258 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



trade goods that entered many an Eastern port 

 " duty free." Their duty to womenkind they 

 knew not, their duty to their employers termin- 

 ated only when the cup of degradation had been 

 drained to the last shameful dregs. 



There are little side streets in Port Said where 

 the red lights of infamy burn all night, wherein 

 a man may well get his throat cut without the 

 asking for it. There are vile photographers who 

 live in vile back passages. There are black- 

 faced guides who for a few piastres will lead you 

 to houses of dance and song, to passages that 

 would have shamed Sodom and Gomorrah. 



It is hard to realize that the same moon that 

 throws a soft sheen of splendour over the pure 

 grace of the date-palm looks down on all this 

 sullying sin. It is difficult to believe that the 

 same sun that is throwing halos of light over the 

 desert warns the demons of the night that their 

 riotousness must cease. It is a strange old world, 

 and it has always seemed to me that the most 

 inexplicable of all its mysteries is typified in the 

 growth of a buttercup and a stinging-nettle 

 together. And yet they do. The same rain 

 that refreshes the flower-beds of a palace may 

 flood a floral slum. Sin and sanctity may 

 breathe the same air and both may live. 



Were you a Martian without knowledge of the 

 great riddles, the immense illogicals of this 

 world, you would never believe that Port Said 

 could exist in a land nursed and tended by the 

 noble Nile. 



