There
was something of sadness in the scene, and again I thought of Hathor as
the "Lady of the Underworld," some deep-eyed being, with a pale brow,
hair like the night, and yearning, wistful hands stretched out in
supplication. There was a hush upon this place. The loud and vehement
cry of the shadoof-man died away. The sakieh droned in my ears no more
like distant Sicilian pipes playing at Natale. I felt a breath from the
desert. And, indeed, the desert was near--that realistic desert which
suggests to the traveller approaches to the sea, so that beyond each
pallid dune, as he draws near it, he half expects to hear the lapping of
the waves. Presently, when, having ascended that marvellous staircase
of the New Year, walking in procession with the priests upon its walls
toward the rays of Ra, I came out upon the temple roof, and looked upon
the desert--upon sheeny sands, almost like slopes of satin shining
in the sun, upon paler sands in the distance, holding an Arab _campo
santo_, in which rose the little creamy cupolas of a sheikh's tomb,
surrounded by a creamy wall, those little cupolas gave to me a feeling
of the real, the irresistible Africa such as I had not known since I had
been in Egypt; and I thought I heard in the distance the ceaseless hum
of praying and praising voices.
"God hath rewarded the faithful with gardens through which flow
rivulets. They shall be for ever therein, and that is the reward of the
virtuous.
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