DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11448#0091
CHAP. X.]
A WOMAN-MURDERER.
63
extended shore, and the heavy flapping of the pelican's wings,
as she rose from the water's edge. Not a palm-tree raised its
plumy head, not a shrub crept along the ground; the sun was
low, but there was nothing to cast a shadow over the n:onotonoua
waste, except a few Moslem tombs with their sculptured turbans :
these stood apart from every sign of life, and even of their kin-
dred dead, like those upon the Lido at Venice. As I paused to
contemplate this scene of desolation, an Egyptian harried past
me with a bloody knife in his hand; his dress was mean and
ragged, but his countenance was one that the father of Don
Carlos might have worn; he never raised his eyes as he rushed
by; and my groom, who just then came up, told me he had
slain his wife, and was going to her father's village to denounce
her.
My boat was moored in the little harbor of Assouan, the old
Syene; the boundary between Egypt and Ethiopia; opposite,
lies Elephantina, the " isle of flowers," strewed with ruins, and
shaded by magnificent palm-trees; the last eddies of the cata-
ract of the Nile foam round dark red granite cliffs, which rise
precipitously from the river, and are piled into a mountain
crowned by a ruined Saracenic castle. A forest of palm-trees
divides the village from the quiet shore on whose silvery sands
my tent was pitched. A man in an Egyptian dress saiuted me
in Italian, and in a few moments was smoking my chibouque,
and sipping coffee by my side : he was very handsome ; but his
faded cheek and sunken eye showed hardship and suffering, and
he spoke in a low and humble voice. In reply to my question,
as to how a person of his appearance came into this remote re-
gion, he told me that he had been lately practising as a surgeon
in Alexandria ; he had married a Levantine girl, whose beauty
was to him as "la faccia del cielo:" he had been absent from
his home, and she had betrayed him. On his return, he met her
with a smiling countenance ; in the evening he accompanied her
to a deep wen, whither she went to draw water, and, as she leant
ov^r it. he threw her in. As he said this, he paused, and placed
his hands upon his ears, as if he still heard her dying shriek.
He then continued: " I have fled from Alexandria till the affair
*s blown over: 1 was robbed near Siout, and have supported
A WOMAN-MURDERER.
63
extended shore, and the heavy flapping of the pelican's wings,
as she rose from the water's edge. Not a palm-tree raised its
plumy head, not a shrub crept along the ground; the sun was
low, but there was nothing to cast a shadow over the n:onotonoua
waste, except a few Moslem tombs with their sculptured turbans :
these stood apart from every sign of life, and even of their kin-
dred dead, like those upon the Lido at Venice. As I paused to
contemplate this scene of desolation, an Egyptian harried past
me with a bloody knife in his hand; his dress was mean and
ragged, but his countenance was one that the father of Don
Carlos might have worn; he never raised his eyes as he rushed
by; and my groom, who just then came up, told me he had
slain his wife, and was going to her father's village to denounce
her.
My boat was moored in the little harbor of Assouan, the old
Syene; the boundary between Egypt and Ethiopia; opposite,
lies Elephantina, the " isle of flowers," strewed with ruins, and
shaded by magnificent palm-trees; the last eddies of the cata-
ract of the Nile foam round dark red granite cliffs, which rise
precipitously from the river, and are piled into a mountain
crowned by a ruined Saracenic castle. A forest of palm-trees
divides the village from the quiet shore on whose silvery sands
my tent was pitched. A man in an Egyptian dress saiuted me
in Italian, and in a few moments was smoking my chibouque,
and sipping coffee by my side : he was very handsome ; but his
faded cheek and sunken eye showed hardship and suffering, and
he spoke in a low and humble voice. In reply to my question,
as to how a person of his appearance came into this remote re-
gion, he told me that he had been lately practising as a surgeon
in Alexandria ; he had married a Levantine girl, whose beauty
was to him as "la faccia del cielo:" he had been absent from
his home, and she had betrayed him. On his return, he met her
with a smiling countenance ; in the evening he accompanied her
to a deep wen, whither she went to draw water, and, as she leant
ov^r it. he threw her in. As he said this, he paused, and placed
his hands upon his ears, as if he still heard her dying shriek.
He then continued: " I have fled from Alexandria till the affair
*s blown over: 1 was robbed near Siout, and have supported