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Updated: May 6, 2025
Wild desolation reigned far and near. A German traveller mentions the masses of lava, brown, red, and black, varied with pumice-stone, distributed in huge broken masses, or rising in perpendicular cliffs; whilst the rushing stream, far below, is overgrown with oleanders and date-palms, willows, poplars, and tall reeds.
A little vanity there may have been in this, for however badly off we are ourselves, we are not displeased to see some people still worse off, and are gratified in laying them under some miserable obligation. Left Sebhah about 8 A.M., and after three hours' ride came in view of a forest of date-palms.
Approaching the place we passed a very large grove of date-palms beyond which the white roofs and walls shimmered in the setting sun. The Turks were expected to make a great stand here, not only because of its strategic position but also for its value as a port.
When we turned into the broad avenue that leads out of the city toward Old Cairo, there was plenty of room. The walls of stately date-palms that fenced the gardens and bordered the way, threw their shadows down and made the air cool and bracing. We rose to the spirit of the time and the race became a wild rout, a stampede, a terrific panic. I wish to live to enjoy it again.
This was of unusual height, and had a vaulted wooden ceiling, which was painted blue and sprinkled with stars, to represent the night heavens, and which was supported on pillars carved, some in the form of date-palms, and some like cedars of Lebanon; the leaves and twigs consisted of artfully fastened and colored tissue; elegant festoons of bluish gauze were stretched from pillar to pillar across the hall, and in the centre of the eastern wall they were attached to a large shell-shaped canopy extending over the throne of the king, which was decorated with pieces of green and blue glass, of mother of pearl, of shining plates of mica, and other sparkling objects.
A grove of date-palms made an island of gloom in the pale yellow sea. As she passed into the shadow Vasda slackened her pace, and began to pick her way more carefully. Near the farther end of the darkness an access of caution seemed to fall upon her.
Here we behold a threefold sea, namely, of houses, of the Nile, and a sea of sand, on which the lofty Pyramids rise in the distance like isolated rocks. The mountains of Mokattam close the background, and a number of lovely gardens and plantations of date-palms surround the town. With one glance we can behold the most striking contrasts.
Now and then a tuft of neglected date-palms might be seen, but the river's banks, formerly verdant with heavy crops, had become a wilderness. Villages once crowded had entirely disappeared; the population was gone. Irrigation had ceased. The night, formerly discordant with the creaking of countless water-wheels, was now silent as death. There was not a dog to howl for a lost master.
There were fig-trees and date-palms, crape-myrtles and wax-myrtles, Mexican agaves and English ivies, japonicas, bananas, oranges, lemons, oleanders, jonquils, great cactuses, and wild Florida lilies. This was not the plantation which Mrs.
From long distances, from far-off villages down and up the river, the natives had come in, either to sell or to buy along the wide, dusty road that went out from either side of the square, leading each way north and south. The mud-huts stood all round the square, backed by some date-palms, for Khartoum and the village behind it are more favoured with shade than sun-baked Omdurman.
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