Everybody knows when a boat starts up the Nile, and everybody is
interested and nods and waves to everybody else. There was a short
drive to the river amid polite calls of "good-bye" and "_bon voyage_,"
and there lay the _Mayflower_, like a great white bird with
comfortably folded wings. Nobody seemed to hurry much, for a Nile boat
does not start until her passengers are all on board. An hour or so
makes no difference.
You go down the bank of the Nile to go on board a boat upon steps cut
in the earth, and if your hands are full and you cannot hold up your
dress, you sweep some three inches of fine yellow dust after you. But
you don't care. The man ahead scuffed his dust in your face, and the
woman behind you is sneezing in yours, and everything and everybody
are a little yellowish from it, but nobody stops to brush it off. It
is too exciting to hurry up on deck and place your steamer-chair and
fling your things into your stateroom and rush out again for fear that
you will miss something. There were Italians, French, English, Poles,
Swedes, and Americans on board.
Pages:
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253