were
rowed with big, broad-bladed oars out upon the silent flood that the
silent desert surrounded. But the duck were too wary ever to let us
get within range of them. As we drew gently near, they rose in black
throngs, and skimmed low into the distance of the wintry landscape,
trailing their legs behind them, like the duck on the wall of Kom
Ombos. There was no duck for dinner in camp that night, and the cook was
inconsolable. But I had seen a relief come to life, and surmounted my
disappointment.
Kom Ombos and Edfu, the two houses of the lovers and haters of
crocodiles, or at least of the lovers and the haters of their worship,
I shall always think of them together, because I drifted on the _Loulia_
from one to the other, and saw no interesting temple between them and
because their personalities are as opposed as were, centuries ago,
the tenets of those who adored within them. The Egyptians of old were
devoted to the hunting of crocodiles, which once abounded in the reaches
of the Nile between Assuan and Luxor, and also much lower down. But I
believe that no reliefs, or paintings, of this sport are to be found
upon the walls of the temples and the tombs. The fear of Sebek, perhaps,
prevailed even over the dwellers about the temple of Edfu.
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