The Tour: A Story of Ancient Egypt

Next morning, the soft, even light of a tea-rose dawn spread over a magic spectacle, beautiful as a marvellous dream, flimsy as a vision, compelling as an enchantment. The ship...

After the abundant dews of the night came the delight of the cool-warm summer day. The clustering trees now pressed their way forward more richly and luxuriously along the banks...

The travellers had left Sais, after visiting the temple of Athene and the tomb of Psammetichus, son of Necho, founder of the twenty-sixth dynasty, one of the twelve kings of the...

In the still and silent night, the Delta lay flooded by the kindly waters of the sacred river. From the Canopic to the Sebennytic mouth, from the Phatmetic along the Mendesian t...

And so it happened. Uncle Catullus thought that Caleb's suggestion was really not bad; and so he remained on board the thalamegus with Rufus the under-steward and a number of ma...

The golden noonday sky paled; the blinding topaz of the heavens melted away into amber honey; and the sands of the desert stretched out wide, far and endless to the last glitter...

"Sing and play me some cheerful songs, Cora," he said. "Be kind to me even though I be not your master. For I feel bored here, on this Nile boat, at Memphis. I have been bored e...

The first spring rains had already descended in heavy torrents; the water-gods had already poured the kindly streams from their urns into the swelling Nile; the river-surveyors,...

"Lucius, pray control yourself," he said. "Master yourself and yield piously to Fate. Ilia is gone, she is gone. She is probably gone for ever. She has disappeared. Pirates must...

Night had fallen over the city, a dark, starless night. To escape attention, Lucius and Caleb mounted a small, inconspicuous litter at the back of the diversorium. Caleb sat at...

Near the pillars of Sesostris, near the little diversorium, there lay moored, beside the quadrireme, a merchant trireme, which was sailing past Ophir to the Persian Gulf and whi...

The night that hung over the sea was windless and blissfully silver-pure after the glowing splendour of the day; and the great quadrireme glided evenly and softly, as though upo...

The short twilight had deepened to purple over the desert; night came gliding along the firmament; the stars began to peep. And Caleb, who suspected Lucius' emotion at each fres...

Cape Dire! The sea was reached; and there rose the obelisks, the shafts, the pillars of Sesostris, whose sacred writings immortalized the remembrance of the passage of the Egypt...

During those evenings of the summer festival, Alexandria was lighted more brilliantly than Rome itself. The town glittered with hundreds of lights, lamps, lanterns, torches and...

It was very early one morning and Lucius was walking alone on the opposite bank of the river. In the tender dawn the vast grey lines of Memphis became visible in rose-red silhou...

"My son," said old Thrasyllus, sitting beside his couch, "do you intend always to cherish your illness and longing, like a serpent that devours you, bone and flesh? The sibyl of...

But Lucius did not sleep. Now that he was alone, he felt the agony of his suffering and affliction. He drew a sandal from a little casket, a woman's blue-leather sandal adorned...

In the strange bright summer night of light, lit by the sheen of the stars and the glow of the lamps, Canopus rose amid its slender obelisks and its spreading palm-trees. The ba...

"Child of the foam, great goddess of love, Aphrodite, look down from above! Thou, who dost madden the gods with desire, Thou, who fulfillest men's hearts with thy fire, All but...

After the fierce hunting by day, the nights were twinkling mysteries of great shining, diamond stars; and Sirius shone like a white sun. The rustling silence, the audible stilln...

Had Lucius slept? Had he dreamed? Had the fragrant cloud drugged his senses? Had a strange mystic power spread over him? Had Serapis descended upon him? Had the dreams surrounde...

Those were sad days. Lucius would lie on his bed, sobbing like a child, then rise suddenly, in transports of rage, tear his clothes or take up a stool and hurl it at a marble st...

"See, my lord," said Caleb, walking ahead and pointing, "these are male palm-trees; and those more slender ones are female; and they marry one another, my lord, and feel love fo...

And she alighted on the stone steps of the portico. She was closely wrapped in her veils, but Caleb had recognized her. And she offered Caleb a gold coin, which Caleb did not re...

"O my lord, O my lord!" Caleb began to lament. "O my poor, poor, noble lord! What a terrible fate to befall you! If only you had consented faithfully to wear the Sabæan amulets!...

They took the repast provided by Caleb outside the town, in a farmstead beside a canal, under a cluster of palm-trees. There were no dainty dishes, there were no purple-coloured...

The travellers had returned to Memphis and Caleb displayed the skin of a lion which had been shot in the desert and told the people in the thalamegus terrible tales of desert gh...

After five days and nights, Lucius knew. Pale, tired and enlightened, he sought out his followers, Thrasyllus, Caleb and Tarrar, who were staying in the great, cavernous rooms o...