Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
George Walker at Suez By: Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) |
---|
![]()
GEORGE WALKER AT SUEZ by Anthony Trollope
Of all the spots on the world's surface that I, George Walker, of
Friday Street, London, have ever visited, Suez in Egypt, at the head
of the Red Sea, is by far the vilest, the most unpleasant, and the
least interesting. There are no women there, no water, and no
vegetation. It is surrounded, and indeed often filled, by a world
of sand. A scorching sun is always overhead; and one is domiciled
in a huge cavernous hotel, which seems to have been made purposely
destitute of all the comforts of civilised life. Nevertheless, in
looking back upon the week of my life which I spent there I always
enjoy a certain sort of triumph; or rather, upon one day of that
week, which lends a sort of halo not only to my sojourn at Suez, but
to the whole period of my residence in Egypt. I am free to confess that I am not a great man, and that, at any
rate in the earlier part of my career, I had a hankering after the
homage which is paid to greatness. I would fain have been a popular
orator, feeding myself on the incense tendered to me by thousands;
or failing that, a man born to power, whom those around him were
compelled to respect, and perhaps to fear. I am not ashamed to
acknowledge this, and I believe that most of my neighbours in Friday
Street would own as much were they as candid and open hearted as
myself. It is now some time since I was recommended to pass the first four
months of the year in Cairo because I had a sore throat. The doctor
may have been right, but I shall never divest myself of the idea
that my partners wished to be rid of me while they made certain
changes in the management of the firm. They would not otherwise
have shown such interest every time I blew my nose or relieved my
huskiness by a slight cough; they would not have been so intimate
with that surgeon from St. Bartholomew's who dined with them twice
at the Albion; nor would they have gone to work directly that my
back was turned, and have done those very things which they could
not have done had I remained at home. Be that as it may, I was
frightened and went to Cairo, and while there I made a trip to Suez
for a week. I was not happy at Cairo, for I knew nobody there, and the people at
the hotel were, as I thought, uncivil. It seemed to me as though I
were allowed to go in and out merely by sufferance; and yet I paid
my bill regularly every week. The house was full of company, but
the company was made up of parties of twos and threes, and they all
seemed to have their own friends. I did make attempts to overcome
that terrible British exclusiveness, that noli me tangere with which
an Englishman arms himself; and in which he thinks it necessary to
envelop his wife; but it was in vain, and I found myself sitting
down to breakfast and dinner, day after day, as much alone as I
should do if I called for a chop at a separate table in the
Cathedral Coffee house. And yet at breakfast and dinner I made one
of an assemblage of thirty or forty people. That I thought dull. But as I stood one morning on the steps before the hotel, bethinking
myself that my throat was as well as ever I remembered it to be, I
was suddenly slapped on the back. Never in my life did I feel a
more pleasant sensation, or turn round with more unaffected delight
to return a friend's greeting. It was as though a cup of water had
been handed to me in the desert. I knew that a cargo of passengers
for Australia had reached Cairo that morning, and were to be passed
on to Suez as soon as the railway would take them, and did not
therefore expect that the greeting had come from any sojourner in
Egypt. I should perhaps have explained that the even tenor of our
life at the hotel was disturbed some four times a month by a flight
through Cairo of a flock of travellers, who like locusts eat up all
that there was eatable at the Inn for the day... Continue reading book >>
|
Genres for this book |
---|
Fiction |
Literature |
Short stories |
eBook links |
---|
Wikipedia – Anthony Trollope |
Wikipedia – George Walker at Suez |
eBook Downloads | |
---|---|
ePUB eBook • iBooks for iPhone and iPad • Nook • Sony Reader |
Kindle eBook • Mobi file format for Kindle |
Read eBook • Load eBook in browser |
Text File eBook • Computers • Windows • Mac |
Review this book |
---|