Tuesday, we leave - the Pasha salutes us from his window.

November 20th, 1849, 12am

Tuesday, we leave - the Pasha salutes us from his window. It’s cold all day and we keep our overcoats. On the sea shore we meet the camels with the dates again. The man who was beaten, seeing us from afar, had fled. At Idku. While the passenger is called, we hunt in the swamp. Max and I shoot five sea magpies, two of which get lost in the water, my first killing of game. We dine on the other side of the passage, sheltered against the wall of the telegraph, with half of our second chicken and the provisions from Hussein Pasha. It’s cold - the sea is heavy - we encounter less shells than the day before yesterday. About a league from Alexandria, two camels, ridden by a Niger and an Arab, pass us by. They are unloaded, the ropes are tied to the saddle and hang on their hips. The men stand on them and beat them hard with palm sticks, laughing hoarsely; the camels trot like turkeys. They’ve past fast; laug and look ferocious, guttural, acrid notes, with large arm strokes. Before entering Alexandria, on the left, on a height, a lone mill.

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Gustave Flaubert

"Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world." [extracts from Flaubert's travel diary written in 1849-1851]

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