HAVING EGYPT TO YOURSELF.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 August 1926, Page 3

HAVING EGYPT TO YOURSELF.

JOYS 01-’ THE OFF SEASON. (By G. Ward Price in the London “ Daily Mail.”) CAIRO, June 25. To most Britons sunshine is the supreme condition of a successful holiday. I wonder why more of us do not deliberately seek it in places where the sun is strong and incessant. A summer tour to Egypt seems to lie beyond the hounds of our national imagination. Yet there is no need for sun-starved people like ourselves to tear a daily temperature of 93deg. or 95deg. in tlie shade. Heat and strong sunshine act at first as a tonic to folk who live under clouded skies. It is only when the Northerner makes a hot climate at his home that its original stimulating effect is followed hv enervation.

When the Rress telegrams from Home tell of a Test match spoiled by rain there is a special satisfaction in having as sole pre-occupation the avoidance of the sun. With tropical clothing, sun-helmets, heavily shuttered rooms, cool stone floors, electric fans, large bathrooms, iced drinks, and all other equipment with which Cairo is well supplied, the British holi-t”--inakor there can support the hottest hours of the day with comfort. residents of Cairo take no such precautions. and from two till six every afternoon play golf or tennis or crickol or else swim in the big hath at their great Gezira Sporting Club on an island ill the Nile.

Even were sunshine less ol a rarity to travellers from ’ England, the privilege of having the ancient monuments of Egypt practically to themselves would he enough to make- a visit at this time of the year worth while. The innumerable American conducted tours to Europe that have been started since the war and the tremendous attraction to Egypt of the discovery of Tut-ankh A men’s tomb have resulted in filling Cairo every winter with a. flood of tourists which streams unceasingly through the city in a ioverish whirl of sight-seeing by time-table. Hanging upon the flanks of this hurried host is a noisy multitude of guides, interpreters, donkey-boys, post-cards-sollers, and impudent native scallywags of every kind. Even t''o Spitix itself appears undignified in the midst of these throngs that daily swarm around it.

But at the present season Cairo is a place of calm, with a character ol its own. The shutters are up oil many of the hotels that in winter-time are crowded to the extent of lodging some, of their guests in house-boats oil the Nile. No hawkers beset you as you walk the streets. At the l’yramids donkey-hovs and guides have gone hack to their villages to live in native luxury uiioii t/'.e three pounds a day which they admit they make during the lour months of the tourist season. Unacooxted and alone, you can walk li'om Mena House up to the low plateau where Pyramids and Kpliiux stand on the edge of the desert, and find those maiestic monuments in solemn solitude. It is ■'•ere, where the green strip ol the Nile Valiev fringes upon the grim sands of the Eastern Sahara, that a summer holiday in Egypt can best he enjoyed hv those who like the comforts of civilisation without its crowds. Even from the 'hotel windows sunrise is a daily miracle, and for two or three hours after ft the air is of a sweet, cool softness which makes outdoor exorcise a memorable delight. The finest swimming hath in Africa, large and lined with marble, lies here in the midst of gardens, within a few yards of a desert that stretches for a thousand miles. And at the end of the day you can dine by shaded lamps in the scented darkness under the trees, an outpost of civilisation, on the edge of one of the world’s greatest stretches ,ot desolation, an atom of humanity at the toot of monuments that have seen many civilisations come and go.

There are summer rates in the British steamers to Egypt now, and those who travel F'ere would do well to make their passage by a British line. I lie Italian ships which carry much ol the Egyptian tourist and mail traffic charge rates t’nt make them the most expensive sea-f ralisport in the world, the journey from Venice to Alexandria of exactly 70 hours costing a minimum first-class fare of £35.