Down the Nile
Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff
Chapter One
The River That Flows the Wrong Way
ON THE DAY that I hoped to buy a rowboat in Luxor, Egypt, I was
awakened, as I had been every morning in Luxor, by a Koranic
antiphony drifting from the Islamic boys' school next door to my
hotel. With all the zeal of a Baptist preacher's, a young boy's
amplified voice shrieked repeatedly in Arabic, "There is no God but
God, and Muhammad is his witness!" and a shrill chorus of his
schoolmates howled the words back at him. I got out of bed and went
to the window - at 7:00 a.m. the glass was already warm as an
infant's forehead - and discovered that during the night many
colorful cloth banners had been strung above the corniche, Luxor's
Nilefront boulevard. In hand-fashioned Arabic characters, the
ban ... read full excerpt from Down the Nile ebook
