And Sometimes, Even, The Desert Chain Closes In So As To
Overhang The River With Its Reddish-White Cliffs, Which No Rain Ever
Comes To Freshen, And In Which, At Different Heights, Gape The Square
Holes Leading To The Habitations Of The Mummies.
These mountains,
which in the distance look so beautiful in their rose-colour, and
make, as it were, interminable back-cloths to all that happens on the
river banks, were perforated, during some 5000 years, for the
introduction of sarcophagi and now they swarm with old dead bodies.
And all that passes on the banks, indeed, changes as little as the
background.
First there is that gesture, supple and superb, but always the same,
of the women in their long black robes who come without ceasing to
fill their long-necked jars and carry them away balanced on their
veiled heads. Then the flocks which shepherds, draped in mourning,
bring to the river to drink, goats and sheep and asses all mixed up
together. And then the buffaloes, massive and mud-coloured, who
descend calmly to bathe. And, finally, the great labour of the
watering: the traditional noria, turned by a little bull with bandaged
eyes and, above all, the shaduf, worked by men whose naked bodies
stream with the cold water.
The shadufs follow one another sometimes as far as the eye can see. It
is strange to watch the movement - confused in the distance - of all
these long rods which pump the water without ceasing, and look like
the swaying of living antennae.
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