GEORGE WALKER AT SUEZ

by Anthony Trollope




Of all the spots on the world's surface that I, George Walker, of
Friday Street, London, have ever visited, Suez in Egypt, at the head
of the Red Sea, is by far the vilest, the most unpleasant, and the
least interesting. There are no women there, no water, and no
vegetation. It is surrounded, and indeed often filled, by a world
of sand. A scorching sun is always overhead; and one is domiciled
in a huge cavernous hotel, which seems to have been made purposely
destitute of all the comforts of civilised life. Nevertheless, in
looking back upon the week of my life which I spent there I always
enjoy a certain sort of triumph;--or rather, upon one day of that
week, which lends a sort of halo not only to my sojourn at Suez, but
to the whole period of my residence in Egypt.

I am free to confess that I am not a great man, and that, at any
rate in the earlier part of my career, I had a hankering after the
homage which is paid to greatness. I would fain have been a popular
orator, feeding myself on the incense tendered to me by thousands;
or failing that, a man born to power, whom those around him were
compelled to respect, and perhaps to fear. I am not ashamed to
acknowledge this, and I believe that most of my neighbours in Friday
Street would own as much were they as candid and open-hearted as
myself.