DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0119
110
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
It was nearly dark when we arrived at the
ruined village, which now occupies part of the
site of the once magnificent city. The plough
has been driven over the ruins of the temples, and
grass was growing where palaces had stood. A
single boat was lying along the bank, a single
flag, the red cross of England, was drooping lazily
against the mast; and though it be death to my
reputation as a sentimental traveller, at that mo-
ment I hailed the sight of that flag with more
interest than the ruined city. Since I left Cairo
I had seen nothing but Arabs; for three weeks I
had not opened my lips, except to Paul; and, let
me tell the reader, that though a man may take a
certain degree of pleasure in groping among
ruins, in travelling in strange and out-of-the-way
places, he cannot forget the world he has left be-
hind him. In a land of comparative savages, he
hails the citizen of any civilized country as his
brother; and when on the bank of the river I was
accosted in my native tongue, by a strapping fel-
low in a Turkish dress, though in the broken ac-
cents of a Sicilian servant, I thought it the purest
English I had ever heard. I went on board the
boat, and found two gentlemen, of whom I had
heard at Cairo, who had been to Mount Sinai,
from thence to Hor, by the Red Sea to Cosseir,
and thence across the desert to Thebes, where
they had only arrived that day. I sat with them
till a late hour. I cannot flatter myself that the
evening passed as agreeably to them as to me, for
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
It was nearly dark when we arrived at the
ruined village, which now occupies part of the
site of the once magnificent city. The plough
has been driven over the ruins of the temples, and
grass was growing where palaces had stood. A
single boat was lying along the bank, a single
flag, the red cross of England, was drooping lazily
against the mast; and though it be death to my
reputation as a sentimental traveller, at that mo-
ment I hailed the sight of that flag with more
interest than the ruined city. Since I left Cairo
I had seen nothing but Arabs; for three weeks I
had not opened my lips, except to Paul; and, let
me tell the reader, that though a man may take a
certain degree of pleasure in groping among
ruins, in travelling in strange and out-of-the-way
places, he cannot forget the world he has left be-
hind him. In a land of comparative savages, he
hails the citizen of any civilized country as his
brother; and when on the bank of the river I was
accosted in my native tongue, by a strapping fel-
low in a Turkish dress, though in the broken ac-
cents of a Sicilian servant, I thought it the purest
English I had ever heard. I went on board the
boat, and found two gentlemen, of whom I had
heard at Cairo, who had been to Mount Sinai,
from thence to Hor, by the Red Sea to Cosseir,
and thence across the desert to Thebes, where
they had only arrived that day. I sat with them
till a late hour. I cannot flatter myself that the
evening passed as agreeably to them as to me, for