The Same Sight Was To Be Seen Along
This River In The Times Of The Ramses.
But suddenly, at some bend of
the river, the old Pharaonic rigging disappears, to give place to a
succession of steam machines, which, more even than the muscles of the
fellahs, are busy at the water-drawing.
Before long their blackish
chimneys will make a continuous border to the tamed Nile.
Did one not know their bearings, the great ruins of this Egypt would
pass unnoticed. With a few rare exceptions they lie beyond the green
plains on the threshold of the solitudes. And against the changeless,
rose-coloured background of these cliffs of the desert, which follow
you during the whole of this tranquil navigation of some 600 miles,
are to be seen only the humble towns and villages of to-day, which
have the neutral colour of the ground. Some openwork minarets dominate
them - white spots above the prevailing dullness. Clouds of pigeons
whirl round in the neighbourhood. And amongst the little houses, which
are only cubes of mud, baked in the sun, the palm-trees of Africa,
either singly or in mighty clusters, rise superbly and cast on these
little habitations the shade of their palms which sway in the wind.
Not long ago, although indeed everything in these little towns was
mournful and stagnant, one would have been tempted to stop in passing,
drawn by that nameless peace that belonged to the Old East and to
Islam. But, now, before the smallest hamlet - amongst the beautiful
primitive boats, that still remain in great numbers, pointing their
yards, like very long reeds, into the sky - there is always, for the
meeting of the tourist boats, an enormous black pontoon, which spoils
the whole scene by its presence and its great advertising inscription:
"Thomas Cook & Son (Egypt Ltd.)." And, what is more, one hears the
whistling of the railway, which runs mercilessly along the river,
bringing from the Delta to the Soudan the hordes of European invaders.
And to crown all, adjoining the station is inevitably some modern
factory, throned there in a sort of irony, and dominating the poor
crumbling things that still presume to tell of Egypt and of mystery.
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