the
tourist element--such as I habitually chose.) It was in the twilight at
the hour when the stars began to shine out from the golden-green sky. As
soon as I put foot upon the shore, and my arrival was signalled by the
barking of the watchdogs, the chief of the nearest hamlet always came to
meet me. A dignified man, in a long robe of striped silk or modest
blue cotton, he accosted me with formulae of welcome quite in the grand
manner; insisted on my following him to his house of dried mud; and
there, escorting me, after the exchange of further compliments, to the
place of honour on the poor divan of his lodging, forced me to accept
the traditional cup of Arab coffee.

*****

To wake these fellahs from their strange sleep, to open their eyes at
last, and to transform them by a modern education--that is the task
which nowadays a select band of Egyptian patriots is desirous of
attempting. Not long ago, such an endeavour would have seemed to me a
crime; for these stubborn peasants were living under conditions of the
least suffering, rich in faith and poor in desire. But to-day they are
suffering from an invasion more undermining, more dangerous than that of
the conquerors who killed by sword and fire. The Occidentals are there,
everywhere, amongst them, profiting by their meek passivity to turn
them into slaves for their business and their pleasure. The work of
degradation of these simpletons is so easy: men bring them new desires,
new greeds, new needs,--and rob them of their prayers.

Yet, it is time perhaps to wake them from their sleep of more than
twenty centuries, to put them on their guard, and to see what yet they
may be capable of, what surprises they may have in store for us after
that long lethargy, which must surely have been restorative. In any case
the human species, in course of deterioration through overstrain, would
find amongst these singers of the shaduf and these labourers with the
antiquated plough, brains unclouded by alcohol, and a whole reserve
of tranquil beauty, of well-balanced physique, of vigour untainted by
bestiality.

CHAPTER X

A CHARMING LUNCHEON

We are making our way through the fields of Abydos in the dazzling
splendour of the forenoon, having come, like so many pilgrims of old,
from the banks of the Nile to visit the sanctuaries of Osiris, which lie
beyond the green plains, on the edge of the desert.

It is a journey of some ten miles or so, under a clear sky and a burnin