could feed the self-conceit of anything so
abject as his ragged little apish guide; but the novel roar and whirl of
the street, the perpetual stream of busy faces, the line of curricles,
palanquins, laden asses, camels, elephants, which met and passed him,
and squeezed him up steps and into doorways, as they threaded their
way through the great Moon-gate into the ample street beyond, drove
everything from his mind but wondering curiosity, and a vague, helpless
dread of that great living wilderness, more terrible than any dead
wilderness of sand which he had left behind. Already he longed for the
repose, the silence of the Laura--for faces which knew him and smiled
upon him; but it was too late to turn back ow. His guide held on for
more than a mile up the great main street, crossed in the centre of the
city, at right angles, by one equally magnificent, at each end of which,
miles away, appeared, dim and distant over the heads of the living
stream of passengers, the yellow sand-hills of the desert; while at the
end of the vista in front of them gleamed the blue harbour, through a
network of countless masts.

At last they reached the quay at the opposite end of the street; and
there burst on Philammon's astonished eyes a vast semicircle of blue
sea, ringed with palaces and towers....He stopped involuntarily; and
his little guide stopped also, and looked askance at the young monk, to
watch the effect which that grand panorama should produce on him.

'There!--Behold our works! Us Greeks!--us benighted heathens! Look at it
and feel yourself what you are, a very small, conceited, ignorant young
person, who fancies that your new religion gives you a right to despise
every one else. Did Christians make all this? Did Christians build that
Pharos there on the left horn--wonder of the world? Did Christians
raise that mile-long mole which runs towards the land, with its two
drawbridges, connecting the two ports? Did Christians build this
esplanade, or this gate of the Sun above our heads? Or that Caesareum
on our right here? Look at those obelisks before it!' And he pointed
upwards to those two world-famous ones, one of which still lies on its
ancient site, as Cleopatra's Needle. 'Look up! look up, I say, and feel
small--very small indeed! Did Christians raise them, or engrave them
from base to point with the wisdom of the ancients? Did Christians build
that Museum next to it, or design its statues and its frescoes--now,
alas! re