55

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 429

less and seemingly endless wilderness of sand, where not even the crowing
of a cock or the barking of a dog is heard, we were transferred to a smart
little French steamer and landed at lsmalia, where, since leaving the new and
shambling town of Port Said, we saw the first sign of civilization and began
to realize that we were entering the land of the Pharaohs.

Here the Khedive has one of his many palaces and here and there are a
few moderately comfortable dwellings with two or three hotels and a railroad
station. How and by what means the people in this place live, is a mystery.
For miles around there is no sign of grain or grass or vegetation of any kind.
Here we first caught sight of the living locomotive of the East, that marvel-
lous embodiment of strength, docility and obedience, of patient endurance of
hunger and thirst– the camel. I have large sympathy with all burden bearers,
whether they be men or beasts, and having read of the gentle submission of
the camel to hardships and abuse, of how he will kneel to receive his heavy
hurden and groan to have it made lighter, I was glad right here in the edge of
Egypt to have a visible illustration of these qualities of the animal. I saw him
kneel and saw the heavy load of sand put on his back. I saw him try to rise
under its weight and heard his sad moan. I had at the moment much the same
feeling as when I first saw a gang of slaves chained together and shipped to
a foreign market. A long line of camels attended by three or four Arabs came
slowly moving over the desert. This spectacle, more than the language or
customs of the people, gave me a vivid impression of eastern life; a picture
of it as it was in the days of Abraham and Moses. In this wide waste, under
this cloudless sky star-lighted by night and by a fierce blazing sun by day–
where even the wind seems voiceless– it was natural for men to look up to
the sky and stars and contemplate the Universe and infinity above and around
them; the signs and wonders in the heavens above and in the earth beneath.
In such loneliness, silence, and expansiveness, imagination is unchained and
man has naturally a deeper sense of the infinite presence than is to be felt in
the noise and hustle of the towns and men crowded cities. Religious ideas
have come to us from the wilderness, from mountain tops, from dens and
caves, and from the last silent spaces from which come the mirage and other
shadowy illusions; which create rivers, lakes and forests where there is none.
The songs of the angels could he better heard by the shepherds on the plains
of Bethlehem than by the jostling crowds in the busy streets of Jerusalem.
John the Baptist could preach better in the wilderness than in the busy marts
of men. Jesus said his best word to the world when on the Mount of Olives.
Moses learned more of the laws of God when in the mountains than when
down among the people. The Hebrew prophets frequented dens and caves