CHAPTER XVI 



EGYPT : TO THE CELESTIAL CITY 



It had for long been my desire to see some- 

 thing of the land of the Pharaohs, and at last 

 in 1911 my wish was gratified and I landed at 

 Suez. 



Egypt ! The very word is a charm. It con- 

 jures up visions of ensaffroned sunsets, of stately 

 palms bowing to the desert wind, of living 

 cities gorgeous in their Oriental splendour, of 

 buried cities musty with the myrrh of millenniums. 

 Wondrous, wondrous country ! How many have 

 followed your piping even as the children of 

 Hamelin followed the Piper and were stolen 

 away ? How few who have seen your true beauty 

 have not hankered to know more, to drink to 

 the full of the nectar of the Pharaohs ? Qui 

 a bu de Veau du Nil veut en 7'eboire. 



It is when we come on a new land, where all 

 is strange and beautiful, that something seems 

 to call to us from childhood's days, something 

 that tells us to forget trouble and toil, something 

 that seems to turn our worries into rocking- 

 horses, and make us boys and girls again. There 

 is no other on the face of earth that can charm 

 away the cobwebs of life as can Egypt. She 

 is the nursery-land of all the nations. Five 

 thousand years before the advent of Christ, 

 when all else was wild and barbaric and uncul- 

 tured, Egypt had knowledge of arts so wondrous 



243 



