Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/59

Rh objects; nay, no hint of any acknowledgment of a community of human nature with the living beings among whom he is passing is visible in any feature of his face until he is abreast of his countryman. Then for one brief moment the wooden lineaments relax, the eye is cast towards you with a momentary flash of recognition, the cockney nez retroussé receives an almost imperceptible upward jerk, a faint smile flickers on the lips for a moment, to be immediately afterwards suppressed as a weakness not to be indulged in before the barbarian, and the gallant fellow turns the corner of the street and disappears from view. He was here and he has gone! The vision of the red coat and white helmet has passed before the eyes and vanished as fleetingly as a dream. The English uniform has flitted for a moment across the scene, like a streak of stormy sunlight across a swollen river; has flitted and flashed away, and the eternal tide of Oriental life flows on.

O, Thomas! is it an allegory—an "