THE OUTSKIRTS OF CAIRO
Night. A long straight road, the artery of some capital, through which
our carriage drives at a fast trot, making a deafening clatter on the
pavement. Electric light everywhere. The shops are closing; it must
needs be late.
The road is Levantine in its general character; and we should have no
clear notion of the place did we not see in our rapid, noisy passage
signs that recall us to the land of the Arabs. People pass dressed in
the long robe and tarboosh of the East; and some of the houses, above
the European shops, are ornamented with mushrabiyas. But this blinding
electricity strikes a false note. In our hearts are we quite sure we
are in the East?
The road ends, opening on to darkness. Suddenly, without any warning,
it abuts upon a void in which the eyes see nothing, and we roll over a
yielding, felted soil, where all noise abruptly ceases - it is the
/desert/! . . . Not a vague, nondescript stretch of country such as in
the outskirts of our towns, not one of the solitudes of Europe, but
the threshold of the vast desolations of Arabia. /The desert/; and,
even if we had not known that it was awaiting us, we should have
recognised it by the indescribable quality of harshness and uniqueness
which, in spite of the darkness, cannot be mistaken.
But the night after all is not so black.
