"ANY ONE FOR EGYPT?—EGYPT!"
Of course we shall have a Railway to Grand Cairo—the London and Great Desert Direct. How the antiquaries will get over this attack upon the very seat of their learning it is impossible to say. Will they stand idly by and not resent this blow levelled at their renowned Sesostris—this slap given to their Cheops?
However, as a matter of course, there will be a continual succession of cheap trips under the influence of Crisp. Every Englishman, who can afford to spend a week and a five-pound note in the pursuit of pleasure, will be sure to go. For in addition to the "Magnificent Scenery," "Free Admission to all the Pyramids," &c. &c., the advertisements will doubtless assure us that in every town at which the train stops, a professor will be engaged, so that whilst the travellers are swallowing their soup, they may be crammed with a complete knowledge of the language of the country—a process which will enable Englishmen to digest Coptic and Oxtail at one and the same time.
This Railway will assuredly be the making of Egypt and the Egyptians. In a very little time the Desert Sara will become as lively as Cremorne, and its sands as much frequented by the ladies as those of Ramsgate while the gentlemen are bathing. Villages will spring up in the bosom of the country almost as rapidly as mustard and cress would in the bosom of an Irishman. The sources of the Nile will afford beautiful spots for picnics where parties bringing their own tea may be accommodated with hot water; and the great Lake of Mæris will of course be thoroughly repaired, and opened as a National Swimming Bath—warranted free from Crocodiles.
Cheap Excursion Trains—
Then the Pyramids will be just the very place for some Mustapha Bunn to begin an operatic season in; the only thing required to be done will be to fit up each Sarcophagus as a private box; get a monster band with a mammoth ophicleide to play the Desert, and engage the celebrated vocal statue of Memnon to sing a solo. What a splendid joke too for the clown to let off on the first night of the Pantomime; when, after turning his toes in, rolling his eyes, and thrusting his tongue out, he cries, "Here we are again! Thirty centuries are a-lookin' down on us! Somebody's a-coming!" This alone would fill the Pyramids.
Then again as a place for posters, the Pyramids would soon "shut up" Waterloo Bridge. Noses and Son alone doubtless would engage one entire side of Ptolemy's, whilst Jullien would cover Cyphreus with a monster broadside.
Of course all caravans would be superseded, and camels only used for picnics and penny rides at fairs. The once-renowned Ben Haroun ad Deen will be waiting to comfort the hungry passenger, crying aloud as he stands beneath the glorious Sphinx, "Allah is good!—Baked 'taturs all hot!—and Mahomet is his Prophet. Here's your prime flowery sort!" Whilst the once bloodthirsty Ben Hassan, as he leans against the bright gas-lit Cleopatra's Needle, will lift up his voice with "May the Prophet bless you. Ham sandwiches a penny."
The salutary effect that this mixing of the English with the Egyptian will have upon our Poetry and Romance, "can be much better imagined than described,"—as George Robins used to say in every one of his advertisements. Instead of our trumpery "Wilt thou love me then as now?" and "Yes, dearest, then I'll love thee more!" we shall have good wholesome emotion, and "no nonsense," in the shape of the following little Anglo-Arabian snatch:
"For thirty days I could not eat—neither have I slept for the fleas and excessive weeping.
"Her face is like the full moon, her hair like capsicums, and her nose is the finest of Grecians.
"She moveth like the willow branch, and she speaketh Coptic with a pure Pyramidical accent.
"Her breath is like ambergris; she hath rubies and pearls, and jacinths, and heaps of red gold in the consols."
This is sterling affection if you like. There are few Englishmen who could keep a flame burning for thirty days.
When all these things are worked out, it will be time to begin agitating for that great moral change, the introduction of Polygamy into England. If true-born Britons are to be forced still to continue monogamists, what, we would ask, is to become of the surplus lady population? Either they must be induced to emigrate in a body to the Grand Sultan, or an act must be passed to make bigamy according to law. Something must be done for as matters are at present our wives are just one too many for us.