not tell of the crowds of dusky women who flocked to the cars when they

stopped a moment at a station, to sell us a drink of water or a ruddy,

juicy pomegranate; I shall not tell of the motley multitudes and wild

costumes that graced a fair we found in full blast at another barbarous

station; I shall not tell how we feasted on fresh dates and enjoyed the

pleasant landscape all through the flying journey; nor how we thundered

into Alexandria, at last, swarmed out of the cars, rowed aboard the ship,

left a comrade behind, (who was to return to Europe, thence home,) raised

the anchor, and turned our bows homeward finally and forever from the

long voyage; nor how, as the mellow sun went down upon the oldest land on

earth, Jack and Moult assembled in solemn state in the smoking-room and

mourned over the lost comrade the whole night long, and would not be

comforted. I shall not speak a word of any of these things, or write a

line. They shall be as a sealed book. I do not know what a sealed book

is, because I never saw one, but a sealed book is the expression to use

in this connection, because it is popular.

We were glad to have seen the land which was the mother of civilization

-which taught Greece her letters, and through Greece Rome, and through

Rome the world; the land which could have humanized and civilized the

hapless children of Israel, but allowed them to depart out of her borders

little better than savages. We were glad to have seen that land which

had an enlightened religion with future eternal rewards and punishment in

it, while even Israel's religion contained no promise of a hereafter.

We were glad to have seen that land which had glass three thousand years

before England had it, and could paint upon it as none of us can paint

722

The Innocents Abroad