forth. Beside him stood a woman in a black robe and shawl, also old but slim and perfectly erect. In contrast to the old man's coarse, dull face, her features were exquisitely drawn. Her eyebrows, nostrils and mouth were arched like spring steel under tension, expressing complete authority and contempt for her circumstances. She held a long and slender cane, like a wizard's wand, and supervised the work with smouldering eyes.
Pharaoh's daughter could not have looked more handsome or commanding than this woman standing bare-footed in a rice paddy. The group was quite oblivious of the train or of my stares. I saw that there was nothing they wore or used that they might not have had thousands of years ago. If I could discover, I thought, the secret of this woman's presence and the old man's submission I might have the story of Egypt, but before I could melt the glass with my eyes the train took me away.
The ferry is tied up at a wooden wharf above the Aswan Dam. It is not one boat but two; two small paddle steamers lashed together and run on a single paddle. The nearest one is First Class. I and the bike have to cross to the Second Class boat. While this is no problem for me, I can see immediately that it will be impossible to manhandle the bike there. I can see that, but the porters can see only a glorious opportunity to earn a fortune in baksheesh by achieving the impossible.
'Yes, yes, yes,' they scream and, in a flurry of brown limbs, they fight with the Triumph up a gangplank, over a rail into a narrow gangway, through hatches, over sills and bollards, four hundred pounds of metal dragging, sliding, flying and dropping among roars and curses and pleas for divine aid, while I follow helpless and resigned. Finally the bike is poised over the water between the two boats. The outstretched arms can only hold it, they cannot move it, and it is supported, incredibly, by the foot brake pedal which is caught on the ship's rail. Muscles are weakening. The pedal is bending and will soon slip, and my journey will end in the fathomless silt of Mother Nile. At this last moment, a rope descends miraculously from the sky dangling a hook, and the day is saved.
For three days and two nights I drift up the Nile along Lake Nasser. The sunrises and sunsets are so extraordinarily beautiful that my body turns inside out and empties my heart into the sky. The stars are close enough to grasp. Lying on the roof of the ferry at night I begin at last to know the constellations, and start a personal relationship with that particular little cluster of jewels called the Pleiades which nestles in the sky not far from Orion's belt and sword. Really, those stars, when they come that close, you have to take them seriously.
I sleep illegally on the roof of the First Class boat, because the Second Class deck is indescribable. I would rather swim than sleep there. Hundreds of Nubian camel drivers are returning to the Sudan, with their huge hide bags and whips, to pick up another consignment of camels and drive them remorselessly up into Egypt. They are all dressed in grubby white, and lie side by side among their bundles across the deck. The crevices between them are caulked with a mixture of orange peel, cigarette ends and spit. The hawking and spitting, which is a constant background murmur to Arab life, here rises to become the dominant sound, louder than speech, louder than the ferry's engine, drowned out only, and rarely, by the ship's hooter. Lungs rasp and rip, you can hear the tissues tear into shreds, and the glutinous product flies in all directions. I am not ready for that yet.
During the first night we cross the Tropic of Cancer. During the second day a Turkish passenger goes mad. He has been looking more pale and drawn by the hour. Now, with his black eyes buttoned to the back of his brain he begins to twirl in the saloon, stopping suddenly to point his finger and cast some fatal spell. He collapses, then rises to twirl again. His eyes have
Pharaoh's daughter could not have looked more handsome or commanding than this woman standing bare-footed in a rice paddy. The group was quite oblivious of the train or of my stares. I saw that there was nothing they wore or used that they might not have had thousands of years ago. If I could discover, I thought, the secret of this woman's presence and the old man's submission I might have the story of Egypt, but before I could melt the glass with my eyes the train took me away.
The ferry is tied up at a wooden wharf above the Aswan Dam. It is not one boat but two; two small paddle steamers lashed together and run on a single paddle. The nearest one is First Class. I and the bike have to cross to the Second Class boat. While this is no problem for me, I can see immediately that it will be impossible to manhandle the bike there. I can see that, but the porters can see only a glorious opportunity to earn a fortune in baksheesh by achieving the impossible.
'Yes, yes, yes,' they scream and, in a flurry of brown limbs, they fight with the Triumph up a gangplank, over a rail into a narrow gangway, through hatches, over sills and bollards, four hundred pounds of metal dragging, sliding, flying and dropping among roars and curses and pleas for divine aid, while I follow helpless and resigned. Finally the bike is poised over the water between the two boats. The outstretched arms can only hold it, they cannot move it, and it is supported, incredibly, by the foot brake pedal which is caught on the ship's rail. Muscles are weakening. The pedal is bending and will soon slip, and my journey will end in the fathomless silt of Mother Nile. At this last moment, a rope descends miraculously from the sky dangling a hook, and the day is saved.
For three days and two nights I drift up the Nile along Lake Nasser. The sunrises and sunsets are so extraordinarily beautiful that my body turns inside out and empties my heart into the sky. The stars are close enough to grasp. Lying on the roof of the ferry at night I begin at last to know the constellations, and start a personal relationship with that particular little cluster of jewels called the Pleiades which nestles in the sky not far from Orion's belt and sword. Really, those stars, when they come that close, you have to take them seriously.
I sleep illegally on the roof of the First Class boat, because the Second Class deck is indescribable. I would rather swim than sleep there. Hundreds of Nubian camel drivers are returning to the Sudan, with their huge hide bags and whips, to pick up another consignment of camels and drive them remorselessly up into Egypt. They are all dressed in grubby white, and lie side by side among their bundles across the deck. The crevices between them are caulked with a mixture of orange peel, cigarette ends and spit. The hawking and spitting, which is a constant background murmur to Arab life, here rises to become the dominant sound, louder than speech, louder than the ferry's engine, drowned out only, and rarely, by the ship's hooter. Lungs rasp and rip, you can hear the tissues tear into shreds, and the glutinous product flies in all directions. I am not ready for that yet.
During the first night we cross the Tropic of Cancer. During the second day a Turkish passenger goes mad. He has been looking more pale and drawn by the hour. Now, with his black eyes buttoned to the back of his brain he begins to twirl in the saloon, stopping suddenly to point his finger and cast some fatal spell. He collapses, then rises to twirl again. His eyes have
Similar Books
