n my introduction to Egypt. I have never since let
more than three winters, at most, go by without revisiting the
strange, haunted place; next to Nippon the fairy country it is dearest
to me of all the warm corners of the earth--and I have dragged my
twinging, tortured muscles to them all. Only last winter--for many
months have passed since I copied those last letters into my
manuscript, and I paid dear for a last attempt at a February in New
York--I strolled through Cairo streets, drew gratefully into my
nostrils the extraordinary mixture of odours that differentiates Cairo
from every place in the world (how the great cities are stamped
indelibly each with her own nameless atmosphere, by the way! And yet
not quite nameless, for London's is based on street mud and
flower-trays, Rome is garlic and incense, Paris is watered asphalt,
New York is untended horses and tobacco-smoke, and Tokyo is rice
straw) and as I strolled, a strange thing happened to me.

I was passing by a street-seller of scarabs, a treacherous-looking
wretch, whose rolling eyes glanced covetously at the scarab--better
than any of his--that I wore at my scarf-knot, and pressed against him
to avoid a great black with a tray of brass bowls and platters on his
head. Just ahead of me a lemonade-merchant uttered his wailing, minor
cry, and as the crowd jostled in the narrow, dirty lane, my eye was
caught by a coffee-coloured woman, a big Juno, with flashing teeth and
a neck like a bronze tower. Across her shoulders sat a naked baby who
held his balance by his two chubby hands buried in her thick black
hair, one leg dropping over each splendid breast. She caught my eye,
and laughed outright as the child kicked out with one fat foot and
struck the brasses on the tray so that it tipped and swayed
dangerously.

I stood there, lost in a maze of Cairo streets, and the babel of the
shrieking, blue-clad donkey-boys was the scream of gulls to my ears
and the sun on the swaying brass platters was the reflection of a
polished sun-dial. The turquoises on the scarab-seller's tray were
turquoises about Margarita's waist, the lemonade was borne by Caliban,
and the child that rode astride those strong shoulders had hair like
corn-silk burned in the sun and eyes as blue as any turquoise! For so
had she held her baby, walking with that free, noble stride, and so
she had laughed and met my eyes, and so the child had clutched her
hair, in the summer just passed.

So vivid wa