The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-06-06
Wonders of Egypt Offer Continual Re-
freshment of Body and Mind.

freshment of Body and Mind.
Philadelphia Ledger: Without
doubt the pleasantest place in which
to spend a non-Wintry winter is
Egypt-the\ banks of the Nile. Win
ter on the Nile, indeed, is more like an
ideal summer, with warm days, which
are yet not e~Xhausting, n with cool
evenings n early mornings which
possess some marvellous qualities of
freshness and invigorating power of
which evenings and early mornings
elsewhere seem bereft.
For complete rest and refreshment
of mind and body, l think, after con
siderable experience of travel. that l
should send anyone to Egypt in pre-
ference to any other part of the world.
I should not recommend much time
being spent in Cairo, as, interesting
city though it is in the older and ma
tive parts, it is not Enthusiastically
Egyptian, n does not, unless, per-
chance, for the incorrigible town lover,
possess anything approaching the
nameless charm of the Nile and up
per Egypt.
Throughout the entire journey, last
ing about a fortnight, from Cairo TO
Assuan, this abundant life of the Nile
is ceaselessly in evidence. In summer,
the dead season, it might be less ap-
parent, but in winter or spring the
signs of people, h%abitations, domestic
animals, cultivation, wherever the eye
rests, are striking beyond all else In
the Egyptian landscape. In the winter
there are crops to be sown watered
and tended, and by early spring the
first Of these crops are ready for
harvest. --7 H"'N@ ~ A.'oE
Great golden masses of corr are al
ready to be seen near Luxor, and bar
ley already bearded even near Cairo;
/ tomatoes are fit for gathering, great
purple-black aubergines ripe for pluck
ing, opium peoples in flower, field after
field of them of all COlOrs; and. above
all; there are onions everywhere.
The winter is not past, indeed, before
the fellah is planting in the uncovered
stretches of rich black Nile mud and
in sandy spits where the larger wild
birds congregate the seeds of the
watermelons which in summer 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 the gardener man,
With the watering can,
Says, Gracious! how fast he grows!"
For they grow almost Visibly, fostered
by the hot sunshine n nourished by
the fat Nile mud.
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 atmospheric
efforts changing with the time of day,
which prevent the Egyptian scene
from ever wearying Or becoming
monotonous. / do not think I speak
for myself alone when I say that 1
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 finding
the days too long.
Apart from the life actually on the
river, with the passage of boats bear
ing the peculiar long Nile sails, man
ned 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 a life which we see to be real.
because it goes on before our eyes,
and which yet seems a life of long
ago.