Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Egypt and Nubia: Their Scenery and Their People, Being Incidents of History and Travel, From the Best and Most Recent Authorities, Including J. L. Burckhardt and Lord Lindsay
On taking leave of my hospitable entertainers, I learned the existence of a salutary regulation, compelling all persons after dark to have a light home before them, or run the risk of being arrested by the nightly guard, and detained until the morning. Accordingly an Arab servant was ordered to conduct me with a lantern to my inn. It was late few persons were in the streets the Arab paced before me in silence but, not knowing exactly where I lodged, took me to the wrong inn. This was perplexing for as he spoke no European language, and I no Arabic, we stood still in the street, looking at one another. The few stragglers who passed were all natives, ignorant of every language but their own. After turning over the matter in his mind for some time, the man seemed to derive some encourage ment from my long black beard, and in an inquiring tone pronounced the word Greco I shook my head. Franco? I replied in the a?irm ative in all the languages I knew but this did not help us in the least. At length I remembered that the Tuscan Consul resided at the Golden Eagle, and on repeating his name, the Arab turned round and discovered the unknown house within five paces of where we stood.
The window of my bed-chamber overlooked the quarantine harbour. It was late, as I have said, yet, feeling little inclination to Sleep, I drew aside the curtains, and gazed forth with feelings of indescribable pleasure on the tran quil basin. There was no moon: but the stars shone so brilliantly that all objects within a certain distance were distinctly visible. Numerous vessels, each carefully stationed a short way from the others, lay motionless upon the waters. They were all from suspected countries, and one with the plague then on board had cast anchor within fifty yards of where I stood. There was an Austrian gun-bri g, on the deck of which, but a few days later, a most extraordinary tragedy was enacted. All the crew having been attacked by the plague, they one day, in the height of their delirium, rushed on deck, and fired the guns which happened to be loaded. The balls ?ew thick among the other shipping, and the cause of this strange conduct being conjectured, it was for some time thought it would be necessary to sink them. But the poor wretches were unable to reload their guns, on the carriages of which many of them dropped and died one individual only an officer, I am told - ultimately survived, the strength of his constitu tion triumphing, in spite of all disadvantages, over the disease.
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