Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 174
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[Page 174]
The history of this Egypt is intimately connected with the basis of the modern world, which as acknowledgment of the separation of the ancient eara [era] from our time, marks all events as before or after Christ. In the first book of the New Testament and the second chapter, the 13th to the 22nd verse, is told the story of the flight of Joseph, Mary, and the Child Jesus, from Bethlehem into Egypt. Even, unto this day, are persons shown the places where the holy family rested during their sojourn in this country. Just beyond Heliopolis, on the other side of Cairo from Mena, is "Mary's Well", and other places which are called "Joseph's House", & such like. It may be that if I can get away tomorrow I shall have chance to visit some of these places. How could they, simple & crude though they be to the eyes & imagination of a man, be but full of interest? Have not the actors of those days left indellible marks on the pages of history? Such as have been more fruitful of good results, than have followed the acts of any single family of all time. Strange 'tis that in Egypt, as elsewhere, the saying holds good that – "A prophet is of little use in his own country". Yet one might say the application of the sentence is not correct in this country. Because Mahommed, the prophet of the nine truths of the people here, for the building of the Khoran, took most of the basic principles, for the moral and civil code, from the bible and from the accounts of the life of Jesus Christ.
12-30 p.m. The wind called the Khamassene (Fifty days during march and April each year) howls without, sand comes into the rooms through every chink & crannie, it falls upon this paper while I write, the air is white with contained particles of sand to such extent that the grand pyramid, but few hundred yards away cannot be seen. It is common belief that many persons go mad during the prevalence of these winds. Their acute duration is from three to five days, becoming so at any hour during the fifty days.