Читать книгу The Harim and the Purdah: Studies of Oriental Women онлайн

57 страница из 58

Trains of camels passed our wall on their way to the distant city, and the shepherd boys drove their flocks of sheep and goats in search of pasture. I remembered Browning’s beautiful David, who sang:—

And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as one after one

So docile they come to the pen door till folding is done.

They are white and untorn by bushes, for lo, they have fed

Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream’s bed.

And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star

Into eve and the blue far above us—so blue and so far.

We watched the little boys ride the great unwieldy water buffaloes to the water side, slipping off their backs to allow them, groaning with content, to wallow in the sluggish waters, and when the hard white stars came out in the sapphire sky, we looked far over the Libyan hills, which had changed from the gold and opal of sunset to the grey blue that heralds the coming of the Egyptian night. The evening breeze that always comes with the setting of the sun brought the smell of the desert to us, and the deep swish of the Nile came as an accompaniment to the cry of the muezzin from the tiny mosque in the distance, and we saw its response in the fellah kneeling beside his waiting camel, lifting his hands to the heavens, as the clear, bell-like voice came over the evening air:—