At Shepheard’s people put aside their guide-books for a while. It is a play that requires no libretto. On the crowded piazza overlooking the street, London shopkeepers and foreign noblemen elbow each other, and all celebrities look very much alike.
Cairo is the foyer of Egypt. To go to Egypt and not go up the Nile is very much like standing outside of a theater and watching the audience go in, and then waiting until they come out, to glean from their conversation some idea of the play. But the tourists who go up the river see the drama of Egypt with all its wonderful scenery, and they feel far superior to those who waited for them at Shepheard’s. After one month on the river, it is with a very different feeling they come back to the museum at Gizeh and look on the face of Seti and his distinguished son, whom they have tracked from Sakkara to Philæ and back to their tombs in the sun-baked valley at Thebes, where they had hoped to rest in peace, surrounded by all that a first-class mummy requires during its long wait.
On the Road to Cairo.
CHAPTER SECOND
On the Bank at Komombos.