Or the first hour in London? That tall thing looming right in front of you is really the Nelson monument and not a papier maché deception put up for the entertainment of tourists.
In the first hour of 'rickshaw riding in Japan I saw so much that was funny and fantastic and nerve kinking that at the end of the ride I wanted to pay the coolie for a year instead of an hour.
And how about the first hour up the Grand Canal in Venice? Or the first hour in the tangled bedlam of Canton? Or the first hour in front of Shepheard's Hotel, here in Cairo, when it really seems that a wonderful pageant has been ordered for your special joy? With bulging eyes and reeling senses you view the changing kaleidoscope and ask, in the language of Mr. Peasley, "Is this on the level?"
Yes, travel is hard work, and your true traveller is a mighty grumbler, but he goes on buoyed always by the hope of another "first hour."
CHAPTER XII
ROUND ABOUT CAIRO, WITH AND WITHOUT
THE ASSISTANCE OF THE DRAGOMAN OR
SIMON LEGREE OF THE ORIENT
Mr. Peasley is a secretive student of the guide book.
He reads up beforehand and on the quiet. Then when we come face to face with some "sight" and are wondering about this or that, Mr. Peasley opens the floodgate of his newly-acquired knowledge and deluges the whole party. He is seldom correct, and never accurate, but he knows that he is dealing with an ignorance more profound than his own, and that gives him confidence.
For instance, the first afternoon in Cairo we chartered an open conveyance and rode out to the citadel and the mosque of Mohammed Ali, both of which are perched on a high limestone cliff overlooking the city. The mosque is modern and very gorgeous with alabaster columns, a profusion of gay rugs, stained windows, and crystal chandeliers. We were rhapsodising over the interior and were saying it was almost as swell and elegant as the new Claypool Hotel in Indianapolis, when we happened to overhear one of our countrywomen reading aloud from a very entertaining book on Egypt written thirty years ago by Amelia B. Edwards. Miss Edwards allowed that the mosque of Mohammed Ali was a tawdry and hideous specimen of the most decadent period of the mixed-up architectures imported from Araby and Turkey. When we heard that we made a quick switch and began to find fault with the decorations and told the guide we had enough.