A thousand miles up the Nile

In 1873, English novelist Amelia Edwards left the cosmopolitan comfort of Cairo's Shepherd's Hotel to venture up the Nile in a hired dehabeeyah - a boat replete with a crew of twenty men, drawing rooms, servants, a piano and high tea. Accompanied by such intriguing characters as the "Painter" and the "Happy Couple", Miss Edwards sailed off on a leisurely thousand-mile voyage to fragrant marketplaces, mud-walled villages, shadowy nomads, Nubian belles, and the tombs of long forgotten kings. First published in 1877, her account of the voyage became an enduring travel classic and this intrepid Victorian lady traveler went on to occupy England's first chair of Egyptology.