ON THE NILE.
OU will have to take jostle instead of penmanship; but I have a comforting conviction that will be preferred to nothing at all, especially as I am giving you my best.
This is my third day’s steaming up the Nile. The most enthusiastic tourists consider this prosaic in the extreme, and that the dahabeah is the only method by which to take the Nile. As for me—is it my accumulating years, I wonder?—I am more than content to be prosaic. We are about 125 or 130 miles from Cairo. Such a strange, kaleidoscopic, fascinating experience as this is! I think I have quite lost my head. I am totally unequal to putting it into words. But I shall try to toss you bits of it—Esterhazy scattering diamonds as he passes, if you choose! First, the thrilling episode. We steamed away from Marseilles “in the teeth of a storm,” which rapidly grew into such violence even Miss B—— got to her prayers. For myself, I was in my berth, too sick—i. e., dizzy—to care for anything. A tremendous wave burst through my door, flooding everything; the floor looked the very sea itself. I could lift my head only long enough to ask if the door was gone.
This was a dangerous storm indeed. No vessel left Marseilles for two days after ours on account of it. But we weathered it, and lived to enjoy the beautiful Mediterranean, the exceeding wonder of its blueness and its lovely sunrises and sunsets. Also, we made acquaintance with many pleasant fellow-passengers, and Miss B——, as is her wont, had a lively flirtation with a distinguished fellow-citizen from the Hub, now an appointee of government at Alexandria, “an associate justice of international law,” or something like it.
We had a day at Alexandria. Saw one of the “seven wonders” it boasts of—the Pharos, Pompey’s Pillar, the Serapeum, some of its bazaars, and had two charming drives to its famous quais and one garden. Everywhere all the phases of oriental life greeted us. Anything more exciting is inconceivable. Any enumeration would be absurd, as you know just what they must have been.
At dark the judge saw us off and looked a “Melancholy Jaques” indeed, as my detective eyes saw his parting pressure of Miss B——’s hand.
We came by train to Cairo. Such a charming young Englishman sat beside me, a naval officer. We fell into the friendliest talk at once, and kept it up until I was breathless. I saw him once again. We shook hands and parted. I do not know his name, but I shall remember him forever. I have come to think young English naval officers a class set apart; for at supper, on reaching the hotel, another sat beside me, and we talked till both forgot to “do justice to the fare before us.” We met several times, and I have the most precious little good-by note which I shall never part with. At the second interview we merrily introduced each to the other. Do you know it makes my heart sore to think we shall never meet again?
The above is proof that after all the living human interest is paramount. The Cairo life into which I plunged, or maybe it swallowed me up, did not dim the tenderness of this experience.