Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/109

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THE CITY OF THE HUNDRED GATES
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such among the (generally speaking) helpless, but invariably respectful and well-conducted ignoramuses who are gathered at this moment round the feet of the twin giants.

We are a motley and polyglot band, no doubt, numbering, as we do, among us a highly-respected English Bishop in partibus infidelium, a London surgeon of world-wide fame alike for his personal skill and for the success with which he has advanced the borders of his science, a German sculptor of high distinction, and a jockey whose name, as that of one of the foremost and most accomplished of English horsemen, is familiar to every turf-loving member of our widely-scattered race. Invalids in search of health, idlers in search of distraction, busy men in search of rest, or at any rate change; Germans indulging their newly-acquired national taste for rambling; Frenchmen anxious to look on the land with which they claim so mysteriously sentimental a connection; Americans calmly bent upon doing the