In a kind of lavatory adjoining could be seen men washing their feet and doing oddities unmentionable preparatory to worship.
After wandering about the building for some time I was accosted by one of the attendants, and was made to understand that one of my feet was uncovered. I had lost one of my sandals. I was rather uneasy for a while, not knowing what they might do with that unholy foot that had desecrated the temple. The guide found it, however, and "Richard was himself again." After leaving the "Mosque" the guide escorted us shipward through the business portion of the city, neat and cleanly, with hotels and stores creditable to a metropolis. But for beggars of unrivaled persistency I commend you to Port Said, for with a pitiableness, sincere or assumed, they dog your every footstep.
At the southern part of the city is a large cemetery, having stones with many hieroglyphics and inscriptions denoting the former locality, character and virtues of the dead. With the scholar are interred copies of his literary productions; with the soldier, his sword; with the statesman, a roll of his achievements for the good of the state, for presentation to "Allah."
CHAPTER XXI.
The passage through the Suez Canal was somewhat monotonous, but a continued reminder of bible history. On either side as far as the eye could reach the desert spread out its sandy atoms glistening in the sun.
Out of the canal we are in the Gulf of Suez, and in a few hours in the Red Sea, an interesting locality in ancient history. It is there we learn that Pharaoh and his hosts met their Waterloo (with the accent on the water) in the pursuit of the children of Israel. But here we find conflicting opinions. Some say that Pharaoh, arriving at the bank and seeing the impossibility of overtaking them, turned and retired; others, that there were shoal places in those far-away days where any one could cross; others, that they crossed on flats very like the ordinary modern mortal. But I do not accept this attempt to question the orthodox version, but will verify it as far as my observation will admit. The sea was likely red in those days, and has very properly retained its name on account of the locality being red-hot at times, or, perhaps, chameleon like, changes its color. This morning, however, it is a deep blue. As to Pharaoh and his hosts getting drowned, there cannot be doubt, if it was in its present condition and they attempted to cross on foot.
But this we do know, that the success of the "Children of Israel" in not being "overtaken" has been the prototype of father to son in every effort to do so from that day to the present. There is a serious view, however. Here the sea, sky and neighborhood of Jerusalem, pyramids, monuments and sacred traditions all conspire to have a solemn and awe-inspiring effect. Thousands of generations of men have lived and moved in the activities that engage modern humanity, but have passed like fleeting shadows, leaving only these sentinels as perpetual reminders. While the "Red Sea" sings in murmuring cadence that "men may come, and men may go, but I go on forever," doubly impressing us that
"So the multitude goes, like the flower or weed,
That wither away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told."