Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/32

18 Lesseps was called up, and spoke, of course in his own language, with a force and energy that awakened great enthusiasm. He said he had traversed America from New York to San Francisco, and had visited everywhere the schools, to which he attached the greatest importance, especially to the schools for women, which he said were the foundation of the greatness of America. This was strange language to be spoken in the presence of an assembly of Moslems! All the expressions of feeling were in the friendliest spirit. One speaker ended with this rhetorical flourish, in which the compliments were pretty evenly balanced between Egypt and America:

"In the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia there was a Department assigned to Egypt, over which was written 'From the oldest of nations to the youngest.' That greeting we now return, presenting the best wishes of the youngest of nations to the oldest. Americans have many attractions to Egypt. Hundreds of our people come here every Winter, to enjoy your climate, to sail up the Nile, to see your monuments, your temples and pyramids. How can we but wish well to a country where we have had so delightful, though but a temporary, home?

"I see before me distinguished representatives of the Arab race, one of the great races of the world, which has played a mighty part in history — and not only in the history of Asia and Africa, but of Europe also, for scholars cannot forget that there was a time when the Arabs, carrying their conquests along the northern shores of Africa, crossed into Spain, where they remained hundreds of years, and where they founded the Universities of Seville and Cordova, and were the masters of learning for Western Europe. A race which has had such a place in the past, surely has reason to anticipate a great career in the future.

"So do we believe in the continued vitality of Egypt. Superficial travellers may think its only interest is from what it has been in the past, from its pyramids, its temples, and its tombs. But is there nothing of Egypt but its sepulchres? I see around me a living Egypt, in which there