DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0019
A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE.
CHAPTER I.
CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.
It is the traveler's lot to dine at many table-d'hotes in
the course of many wanderings; but it seldom befalls him to
make one of a more miscellaneous gathering than that
which overfills the great dining-room at Shepheard's
Hotel in Cairo during the beginning and height of the
regular Egyptian season. Here assemble daily some two
to three hundred persons of all ranks, nationalities, and
pursuits; half of whom are Anglo-Indians homeward or
outward bound, European residents, or visitors established
m Cairo for the winter. The other half, it may be taken
for granted, are going up the Nile. So composite and
incongruous is this body of Nile-goers, young and old,
well-dressed and ill-dressed, learned and unlearned, that
the new-comer's first impulse is to inquire from what
motives so many persons of dissimilar tastes and training
can be led to embark upon an expedition which is, to say
the least of it, very tedious, very costly, and of an alto-
gether exceptional interest.
His curiosity, however, is soon gratified. Before two
days are over, he knows everybody's name and everybody's
business; distinguishes at first sight between a Cook's
tourist and an independent traveler; and has discovered
that nine-tenths of those whom he is likely to meet up the
river are English or American. The rest will be mostly
German, with a sprinkling of Belgian and French. So far
en bloc; but the details are more heterogeneous still. Here
are invalids in search of health; artists in search of
subjects; sportsmen keen upon crocodiles; statesmen out
for a holiday ; special correspondents alert for gossip ;
collectors on the scent of papyri and mummies; meu of
CHAPTER I.
CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.
It is the traveler's lot to dine at many table-d'hotes in
the course of many wanderings; but it seldom befalls him to
make one of a more miscellaneous gathering than that
which overfills the great dining-room at Shepheard's
Hotel in Cairo during the beginning and height of the
regular Egyptian season. Here assemble daily some two
to three hundred persons of all ranks, nationalities, and
pursuits; half of whom are Anglo-Indians homeward or
outward bound, European residents, or visitors established
m Cairo for the winter. The other half, it may be taken
for granted, are going up the Nile. So composite and
incongruous is this body of Nile-goers, young and old,
well-dressed and ill-dressed, learned and unlearned, that
the new-comer's first impulse is to inquire from what
motives so many persons of dissimilar tastes and training
can be led to embark upon an expedition which is, to say
the least of it, very tedious, very costly, and of an alto-
gether exceptional interest.
His curiosity, however, is soon gratified. Before two
days are over, he knows everybody's name and everybody's
business; distinguishes at first sight between a Cook's
tourist and an independent traveler; and has discovered
that nine-tenths of those whom he is likely to meet up the
river are English or American. The rest will be mostly
German, with a sprinkling of Belgian and French. So far
en bloc; but the details are more heterogeneous still. Here
are invalids in search of health; artists in search of
subjects; sportsmen keen upon crocodiles; statesmen out
for a holiday ; special correspondents alert for gossip ;
collectors on the scent of papyri and mummies; meu of