and the dreamy-delicate crests of tamarisks, flung cool, dark nosegays between all those gleaming white buildings, which began to blink in the ever fiercer sunshine....
Thrasyllus pointed with his finger, along the harbour, the long row of palaces of the Cæsareum, the huge docks and yards teeming all motley with people and industry, to the Heptastadium, the promenade-jetty which stretched out to unite the city with the island of Pharos, whence the light-house took its name. On the one side of this pier, with rostra and statues on the marble balustrade and gates, lay the harbour of Eunostus and the naval docks of Cibotus.
The water on every side was crowded and swarming with vessels: biremes and triremes, battle-ships and merchant-ships; the masts rose like a forest of poplars and the sails glowed like the many-coloured wings of one bird against another; and, as soon as the quadrireme glided in, she was surrounded by a host of sloops, filled with traders, with yelling Arabs and Nubians. The Aphrodite heaved to; a pilot came on board; then she glided on again through the press of the sloops, the yelling of the traders and with swanlike elegance turned and lay to beside the great quay, at the place where she was expected, the place kept open for her.
The quay, between the obelisks, was alive with a maddening concourse of people: sailors and merchants, vendors of fruit and water and vegetables, chattering women, screaming children, Ethiopian beggars, Greek students, priests of Serapis and Isis, Roman soldiers; and all pointed at the ship and streamed in unison to gaze at her in wide-eyed and open-mouthed admiration. For, though numbers of vessels entered the Great Harbour of Alexandria daily, it was not every day that the quay was visited by so impressive a quadrireme as this; and the beautiful ship aroused curiosity.
The three travellers stood on the prow, beside the silver figure of Aphrodite, and Catullus said, in an appreciative tone:
“It’s not half bad. Just look at that row of palaces! It is as though Alexandria were one great palace, opening on its harbour! And what people, white, dark and black, all mixed! And what a noise they make, what a noise! We are much calmer in Italy!... Do look, Lucius, at all those ibises walking about on the quay, quiet and tame, pecking here and there, upon my word as though they were at home! Do you see the ibises, Thrasyllus? I thought that they just stood and dreamed on one leg, beside the Nile, like poetic birds ... and, the moment I arrive, I see great flocks of them actually walking on the quay of Alexandria’s harbour! White ibises, black ibises, piebald ibises! What a crowd of ibises! What a crowd of them! And so dignified, much more dignified than the people! Ye gods, what a noisy crew the Alexandrians are!”
The gangway was slung from the ship to the quay; and the master was receiving the port-authorities, to whom he had to show his papers, when two men came hurrying across the gangway, which was hedged in by a guard of sailors to protect it against any intrusion of the gaping populace. One of them was an obvious Latin, the other a dark-skinned Sabæan.
“Well, Vettius!” said Lucius, welcoming the Latin, who was his steward. “I am glad to see you again and I hope that your voyage was as prosperous as ours!”
Vettius the steward bowed low before his young master, bowed ceremoniously before fat Uncle Catullus. He had travelled ahead of his master to seek suitable lodgings at Alexandria and he seemed very well pleased with what he had found, for he pointed joyfully to the dark-skinned Sabæan, who had kept behind and now bobbed down with many salaams and respectful assurances, uttered in a language that fluctuated between Latin, Greek, Phœnician and Arabic.
“This is Master Ghizla, a native of Saba, my lord,” said Vettius, presenting him, “the owner of the largest guest-house in Alexandria; and he has at your disposal a row of three suites, standing in their own gardens, with spacious annexes, near the guest-house proper; and I am convinced that, when we have put in our own furniture, they will afford a fit residence for you and the honourable Catullus. Of course, when travelling, all conveniences are but temporary and not to be compared with your insula at Rome or your villa at Baiæ, now the property of our gracious Emperor Tiberius.”
“It is well, it is well, Vettius,” said Lucius. “We shall not be too hard to please. Are there baths attached to them?”
“There are most comfortable baths attached to them, my lord,” declared Master Ghizla, bobbing down twice and thrice in salaams. “And there are taps with very cold water and taps with very hot water. They are suites which I let only to princely nobles like your lordship; and I have had the honour of lodging in them the Persian Prince Kardusi, whom you surely know, and Baabab, Satrap of Mesopotamia, whom you also surely know, my lords, as princely nobles.”
“Certainly, certainly,” replied Lucius, trying to jest. “Kardusi and Baabab, I know them well.”
“We are even related to them and call them by their names,” Uncle Catullus broke in, airily, with a bow and puffing out his stomach. “But there is something that I want to ask you, Master Ghizla, something that neither his lordship nor Master Vettius will care so much about: are there kitchens to the suites, kitchens where our trusty cook can prepare us this or that simple fare?”
“There are most comfortable kitchens to these princely suites, my lord,” Master Ghizla assured him. “His Highness the Satrap Baabab often gave very sumptuous banquets and would invite his excellency the legate to his table every other day; and near the kitchens there is a well of water clear as crystal.”
“I don’t drink much water,” said Uncle Catullus.
“We have old Mareotis wine in our cellars, my lord, wine thick as ink, dark-purple as molten princely sealing-wax and fragrant as the own lotus of our Lady Isis, blessed be her name! We have also the rose-coloured date-wine of Meroe and the fine topaz-yellow liqueur of Napata: we have all the Ethiopian liqueurs....”
“That’s better than water,” said Uncle Catullus, smacking his lips. “What say you, my dear Lucius?”
Lucius had made a great effort that morning to control his grief; together with his uncle and the tutor, he had stared with interest at the splendid panorama that unrolled itself before their eyes as they entered the Great Harbour; he had welcomed his steward Vettius with a kind word; he had interested himself in the apartments which he was to occupy. Now, however, tired and listless, he had sunk into a seat, beside the silver image of the goddess, and sat looking disconsolately in front of him. He was a tall, comely fellow, with an athletic frame developed by wrestling exercise; and his dark eyes, though now veiled with melancholy and longing, gleamed with a deep spark of intelligence. Immensely rich, the sole heir of various relatives who had died childless, he had joined for but a short time in the mad orgies of the young Romans of his own rank and had soon devoted himself to many branches of science, to astronomy in particular, philosophy, magic, the favourite passion of that period; he amused himself with modelling and sculpture; as a collector, he loved everything that was beautiful: pictures and statues, old coins and old glass; and his Etruscan antiquities were famous all over Rome. Certainly, he had always desired to see Egypt, to travel through Egypt; and the sight of the marble palaces of Alexandria had already charmed him for a moment. But his grief and longing returned to him immediately after; red anger awoke in him once more and impotent fury that Ilia, his best-beloved slave, had vanished, one inauspicious morning, from his villa at Baiæ, without leaving a trace behind her.
“Come, Lucius,” said Catullus, “we’re going on shore now, my dear fellow. There are our litters waiting for us, prepared by Master Ghizla’s care....”
“With excellent, powerful Libyan bearers, my lord, bearers whom I reserve exclusively for princely nobles like you....”
“And, if you care first to take a turn through the city, sir,” Vettius proffered, “I will see to it that the furniture and baggage are conveyed from the ships to your apartments, so that you will find everything arranged in time for luncheon.”
Although Lucius of course travelled with his own litters and his own bearers, Ghizla and Vettius had judged that two Alexandrian litters, with twelve Libyan bearers, would serve his purpose better at Alexandria, especially because here they were accustomed to move quicker, at a trot, than in Rome, where the pace was statelier and slower. Master Ghizla, therefore,