From Pharaoh to Fella
It was in the early part of the year 1880, and in the bright courtyard of the Grand Hotel de Noailles, that they met. The Scribbler, an unmistakable Briton, was moodily inquiring of the waiter whether eggs in Marseilles were invariably laid addled and whether coal was the sole ingredient of black coffee when his eye caught that of another stranger regarding him with some curiosity.
The grumblings ceased, and with an exclamation of "Sketcher, by Jove ! " the Scribbler sprang from his chair with enthusiasm. The terrified look of the waiter at this unusual form of insanity in an Englishman recalled the latter to a sense of his nationality, and falling back into his Anglo-Saxon shell, he said quietly, " How are you, Sketcher? " The man addressed was evidently no Englishman.
The light-blue eyes, under straw-coloured eyebrows, betrayed the Gothic basis as unmistakably as the light, lithe figure showed the admixture of the Latin — an unmistakable Frenchman with Burgundy in all his veins.
Some contents:
CHAPTER I.
Marseilles — Passengers — Corsica — Napoleon and Monte Christo — A political
discourse — Apathetic and poetic appeal ...... 5
CHAPTER 11.
Alexandria — A well-meant effort at the poetical — An artistic discussion — Per- spective and Ru-tew-shan — Odours of Araby — The bombardment — Alexandria of the Ptolemies — Rhacotis — Heptastadium — Museum — Library — The oldest street in the world — The Soma — The Paneum — Theatre — Canopic Gate — Caesareum — Nineteenth-century Vandals — Pompey's Pillar — Serapeum ........ 14
CHAPTER III.
Ramleh — Mahmoudieh Canal — Nicopolis — An Egyptian judge — The luxury of the law — Consular protection or free trade in crime — The temple of Arsinoe — ^he hair of Berenice — An early Christian cemetery. -23
CHAPTER IV.
Alexandria to Cairo — Egyptian railway administration — Harmless warfare — Surrender of Kafr Dawar — Blunt patriots — Taking of Tanah — Taking of Cairo ........... 30
CHAPTER V.
The Shepheard Angel — Cairo streets — Shepheard's — Shepheard king Luigi — The Shepheard smile — The Shepheard dinner — Shepheard chickens, their pedigree and training — Cairo in twenty-four hours — Cook's tours — Cook the national schoolmaster — A large order 37
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