Only the station-master had forfeited his independence of spirit. He alone of the whole village was in habitual contact with "the public." It had wrought in him a fawning plausibility the more contemptible by its contrast with the sturdiness of the surrounding natives. He lied by habit; the fictitious way was more natural with him than the way of truth. In official dealings he lied first, and afterwards modified it into truth. Regardless of consistency, he said invariably what he thought would please. Railway time-tables with him varied with the estimated temper of the inquirer. This seems incredible, but it is true. He was the only village inhabitant who ever invited you to take coffee; and he (the potentially dignified station-master) alone, in all the village, was ever known to solicit baksheesh--an oily, yellow, perennially-smiling, small-bodied, altogether small-souled railway-official, in him seemed incarnated the slavish spirit of officialdom in all Egypt. Bathing in the Canal was forbidden along its whole length. There lurked a parasite that played Old Harry with livers. It ravaged the natives in rare cases, though, having drunk and washed in the canal from infancy, a sort of immunity was claimed for them. But there were victims to the parasite to be seen amongst them--no pretty sight. A favourite walk at sundown was the canal-bank. The reed-shot lagoon on the east, traversed by sporadic, crying duck; the gentle wind, blowing warm off the Libyan Desert, drifting the silent dhow; a solitary fellaheen on his ambling beast; an Arab doing his devotions in the tiny praying-crib on the water's brink; the west darkening behind the palm-tufts over the illimitable sand. There was a peace here little known in our other halting-places in the Delta. CHAPTER III CANAL ZONE