[Footnote 129: In a twenty years' residence at Cairo, the
consul Maillet had contemplated that varying scene, the
Nile, (lettre ii. particularly p. 70, 75;) the fertility of
the land, (lettre ix.) From a college at Cambridge, the
poetic eye of Gray had seen the same objects with a keener
glance: -
What wonder in the sultry climes that spread,
Where Nile, redundant o'er his summer bed,
From his broad bosom life and verdure flings,
And broods o'er Egypt with his watery wings:
If with adventurous oar, and ready sail,
The dusky people drive before the gale:
Or on frail floats to neighboring cities ride.
That rise and glitter o'er the ambient tide.
(Mason's Works and Memoirs of Gray, p. 199, 200.)]