You are careful on the way to address each
sentinel with a "Peace be upon thee!" especially if you have no
lantern, otherwise you may chance to sleep in the guard-house. And,
chemin faisant, you cannot but stop to gaze at streets as little like
what civilised Europe understands by that name as is an Egyptian temple
to the new Houses of Parliament.
There are certain scenes, cannily termed "Ken-speckle," which print
themselves upon Memory, and which endure as long as Memory lasts,-a
thunder-cloud bursting upon the Alps, a night of stormy darkness off
the Cape, an African tornado, and, perhaps, most awful of all, a
solitary journey over the sandy Desert.
Of this class is a stroll through the thoroughfares of old Cairo by
night. All is squalor in the brilliancy of noon-day. In darkness you
see nothing but a silhouette. When, however, the moon is high in the
heavens, and the summer stars rain light upon God's world, there is
something not of earth in the view. A glimpse at the
[p.89]strip of pale blue sky above scarcely reveals three ells of
breadth: in many places the interval is less: here the copings meet,
and there the outriggings of the houses seem to interlace.
