MARK TWAIN

Splendid avenue of sycamores and acacias, 3 or 4 miles
to the Pasha's great garden.

Oct. 7. Returned to Alexandria—Pyramids in the dis-
tance.

Cultivation—vast oceans of corn etc.

Queer villages.

Soft scenery.

No more than that, yet the Egyptian chapter
with its lofty prose poem of the Sphinx, begin-
ning, "After years of waiting it was before me at
last," is probably the high spot of his book. That
and the one of Palestine, beginning: "Palestine
sits in sackcloth and ashes." Readers who have
been wont to think of Mark Twain chiefly as a
funmaker will do well to turn to Chapters
LVI and LVIII of The Innocents and con-
sider those particular extracts.

After Egypt the notebook contains just five
items.

Oct. 7. Left Dan, and sailed for Africa.

Oct. n. At sea somewhere in the neighborhood of
Malta. Very stormy.

Terrible death to be talked to death.

The storm has blown 2 small land birds and a hawk to
sea and they came on board.

Sea full of flying fish.

That is all. The ship put in at Gibraltar for
coal, and with three others Mark Twain spent a
delightful week through Andalusia, "the garden
of old Spain." But he did not try to write about
it. How could he? After Palestine and Egypt,
even Andalusia must have been tame enough—
restful, but tepid. His book really ends with the
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