THE CHARM OF EGYPT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10416, 21 March 1912, Page 2

THE CHARM OF EGYPT.

THE NILE: THE DESERT.

To me,(says a writer in the "Daily Chronicle") the-mystery of Egypt is strangely akin to tho mystery of woman. i'ho Sphinx—yes, it is an unforgettable experience to have been in the presence of the Sphinx I —seems, in fact, entirely sexless. Yet we always think of tho Sphinx as a woman. When, ono travels in Algeria or Morocco there is something virile, barbaric, about the place and people. But Egypt has a woman's subtle spell. Curiously enough, I believe that historically, since the timo of the Pharaohs, women liavo held sway in Egypt as nowhero else—the land of Isis and the great Goddass Nut.

Above all, in its tantalising and mysterious beauty, in its weakness and in its strength, Egypt holds ono captive with a woman's charm. We can rule her, but I doubt if we shall ever quite understand her. Again and again I have been told by Egyptian fellahin that they are glad of our governance—that they thank lis for all the practical benefits we have brought them, but I have always felt that behind it all there is a mocking inscrutable smilo at all our protests and assumptions. In some things ono _ feels that we have committed something very like sacrilege. Wo have destroyed the beauty of Phylae to make the Assouan dam. We have pillaged the tombs of tho Pharaohs and stacked the gods in museums to be gaped at with sixpenny catalogue. We have turned the Nile into a tourists' pageant and Cairo into an Earl's Court exhibition. We have dono almost everything that solid, Sractical, vandalism can do. But I. oubt if tho heart of Egypt does not still remain elusive and uncapturcd. This, of course, may be only the romanticist's point of view—ono .to whom the dream is more than the reality. Anyhow I would advise anyone of this turn of mind to go to Egypt out of tho season, when tho tourists are not there, and one can wander alono through those majestic temples, and watch tho sunset on tho Nile —making it seem like a river of molton gold and purple eddies—without having to listen meanwhile to the latest tittle-tattle from Paris and Piccadilly.

Then there is t-lio desert—the same desert whether one views it from Egypt or Algeria. I am afraid it would no quito impossible to describe or convey by any means at all. the fascination of tiie desert to busy, town-bred folk. It is indescribable. I ran quite understand what sonio recent despatches have revealed about the " desert-mad-ness " that affects some of the Italian soldiers, aftor gazing hour by hour into tliat Illimitable sea of Kand._ Balzac has written that the desert is " God without man," and I think that expresses tho feelings it inspires as well as anything I have ever heard. But to thoso whose minds cannot for one reason or another tuno themselves to its vnstness and its solitude, maddening it may well be. And hero perhaps you might lot mo just say a word as to our English rriticisms of those Italian troops. Here, a.s elsewhere, I think wo have boon a little overrighteous. Personally. T agree with every word that Prince TVnno, whom T know well, and who has every reason to be friendly towards the Arabs, has written 011 this subject. You must remember that there was Undoubted treachery. Do you not think that if you had seen your comrades shot down from behind by supposed friends and allies, you might have done the same? I. too, have many friends among the Arabs, and there fs something splendid about the Arab character. But where individual treachery is concerned it is useless to talk of racial distinctions