254 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



and splashed where the flicker of the street- 

 lamps threw a mournful shred of light. 



I saw the serfs of modernity, some toiling in 

 great, gaunt prisons, which for want of better 

 name were called offices. I saw men and women 

 and children, ragged and dirty and hungry, 

 lying cold on doorsteps, stretched in unutterable 

 squalor and misery by the side of that maternal 

 river. I saw rich men tire of their riches and 

 scatter their brains on costly carpets. I saw 

 lovely women sickened by the empty mockery 

 of their existence poison themselves and lie 

 stark and cold, with agony written on their 

 demented faces. 



I heard children speak of the unutterable sins 

 as though they were boxes of wooden bricks. 

 I heard the boom of battle and the Babel of all 

 nations. I saw chaos and the world in its dotage. 



" Well ? " said Meneptah, and there was that 

 in his voice which made me wonder whether he 

 had more of sorrow than of contempt for me 

 and mine. 



" What think you ? Do you worship false 

 gods, or did I? Hathor or Mammon? Aphro- 

 ditopolis or your centres of advancement ? " 



I knew not what to say, and the figure who 

 had come down from the stone-girt heart of his 

 tomb to teach me wisdom expected no reply. 



" I lived when the world was young and the 

 fires of youth tingled in every vein," he said. 

 " You have your being in the age of care and 

 circumstance. The blood of the earth has run 

 cold, the feet of men are faltering in darkness, 

 and in your folly you call it light. You sorrow 

 for what you call the barbarism of my dynasty. 

 I pity you the sombre cruelty of what you term 

 civilization. 



