From Alexandria to Cairo. Sunday morning, 25th, we leave on a small boat trucked by a tugboat, which contains only the machine.

November 27th, 2013, 1pm

It was 3°C with nil significant cloud. The wind was light.

Flat and dead banks of the Mahmoudiah Canal - on the shore a few Arabs run naked - from time to time a voyager on horseback passes, draped in white and trotting on his turkish saddle. Passengers: Mme Chedutan, tall, thin, elegant, dressed in the Greek fashion; her husband, French doctor at the service of the viceroy, laying on covers below, with an Abyssinian girl at his side nursing him; English family: hideous, the mother seemed an old sick parrot (because of the green awning added to her hood); Mr Duval de Beaulieu, secretary to the Belgian embassy in Constantinople; Arab engineer speaking English and getting drunk on Porter during the evening supper. At Afteh. Hens on the houses, they look like those the fellahs at Alexandria had (and across Egypt). It seems gloomy to me, especially at sundown. The boats of the Nubians, sunken in the water, have their planks enhanced with a layer of earth. The sun sets; the minarets of Fuwah shine white on the horizon; at left, foreground, green meadows. At Afteh we enter the Nil and take a bigger boat. First night on the Nil - state of satisfaction and lyricism: I move, I recite verses by Bouilhet. I can not bring myself to go to bed: I think about Cleopatra. The waters are yellow - it is very quiet - there are a few stars. Vigorously bundled in my coat I fall asleep, on my bed camp, which I ordered be put on the deck, and with what joy! I am awakened by Maxime - Waking up, he sticks his left arm out to look for me…

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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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