For
the place, abandoned for ages and lulled in the folds of Islam under
the guardianship of its white mosque, was once one of the centres of
the life of the world.
And, moreover, in the adjoining desert, some three or four thousand
years ago, the ancient history of the world had been written by the
Pharaohs in immortal hieroglyphics - well-nigh everywhere, on the
polished sides of the strange blocks of blue and red granite that lie
scattered about the sands and look now like the forms of antediluvian
monsters.
*****
Yes, but it was necessary that all this should be co-ordinated,
focused as it were, and above all rendered accessible to the delicate
travellers of the Agencies. And to-day we have the pleasure of
announcing that, from December to March, Assouan (for that is the name
of the fortunate locality) has a "season" as fashionable as those of
Ostend or Spa.
In approaching it, the huge hotels erected on all sides - even on the
islets of the old river - charm the eye of the traveller, greeting him
with their welcoming signs, which can be seen a league away. True,
they have been somewhat hastily constructed, of mud and plaster, but
they recall none the less those gracious palaces with which the
Compagnie des Wagon-Lits has dowered the world. And how negligible
now, how dwarfed by the height of their facades, is the poor little
town of olden times, with its little houses, whitened with chalk, and
its baby minaret.
The cataract, on the other hand, has disappeared from Assouan. The
tutelary Albion wisely considered that it would be better to sacrifice
that futile spectacle and, in order to increase the yield of the soil,
to dam the waters of the Nile by an artificial barrage: a work of
solid masonry which (in the words of the Programme of Pleasure Trips)
"affords an interest of a very different nature and degree" (sic).
But nevertheless Cook & Son - a business concern glossed with poetry,
as all the world knows - have endeavoured to perpetuate the memory of
the cataract by giving its name to a hotel of 500 rooms, which as a
result of their labours has been established opposite to those rocks -
now reduced to silence - over which the old Nile used to seethe for so
many centuries. "Cataract Hotel!" - that gives the illusion still, does
it not? - and looks remarkably well at the head of a sheet of
notepaper.
Cook & Son (Egypt Ltd.) have even gone so far as to conceive the idea
that it would be original to give to their establishment a certain
/cachet/ of Islam. And the dining-room reproduces (in imitation, of
course - but then you must not expect the impossible) the interior of
one of the mosques of Stamboul.
