Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-07-02
NILE WINTER LIKE
DREAM OF REST
Egypt Offers Endless Refresh.
ment for the Body and
\ Mind.

Without doubt the pleasantest
place in which to spend a nonwintry
winter is Egypt-the banks of the
Nile. In Cairo, perhaps, 1t is not
quite correct to describe the winter
as nonwintry, for the early morn
ing and evening cold is sufficient to
make Itself very sensibly felt; but
In Assuan and Luxor the winter is
no winter In the European sense OF
the word.
BY Christmas the narcissus and
the violets, immense beds of which
grow 10 the gardens, are already in
bloom; while by March. our early
spring, the orange blossom and the
scarlet hibiscus are fully out. the
pink and white oleanders and petu-
MAS are Towering with a profusion
utterly unknown in European gar
dens, and the long. lofty wall Of
the winter palace gardens in Luxor
is hung with, as 1t were. tapestry
of deep yellow Marechal Mel roses
and deep purple bougainvillea-
wonderful color study of tints, both
rich and rare. Winter on the Nile,
indeed, is more like an ideal sum-
mer. with warm days, which are yet
not exhausting, and with cool eye-
nings and early mornings, which pos
sesses some marvellous quality or
freshness and invigorating power OF
which evenings and early mornings
elsewhere seem bereft.
He Prescribes Egypt.
For complete rest and refreshment
of mind and body, says a writer in
the London Post, 1 think after con-
siderable experience of travel that
should send any one to Egypt IN
preference to any other part or the
world. I should not recommend mucE
time being spent in Cairo, as, inter-
testing city though 1t is in the older
and native parts. 1t is not characters
tically Egyptian, and does not. unless,
perchance, for the incorrigible town
lover, possess anything approaching
to the nameless charm of the Milo
and upper Egypt.
Throughout the entire journey, last
ing about fortnight, from Cairo TO
Assuan, this abundant life OF int
Nile is ceaselessly in evidence. In
summer, the dead season, it might DO
less apparent, but in winter and
spring the signs of people, hapita-
tons, domestic animals, cultivation,
wherever the eye rests, are striking
beyond all else in the Egyptian land
scape. In the winter there are crops
to be sowrl, watered and tended, and
by early spring the first of these crops
are ready for the harvest.
Great golden masses of corn are
already 10 be seen near Luxor, and
barley already boarded even near
Cairo; tomatoes are fit for gathering,
great purple-black aubergines ripe
for plucking, opium peoples in flow
er, field after held of them Of all col
ers, and, above all, there are onions
everywhere.
The winter is not past, indeed, be-
fore the fellah is planting in the I'M
covered stretches of rich black Nile
mud and in sandy spits where the
larger wild birds congregate the seeds
of the watermelon, which in sum-
mer are almost the staff of his life.
to see those watermelon plants from
day to day used to remind us of an
old nursery rhyme, three lines OF
which ran thus:
And with gardener man.
With the watering can,
Says, "Gracious! how fast he grows!"
For they grow almost visibly, fos-
tered by the hot sunshine and nour-
shed by the fat Nile mud.
Is Never Monotonous.
1t is doubtless this ceaseless life and
activity of the Nile and not merely
the sense of vast limitless space, the
boundless horizon, nor the atmos-
pheric effects changing with the time
of day, which prevent the Egyptian
scene from ever wearying or becoming
monotonous. 1 do not think | speak
for myself alone when | say that
have spent day after day in the bows
of a Nile steamer doing nothing what
ever but watching the scenes passed
through, without for a moment find
ing the days too long.
Apart from the life actually on the
river, with the passage of boats bear
ing the peculiar long Nile sails,
manned by bawling Arabs and laden
with strange cargoes of water jugs,
sugar cane and maize, there is the
life on the shore itself-the life of a
people unfamiliar and yet familiar
because they seem to have come out
of the pages of the family Bible, at
whose illustrations we used to look
in our childhood, a people doing
things as they did them thousands of
years ago, living life which we see
to be real because 1t goes on before
our eyes, and which yet seems a life
of long ago.