and lips which Egypt had given them. At last, the time drawing nigh for their departure for the Dardanelles, they resolved to get back part of what they had lost in the back streets of the city—certain things they could never get back—and they went down in force and sacked the houses and rushed the Arabs and Arab women to the streets and took back what they could find. There was a great riot. The native police were called out, and they fired at the screaming mob. Such scenes were enacted in the city that brought to mind the continuous street-rioting in Alexandria in the old early-Christian days. But what is most significant in the sight of these fine young men in the city is the realisation of the impure strain they take back with them from Egypt to the women and the children of Australia and New Zealand.
Night comes over the stately city, and the
Europeans in their white clothes come in greater
numbers into the streets. The great remote staring
moon stands over the broad highway and arched
bridges. Heat seems to be generated through the
haze in the sky, but a light dry breeze is ever
blowing, and the pungent sweetish odour of the
city is in the nostrils. In the contrast of darkness
and night silence the clangour of Eastern music is
more stirring. It stirs the body, not the soul, and
is like the sensuous music of Nebuchadnezzar, the
