"Seven miles of canal to be carried out into the sea, at a minimum depth of twenty-three feet, and the stone to be fetched from Heaven knows where! All the money in France wouldn't do it." This was addressed by Mr. Damer to M. Delabordeau, whom he had caught after the abrupt flight of Mr. Ingram.
"Den we will borrow a leetle from England," said M. Delabordeau.
"Precious little, I can tell you. Such stock would not hold its price in our markets for twenty-four hours. If it were made, the freights would be too heavy to allow of merchandise passing through. The heavy goods would all go round; and as for passengers and mails, you don't expect to get them, I suppose, while there is a railroad ready made to their hand?""Ye vill carry all your ships through vidout any transportation. Think of that, my friend.""Pshaw! You are worse than Ingram. Of all the plans I ever heard of it is the most monstrous, the most impracticable, the most--" But here he was interrupted by the entreaties of his wife, who had, in absolute deed and fact, slipped from her donkey, and was now calling lustily for her husband's aid. Whereupon Miss Dawkins allied herself to the Frenchman, and listened with an air of strong conviction to those arguments which were so weak in the ears of Mr. Damer. M. Delabordeau was about to ride across the Great Desert to Jerusalem, and it might perhaps be quite as well to do that with him, as to go up the Nile as far as the second cataract with the Damers.
"And so, M. Delabordeau, you intend really to start for Mount Sinai?""Yes, mees; ve intend to make one start on Monday week.""And so on to Jerusalem. You are quite right. It would be a thousand pities to be in these countries, and to return without going over such ground as that. I shall certainly go to Jerusalem myself by that route.""Vot, mees! you? Would you not find it too much fatigante?""I care nothing for fatigue, if I like the party I am with,--nothing at all, literally. You will hardly understand me, perhaps, M.
Delabordeau; but I do not see any reason why I, as a young woman, should not make any journey that is practicable for a young man.""Ah! dat is great resolution for you, mees.""I mean as far as fatigue is concerned. You are a Frenchman, and belong to the nation that is at the head of all human civilisation--"M. Delabordeau took off his hat and bowed low, to the peak of his donkey saddle. He dearly loved to hear his country praised, as Miss Dawkins was aware.
"And I am sure you must agree with me," continued Miss Dawkins, "that the time is gone by for women to consider themselves helpless animals, or to be so considered by others.""Mees Dawkins vould never be considered, not in any times at all, to be one helpless animal," said M. Delabordeau civilly.
"I do not, at any rate, intend to be so regarded," said she. "It suits me to travel alone; not that I am averse to society; quite the contrary; if I meet pleasant people I am always ready to join them.
But it suits me to travel without any permanent party, and I do not see why false shame should prevent my seeing the world as thoroughly as though I belonged to the other sex. Why should it, M. Delabordeau?"M. Delabordeau declared that he did not see any reason why it should.
"I am passionately anxious to stand upon Mount Sinai," continued Miss Dawkins; "to press with my feet the earliest spot in sacred history, of the identity of which we are certain; to feel within me the awe-inspiring thrill of that thrice sacred hour!"The Frenchman looked as though he did not quite understand her, but he said that it would be magnifique.
"You have already made up your party I suppose, M. Delabordeau?"M. Delabordeau gave the names of two Frenchmen and one Englishman who were going with him.
"Upon my word it is a great temptation to join you," said Miss Dawkins, "only for that horrid Englishman.""Vat, Mr. Stanley?"
"Oh, I don't mean any disrespect to Mr. Stanley. The horridness Ispeak of does not attach to him personally, but to his stiff, respectable, ungainly, well-behaved, irrational, and uncivilised country. You see I am not very patriotic.""Not quite so much as my friend, Mr. Damer.""Ha! ha! ha! an excellent creature, isn't he? And so they all are, dear creatures. But then they are so backward. They are most anxious that I should join them up the Nile, but--," and then Miss Dawkins shrugged her shoulders gracefully, and, as she flattered herself, like a Frenchwoman. After that they rode on in silence for a few moments.
"Yes, I must see Mount Sinai," said Miss Dawkins, and then sighed deeply. M. Delabordeau, notwithstanding that his country does stand at the head of all human civilisation, was not courteous enough to declare that if Miss Dawkins would join his party across the desert, nothing would be wanting to make his beatitude in this world perfect.
Their road from the village of the chicken-batching ovens lay up along the left bank of the Nile, through an immense grove of lofty palm-trees, looking out from among which our visitors could ever and anon see the heads of the two great Pyramids;--that is, such of them could see it as felt any solicitude in the matter.
It is astonishing how such things lose their great charm as men find themselves in their close neighbourhood. To one living in New York or London, how ecstatic is the interest inspired by these huge structures.
One feels that no price would be too high to pay for seeing them as long as time and distance, and the world's inexorable task-work, forbid such a visit. How intense would be the delight of climbing over the wondrous handiwork of those wondrous architects so long since dead; how thrilling the awe with which one would penetrate down into their interior caves--those caves in which lay buried the bones of ancient kings, whose very names seem to have come to us almost from another world!
