The Topeka state journal., 1919-12-27

IN those days. of course (said the
French agent, looking out across
the sea of Yussuf Effendis which
bnlowed up against the balcony to
where. in the moonlight the minarets
of Cairo pointed the way to Cod. did
not occupy the position which occupy
today. No. was younger. and more
ambitious: thought to carve in the
annals Of. Egypt a name for myself
such as that of De Lesseps-
had a scheme-and there were
those who believed in it-for extending
the borders Of Egypt. All! my friends.
Egypt, after all, is but a double belt
Of mud following the Nile. and termi-
mated east and west by the desert. The
DESERT 1t was the dream of my life
to exterminate that desert, that hungry
gray desert: it was my plan-a foolish
plan. as 1 know now--to link the fer
tile Fayum to the Gases! How was
this TO be done? All!
Why should I dig up those buried
skeletons? 1t was not done; it never
could be done. therefore. let me not
bore you With how I proposed to do
st. Suffice it that my ambitions took
me far off the beaten tracks. far, even.
from the caravan roads-far into the
gray heart Of the desert.
But 1 was ambitious. and only nine
teen-or scarcely twenty. At nineteen,
q man who comes from ST. Remy fears
no obstacle which Fate can place in his
way and looks upon the world as a
grapefruit to be sweetened with en-
dsavor and sucked empty.
1t was in those days, then, that 1
learned. as your Rudyard Kipling has
also learned. that East is East; it
was in those days that came face to
face with that mystery Of Egypt"
about which so much is written. has
always been written, and always will
be written, but concerning which so
few people, so very few people. know
anything whatever.
Yes. I, Rene de F'lassans, saw with
uiy own eyes a thing that I knew to
bo magic. a thing whereat my reason
rc5ened-a thing which my poor Euro
p7an intelligence could not grapple,
could not begin to explain.
It was this which you asked me to
ten you. was It not? I will do SO with
pleasure. because know that I speak
to men of honor. and because it is
good for me, now that I cannot count
the gray hairs in my beard. to confess
how poor a thing I was when I could
count every hair upon my ehin-and
how grand a thing I thought myself.
one evening. at the end of a dread
full day in the saddleAbeneath a sky
which seemed to reflect all the fires Of
he'll, a day passed upon sands simply
smoking in that merciless SUM- and
my native companions came to an en-
campment of Arabs.
They were Bedouins (this incorrect
but familiar spelling is retained
throughout)-the tribe does not matter
at the moment-and, as you may know,
the Bedouin is the most hospitabbs
creature whom God has yet created.
The tent of the Sheikh is open to any
traveller who cares to rest his weary
limbs therein. Freely he may partake
Of all thai the tribe has to offer. food
and drink and entertainment; and to
seek to press payment upon the host
would be to insult a gentleman
That Is desert hospitality. A spear
that stands thrust upright in the sand
before the tent door signifies that who
soever would raise his hand against
the guest has first to reckon with the
Sheikh. Equally it would be an insult
to erect ones own tent in the neigh
borhood of a Bedouin encampment.
Wen, my friends, I knew this well,
for I was no stranger to the nomadic
life. and accordingly, without fear of
the fierce-eyed throng who came forth
to meet us, 1 made my respects to
the Sheikh Said Mohammed, and was
reckoned by him as a friend and a
brother. His tent was placed at my
disposal and provisions were made for
the suitable entertainment of those who
were with me.
You know how dusk falls in Egypt?
At one moment the sky is brilliant
canvns, glorious with every color
known to art; at the next the curtain
the wonderful veil of deepest violet
has fallen: the stars break through it
like diamonds through the finest gauze:
II is night, velvet, violet night. You
see it here in this noisy Cairo. In the
lonely desert it is ten thousand times
grander ten thousand times more Inn
pressive it speaks to the soul with
the voice OF the silence An, those
desert nights!
So was the night OF which 1 speak;
and having partaken Of the fare which
the Sheikh caused to be set before
me--and Bedouln fare is not for the
saueamish stomacf-I slipped that de-
Ecious coffee which, though an ac-
auired taste, IS the true nectar, and
looked out beyond the four or five palm
trees of this little oasis to where the
gray carpet of the desert grew black as
ebony and met the violet sweep of the
sky.
Perhaps I was the first to see him:
= f1nf cartafr1lu he was mot