Life of Frances Power Cobbe Volume 1
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. ... CHAPTER IX. LONG JOUBNEY. The journey which I undertook when my home duties ended at the death of my father would be considered a very moderate excursion in these latter days, but in 1857 it was still accounted somewhat of an enterprise for a "lone woman." When I told my friends that I was going to Egypt and Jerusalem, they "Ah, you will get as far as Rome and Naples, and that will be very interesting; but you will find too many difficulties in the way of going any further." "When I say" (I replied) "that I am going to Egypt and Jerusalem, I mean that to Egypt and Jerusalem I shall go." And so, as it proved, a wilful woman had her way; and I came back after a year with the ever-delightful privilege of "I told you so." I shall not dream of dragging the reader again over the well-worn ground at the slow pace of a writer of "Impressions de Voyage." The best of my reminiscences Were given to the world in "Eraser's Magazine," and I reprinted in my " Cities of the Past," before there was yet a prospect of a railway to Jerusalem except in Martin's picture of the "End ofthe World "; or of a "Service d'omnibus" over the wild solitudes of Lebanon, where I struggled 'mid snows and torrents which nearly whelmed me and my horse in destruction. I rejoice to think that I saw those holy and wonderful lands of Palestine and Egypt while Cook's tourists were yet unborn, and Cairo had only one small English hotel and one solitary wheel carriage; and the solemn gaze of the Sphinx encountered no Golf-games on the desert sands. My proceedings were very much like those of certain birds of the farmyard (associated particularly with Michaelmas) who very rarely are seen to rise on the wing, but when they are once incited to do so are wont to take...