CHAPTER IV
IN EGYPT STILL
LOCUSTS AND EGYPTIAN NIGHTS—THE GREAT BARRAGE—IRRIGATING THE DELTA—THE SCOT AGAIN—EGYPTIAN ROADS—ARABIAN NIGHTS—CAIRO BY NIGHT—A MAGIC OF COLOUR—"A SOUND OF REVELRY BY NIGHT"—THE "GRANDE FÊTE DU 75."
Yes, we were biding our time in Cairo; and I am telling no secrets when I say that the Australians swore terribly in Cairo. We had left our happy homes in order to take part in the war, and here we were burning our heels on the Egyptian sand—day after day, week after week. No wonder many of us, as we tramped along on a route march to Helwan on the day preceding Good Friday, said we would prefer to be spending the day at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney.
On the right of our line of march lay the Nile with its green strip of verdure on either side, and a dozen pyramids out westward. The day was as hot as a furnace. The mirage seemed to shimmer on the rim of the earth, and horsemen, camels and Bedouins a few miles away seemed to be floating in the air. Like white wings gliding up and down the Nile were the triangular sails of the native dhows—wonderfully picturesque, with their tremendous spars that tower into the sky. At old Cairo there was a veritable forest of masts. The rudders of these river boats are huge things, and the noses are painted in gaudy colours, and are always turned up disdainfully, as if they had been bumped against a pier.
You had heard of the Plagues of Egypt; we have seen them, and are able to vouch for the authenticity of the Scriptures. Instead of hot cross buns, Easter brought us a plague of locusts. The entertainment started at about three o'clock in the afternoon and lasted till after sundown. Millions and billions and quadrillions of locusts danced and sang for us. The air was absolutely full of them, darkening the sun—big yellow and brown and black things, mostly about two inches long. They sounded like thousands of whirring wheels, and they dropped on the roofs with a noise like rain. Where they landed they left everything bare as a bone. All along the Nile the "gyppies" turned out and banged tin cans to drive them off. Here was an invasion, if you like! The telegraph wires were black with them—like long beads. Some of the beautiful Ma'adi gardens were quite spoilt. These locusts of Egypt have absolutely no love for the beautiful—in fact, the more beautiful a thing is the more delight do they take in devouring it.
But even a plague of locusts does not last for ever—and Egypt does. Egypt the wonderful! Egypt the kaleidoscopic! No, gentle reader, do not waste your sympathies on us. It was tiresome work, marching, training—training for the front, which for months never seemed to get any nearer, and some of "the boys"—those of them who were "spoiling for a fight," as the saying is—used at times to kick over the traces and paint the town vermilion; but there are compensations in Egypt for all who would seek them. What did it matter that we had no hot cross buns for Easter, no hard-boiled eggs, no ling, no salmon? We had omelettes and quail on toast, and chicken and curry and strawberries (no cream) and oranges and custard and jelly and Turkish coffee and Nile fish and pancakes and fritters and iced butter and beautiful jam and marmalade—and cigars. So we managed to get "a snack," you see. And I know that I, for one, had no desire just then to swap places with any man in Australia.
On Easter Sunday some of us went out to see the Barrage—one of the most wonderful works in Egypt. Mohammed Ali started it to irrigate the Delta, but his engineers made some mistakes and the works were looked upon as a white elephant—until Britain took charge. Wonderful the things that Britain does! A board of eminent engineers examined the whole scheme and decided that it would cost over £2,000,000 to complete it. But a Scotsman came along—Sir Colin Campbell Scott-Moncrieff—and he fixed the whole show up for £1,200,000. Right at the apex of the Delta triangle they have laid out beautiful gardens, with lovely flower-beds, canals and grassy lawns; and it was a treat to rest our tired eyes on the green grass after the everlasting sand, sand, sand of the desert.
It was night when we got back to camp. Oh, those Egyptian nights! The winter cold has gone, and spring is in the air. The nights are fine and fair, clear and cloudless, with the moon pure silver. The reflections in the Nile are just wonderful. The huge date palms stand out sharply from a star-spangled sky that somehow has a tint of green in its blue. One thinks of the Arabian Nights. The very street scenes make one think of them. Motors glide up and down the streets with rich Syrians, Greeks, Egyptians, Italians, Frenchmen and Englishmen, going to the Continental, or to Shepheard's, or to private entertainments. It is a gorgeous splash of colour. They had no motor-cars that I remember in those old Arabian Nights, but the magic of the thing and the colour of it all were surely much the same. And the roads of Egypt—how beautiful they are!—clean and smooth as a billiard table. Are there any finer roads in the whole world than the Mena road and that to Heliopolis? Fifty miles an hour is easy. I sometimes shudder now when I recall the races that we used to have along those roads at night, crying "Egre! Egre!"—Faster! Faster!