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