“Very well, Vettius,” said Lucius, making an effort and rising. “I see two litters: those are for Uncle Catullus and me. And how is our good Thrasyllus to accompany us? For he knows the city already from the writings of Eratosthenes and Strabo; he can tell us much that is interesting on the way; and the tour would not afford us half the same pleasure without him.”
“I have had a good donkey saddled for Master Thrasyllus,” said Master Ghizla, with a salaam.
In fact, an ass, held by a boy on a leading-rein, stood waiting behind the litters, among the open-mouthed populace.
“And if,” the Sabæan hinted, suavely, “if I might entrust the noble lords to the conduct of my younger brother Caleb, he will go in front of the noble lords and act as a guide with whom they will doubtless be no less satisfied than were the Prince of Persia and the Satrap of Mesopotamia....”
“Kardusi and Baabab,” Uncle Catullus completed, mischievously. “Two pleasant, simple fellows: I’m sorry they’re gone.”
But Ghizla pointed to Caleb, who now came up with a flourish of salaams and bowed. As against Ghizla, who was tall, lean and dignified, Caleb, the younger man, was vivacious and sparkling, with dark eyes, flashing teeth and a gay, smiling mouth. He wore wide striped trousers of many colours, a white burnous, a red turban and large rings in his ears; and he spoke better Latin than his brother, with now and then a few sentences of Greek.
Lucius accepted Caleb as his guide; and they went on shore; and Lucius and Uncle Catullus took their seats in their litters. Thrasyllus mounted his quiet donkey; but Caleb flung himself with a swagger on to a jet-black, gaily-caparisoned Sabæan mare, who neighed when she felt the red heels of Caleb’s sandals in her flanks. So the procession started: first three ebon-black outrunners, with whips which they cracked right and left to make room, to drive barking dogs away and to keep beggars at a distance; then Caleb, proudly sitting his horse like a young conqueror, always smiling and sparkling with black eyes and white teeth; then the two litters, with Thrasyllus at the side on his donkey; and round the three travellers a number of guards, armed with whips and sticks.
They pressed through the crowd along the quay, where everybody looked and pointed at the distinguished foreigners; they went at a quick trot, for the outrunners went at a trot, cracking their whips; Caleb, on his Sabæan mare, showed off his equestrian powers and pranced elegantly along upon his steed; the litter-bearers followed at a short, steady quick-trot; even Thrasyllus’ donkey, as sober as a philosopher, trotted blithely on; and behind trotted the guards, shaking their sticks and flourishing their long whips. They trotted along the middle of the broad street, over the great stone flags; and it seemed as though everything were trotting in a quick rhythm, including all the other litters, the carts and horsemen, who with their outrunners and outriders also strove to make their way through the bustle.
So the cavalcade trotted on; and the street-boys scattered and the ibises scattered with outstretched necks and wide-flapping wings.
“What crowds of ibises!” Catullus cried. “Thrasyllus, isn’t it comical to see so many ibises walking and fluttering through the streets of Alexandria?”
“My lord,” cried Thrasyllus, from the back of his dancing donkey, “the ibises are Alexandria’s scavengers.”
“I dare say, but they are unclean birds themselves for all that! And they are counted among the sacred animals!” cried Uncle Catullus. “Whoosh! Whoosh!”
And he drove them away, with a flourish of his arm from the litter, for the whips of the runners trotting behind circled, it is true, around the street-boys but ever spared the sacred ibises, one of which would sometimes stray, fluttering wildly, among the bearers.
Meanwhile Caleb continued to give a graceful equestrian performance on his snorting mare beside Lucius’ litter:
“My lord!” cried Caleb. “Do you see the Heptastadium? The great bridge leading to the Pharos? Do you see that tall-masted ships are able to sail under it? It is an interesting walk there of an evening, my lord: all the beauties of Alexandria go there; and a great nobleman like yourself need but make his choice and any hetaira in Alexandria will fall at his feet! This is the Moon Gate, my lord! And this is the High Street: behind it lies the Rhacotis quarter, which is very interesting at night, my lord, most interesting for any one like your lordship to roam through in disguise. But now we are going through the High Street; and here, you see, is the Square, where the High Street crosses the Museum Street and the Avenue of Pillars.”
Lucius looked around him with enjoyment. They were still going at a trot, a trot of mare and runners and bearers and donkey, a noisy trotting between shouting and laughing voices and cracking whips, while in the streets and squares the hucksters also shouted and laughed and swore, while the street-boys cheered and screamed for an obolus and the ibises, flapping their wings, darted away, to alight again elsewhere and act as scavengers to Alexandria.
“It is very different from Rome in every way,” thought Lucius. “It is the east.”
Yes, it was the east. It was Egypt, it was Alexandria. Never in the Forum at Rome, lively and busy though it was, never in the basilicas had Lucius beheld this ever trotting, ever hurrying tumult. It was as though every one were pressed for time and hurrying feverishly. Processions of priests hurried; the Roman guards even, returning from the Palace after being relieved, marched with an accelerated step; and yet the numerous litters never struck against one another: they all glided at the trot of their bearers, to the right, to the left, beside one another; there was only a shouting, a din, a cursing, a cracking of whips loud enough to rouse the dead. Here was a quarrel, with violent gestures and shrill voices; there the noisy gaiety of squabbling vegetable-women and bawling vendors of water-melons; suddenly, in a rage, the women flung cabbages at the vendors’ heads and the vendors sent melons trundling between the women’s legs; the cabbages and melons rolled across the street and the crowd yelled with enjoyment, while distinguished but still trotting processions of notables in litters or on horseback made a way for themselves. The cabbages and melons rolled in front of the feet of Lucius’ bearers; and Caleb, rising in his stirrups with flapping burnous and uplifted arms, hardly holding the reins in his fingers while the mare reared on her hind-legs, poured forth a torrent of curses over the women and the hucksters ... and then turned to Lucius with a pleased smile, as though all this tumult were the most ordinary morning affair in the streets of Alexandria.... Yes, that was the Egyptian character: bustle, tumult, uproar, yelling and cursing for the least thing; quarrelling for the least thing; and then everything just ordinary again, as though nothing had happened. All this in a motley whirl of colours: Rome was monotonously white and colourless beside it, Lucius thought. Here the colours glared more fiercely: the citrons, oranges and melons lay yellow and gold over the markets; and there were exotic fruits too, scarlet and vermilion....
They came to the painters’ quarter. Troughs of used colouring-matter ran in gutters along the streets: there were rivulets of indigo, there were little waterfalls of ochre. The bearers splashed through purple and trotted on with purple-black feet. A golden whirl of dust in the morning sun powdered over these motley colours as with handfuls of the finest glittering sand. Tall buildings shot up their pillars in that glitter, seemed to shimmer, to move in that shimmer of light.
Caleb now pointed to the Acropolis, standing fortress-like, four-square and heavy, protecting and dominating the city. Next came the Sun Gate. Outside the city-wall was a canal; along the canal ran an avenue of tall sycamores, bringing a sudden blissful calm and coolness and silver-green shadows. And now Caleb pointed to the famous lake, Lake Mareotis: it lay spread out like a sea, but was divided by isthmuses into smaller inland lakes; there were islands often bearing some temple to Aphrodite; and along the margins of the lake rose villa after villa, in royal pomp of marble-coloured villas, casting their reflections into the limpid water.
“That is where the rich hetairæ live,” said Caleb, with a wink, “hetairæ for people like your lordship: a prince like you can take your choice.”
Tall