Excerpt of Down the Nile by Rosemary Mahoney
(Page 9 of 9)
Printer Friendly Excerpt
Not comprehending my wish to row myself down the river
alone, well-meaning Egyptian men, I knew, would try to stop
me or, alternatively, would offer a crippling degree of help.
And so, as I began my search for an Egyptian rowboat, I resolved
to take a slightly Fabian approach, to move slowly,
evade questions, and tell no one exactly what it was that I
wanted to do.
* According to Herodotus, an Egyptian sandstorm could be bad enough to
bury an entire army. The Persian King Cambyses sent fifty thousand men
into the desert, "but," Herodotus wrote, "they never returned . . . As they
were at their midday meal, a wind arose from the south, strong and deadly,
bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up
the troops, and caused them wholly to disappear."
Copyright © 2007 by Rosemary Mahoney
