Friday. Boarding in the evening at Souadeh - moon - palm trees (on the right bank, to our left). We stroll through a field of sugar canes, three sailors escort us with their sticks - dogs bark - drainage channels run at the feet of the sugar canes.

From time to time we meet a cangia boat going downstream - it’s nearly always an Englishman - sad - we pass each other - we look at each other saying nothing. At the edge of the water waders lined up in a row - going down on the gravel we see the countless traces of their long thin feet.

In the sky, flocks of birds deploy like a whip’s lanyard, detached - it goes into the air like an abandoned rope, pushed into the wind. No mountain to the right, on the left bank; solid line of palm trees; the bank is grey.

Sheik-Saïd (holy place of) We feed the birds which are supposed to bring the bred to the holy man for the poor and the travelers to eat. We tear the bread into pieces on the deck; they come and eat it. We throw it in the water, they fall down on it wings open, and go. From time to time holes in the rock: the dwellings of ancient hermits.

The Nile often looks like a lake. One is imprisoned by bends. One doesn’t know which way one’s going, and how we’ll be able to go out. The Arabic range usually is a high white cliff.

On the shore a buffalo looking at you.

Manfalut. Built on the bank. The houses are of the same color as the bank. The Nile carries the city away, piece by piece.