Have Society, Pall Mall Clubs, And A
Habit Of Sneering, So Withered Up Our Organs Of Veneration That We
Can Admire No More?
My sensation with regard to the Pyramids was,
that I had seen them before:
Then came a feeling of shame that the
view of them should awaken no respect. Then I wanted (naturally)
to see whether my neighbours were any more enthusiastic than
myself - Trinity College, Oxford, was busy with the cold ham:
Downing Street was particularly attentive to a bunch of grapes:
Figtree Court behaved with decent propriety; he is in good
practice, and of a Conservative turn of mind, which leads him to
respect from principle les faits accomplis: perhaps he remembered
that one of them was as big as Lincoln's Inn Fields. But, the
truth is, nobody was seriously moved . . . And why should they,
because of an exaggeration of bricks ever so enormous? I confess,
for my part, that the Pyramids are very big.
After a voyage of about thirty hours, the steamer brought up at the
quay of Boulak, amidst a small fleet of dirty comfortless cangias,
in which cottons and merchandise were loading and unloading, and a
huge noise and bustle on the shore. Numerous villas, parks, and
country-houses had begun to decorate the Cairo bank of the stream
ere this: residences of the Pasha's nobles, who have had orders to
take their pleasure here and beautify the precincts of the capital;
tall factory chimneys also rise here; there are foundries and
steam-engine manufactories. These, and the pleasure-houses, stand
as trim as soldiers on parade; contrasting with the swarming,
slovenly, close, tumble-down, Eastern old town, that forms the
outport of Cairo, and was built before the importation of European
taste and discipline.
Here we alighted upon donkeys, to the full as brisk as those of
Alexandria, invaluable to timid riders, and equal to any weight.
We had a Jerusalem pony race into Cairo; my animal beating all the
rest by many lengths. The entrance to the capital, from Boulak, is
very pleasant and picturesque - over a fair road, and the wide-
planted plain of the Ezbekieh; where are gardens, canals, fields,
and avenues of trees, and where the great ones of the town come and
take their pleasure. We saw many barouches driving about with fat
Pashas lolling on the cushions; stately-looking colonels and
doctors taking their ride, followed by their orderlies or footmen;
lines of people taking pipes and sherbet in the coffee-houses; and
one of the pleasantest sights of all, - a fine new white building
with HOTEL D'ORIENT written up in huge French characters, and
which, indeed, is an establishment as large and comfortable as most
of the best inns of the South of France. As a hundred Christian
people, or more, come from England and from India every fortnight,
this inn has been built to accommodate a large proportion of them;
and twice a month, at least, its sixty rooms are full.
The gardens from the windows give a very pleasant and animated
view:
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