atues erected on the top of buildings or
the front of temples.

The moment the train stopped, it was invaded by a band of women and
children, offering fresh water, bitter oranges, and honey confections to
the travellers; and it was delightful to see these brown faces showing
at the carriage window their bright smile and their white teeth. I
should have liked to remain some time in Damanhur, but travel, like
life, is made up of sacrifices. How many delightful things one is
compelled to leave by the roadside, if one wishes to reach the end. A
man cannot see everything, and must be satisfied with seeing a few
things. So I had to leave Damanhur and to behold that dream from afar
without being able to traverse it. As far as I could see, even through
my glass, the land reached to the horizon line, intersected by canals,
broken by gutters, shimmering with pools of water, with scattered clumps
of sycamore trees and date palms, with long strips of cultivated ground,
water-wheels rising here and there, and enlivened by the incessant
coming and going of the labourers who followed, on the backs of camels,
horses, or asses, or on foot, the narrow road bordering the levees. At
intervals there arose, under the shade of a mimosa, the white cupola of
a tomb; sometimes a nude child stood motionless on the edge of the water
in the attitude of unconscious reverie, not even turning his head to see
the train fly along. This deep gravity in childhood is peculiar to the
East. What could that boy, standing on his lump of earth as a Stylites
on his pillar, be thinking of? From time to time flocks of pigeons, busy
feeding, flew off with a sudden whir as the train passed by, and
alighted farther away on the plain; aquatic birds swam swiftly through
the reeds that outstretched behind them, pretty wagtails hopped about,
wagging their tails, on the crest of the levees; and in the heavens at a
vast height, soared hawks, falcons, and gerfalcons, sweeping in great
circles. Buffaloes wallowed in the mud of the ditches, and flocks of
black sheep with hanging ears, very like goats, were hurrying along
driven by the shepherds. The antique simplicity of the costume of the
young herdsmen, with their short tunics, white or blue, faded by the
sun, their bare legs, their dusty, naked feet, their felt caps, their
crooks, recalled the patriarchal scenes of the Bible.

At the next station we stopped, and I got out to have a look at the
landscape. I had scarcely go