And One Of The Travellers, Stumbling
In The Sandals Which Are Too Large For Her Small Feet, Laughs A
Prolonged, Silly Little Laugh Like The Clucking Of A Turkey.
.
. .
Is there then no keeper, no guardian of this holy mosque? And amongst
the faithful prostrate here in prayer, none who will rise and make
indignant protest? Who after this will speak to us of the fanaticism
of the Egyptians? . . . Too meek, rather, they seem to me everywhere.
Take any church you please in Europe where men go down on their knees
in prayer, and I should like to see what kind of a welcome would be
accorded to a party of Moslem tourists who - to suppose the impossible
- behaved so badly as these savages here.
Behind the mosque is an esplanade, and beyond that the palace. The
palace, as such, can scarcely be said to exist any longer, for it has
been turned into a barrack for the army of occupation. English
soldiers, indeed, meet us at every turn, smoking their pipes in the
idleness of the evening. One of them who does not smoke is trying to
carve his name with a knife on one of the layers of marble at the base
of the sanctuary.
At the end of this esplanade there is a kind of balcony from which one
may see the whole of the town, and an unlimited extent of verdant
plains and yellow desert. It is a favourite view of the tourists of
the agencies, and we meet again our friends of the mosque, who have
preceded us hither - the gentlemen with the loud voices, the bellowing
guide and the cackling lady.
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