DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0173
CHAPTER XVI
ASSUAN
End of December.
We arrived here in one bound the day before yesterday, and
are leaving Luxor until the return journey. The idea of
finding a second Cairo, temples and history and all, when
we’d scarcely got started on the first, frightened us, and we
propose to rub along without art for a few days.
I am not young enough for these experiences in the mass.
You must take your time over Egypt, as you do on your first
trip to Italy, even though your patience may eventually grow
too short for much that Rome has to show. Now we are about
to lay a foundation under a house which already is a suffi-
ciently intricate structure. Anyhow we have torn ourselves
away from Cairo.
Here we are living in cool summer weather. We are not
staying at the sumptuous Cataract but at the Grand Hotel,
whose position relieved us of the necessity of making our
choice depend on material considerations. There are people
who prefer the view from the terrace of the Cataract: an
opinion based not so much on the surroundings as on social
prejudice and on a need for comfort. If you have one of the
front rooms there you can see the cataract from your bed or
your bath. It is not the genuine cataract, to be sure: far from
it. That lies a couple of kilometres farther south and stands
in the same relation to the hotel cataract as nature to the
movies. The Nile bends suddenly here and carries a lot of
rocks in its bed, some of which have been grouped to please
the guests. The Bastei in Saxon Switzerland boasts the same
U5
ASSUAN
End of December.
We arrived here in one bound the day before yesterday, and
are leaving Luxor until the return journey. The idea of
finding a second Cairo, temples and history and all, when
we’d scarcely got started on the first, frightened us, and we
propose to rub along without art for a few days.
I am not young enough for these experiences in the mass.
You must take your time over Egypt, as you do on your first
trip to Italy, even though your patience may eventually grow
too short for much that Rome has to show. Now we are about
to lay a foundation under a house which already is a suffi-
ciently intricate structure. Anyhow we have torn ourselves
away from Cairo.
Here we are living in cool summer weather. We are not
staying at the sumptuous Cataract but at the Grand Hotel,
whose position relieved us of the necessity of making our
choice depend on material considerations. There are people
who prefer the view from the terrace of the Cataract: an
opinion based not so much on the surroundings as on social
prejudice and on a need for comfort. If you have one of the
front rooms there you can see the cataract from your bed or
your bath. It is not the genuine cataract, to be sure: far from
it. That lies a couple of kilometres farther south and stands
in the same relation to the hotel cataract as nature to the
movies. The Nile bends suddenly here and carries a lot of
rocks in its bed, some of which have been grouped to please
the guests. The Bastei in Saxon Switzerland boasts the same
U5