Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/107



LOW gray sea-wall defends the level sands at Alexandria. Against it throbs the ebb and flow of tepid waters. Behind that wall there runs a road, a faithful slavish road, conforming to every whim and curve and angle—a glaring sandy road, a staring vacant road. Beyond, is a row of cafés fronting the wall and facing the sea, empty as tombs—which can be seen from without, for customers never go within. But when the sun had turned to a copper ball and tumbled over the rim of the world, when evening winds toss spray above the wall, that road is transformed into a fashionable promenade. Tables and chairs appear in front of the cafés, and men come to occupy them. Out from their offices, from counting rooms of commerce, from palaces and dingy huts, come the beys and the beggars; the seller of lemonade clashes his cymbals, and the hawker of Indian figs shouts his wares.

It is a Noah's Ark of humanity, that promenade. The cocotte, painted and Parisian, swishes 93