And Then Too One Mixes Intimately With The Life Of The River Bank,
Which Is Still So Absorbing And, At Certain Hours, When The Horizon Is
Unsullied By The Smoke Of Pit-Coal, Recalls You To The Days Of Artless
Toil And Healthy Beauty.
In the boats that meet us, half-naked men,
revelling in their movement, in the sun and air, sing, as they ply
their oars, those songs of the Nile that are as old as Thebes or
Memphis.
When the wind rises there is a riotous unfurling of sails,
which, stretched on their long yards, give to the dahabiyas the air of
birds in full flight. Bending right over in the wind, they skim along
with a lively motion, carrying their cargoes of men and beasts and
primitive things. Women are there draped still in the ancient fashion,
and sheep and goats, and sometimes piles of fruit and gourds, and
sacks of grain. Many are laden to the water's edge with these
earthenware jars, unchanged for 3000 years, which the fellaheens know
how to place on their heads with so much grace - and one sees these
heaps of fragile pottery gliding along the water as if carried by the
gigantic wings of a gull. And in the far-off, almost fabulous, days
the life of the mariners of the Nile had the same aspect, as is shown
by the bas-reliefs on the oldest tombs; it required the same play of
muscles and of sails; was accompanied no doubt by the same songs, and
was subject to the withering caress of this same desert wind.
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