And Now The Gold Came Traveling Down
From The Desert To The Water, Turning It Surely To A Wine Like
The
wine of gold that flowed down Midas's throat; then, as the magic grew,
to a Pactolus, and at last
To a great surface that resembled golden
ice, hard, glittering, unbroken by any ruffling wave. The islands
rising from this golden ice were jet black, the houses black, the
palms and their shadows that fell upon the marvel black. Black were
the birds that flew low from roof to roof, black the wading camels,
black the meeting leaves of the tall lebbek-trees that formed a tunnel
from where I stood to Mena House. And presently a huge black Pyramid
lay supine on the gold, and near it a shadowy brother seemed more
humble than it, but scarcely less mysterious. The gold deepened,
glowed more fiercely. In the sky above the Pyramids hung tiny cloud
wreaths of rose red, delicate and airy as the gossamers of Tunis. As I
turned, far off in Cairo I saw the first lights glittering across the
fields of doura, silvery white, like diamonds. But the silver did not
call me. My imagination was held captive by the gold. I was summoned
by the gold, and I went on, under the black lebbek-trees, on Ismail's
road, toward it. And I dwelt in it many days.
The wonders of Egypt man has made seem to increase in stature before
the spirits' eyes as man learns to know them better, to tower up ever
higher till the imagination is almost stricken by their looming
greatness.
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