CHAPTER XII
A BREAKWATER OF BARBARISM
It is a pretty and peaceful-looking riverside settlement which meets the eye of the traveller up the Nile as he approaches Wady Haifa. A little group of houses, at which the steamer stops to deliver letters, and which has sprung up during the last few years under the protecting shadow of the British garrison, forms his first halting-place; in another ten minutes he has rounded the point behind which lies the military station proper and draws up at the landing-stage hard by the headquarters of the Commandant. A flag flying over the roof of a bungalow surrounded by a garden rich with palms, lebbek and poinsettia, denotes the spot, and but for these signs of tropical
