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[Page 91]

thoughts. Well this is the top of the great Pyramid of Egypt. A rough stone square without rail on any side. Why is the battered rag representing a flag black? There is to the West and South the great dessert of the Sahara known since childhood's days as a waste of sand on the map of Africa. From whence came the tales of the Bedouins, of the camels, of the Caravans, of the sand storms, of the mirages, of the oases, and much else, that filled the brain of my youth, stirred its fancies, and left impressions which this evening were revived in manner unexpected and strange beyond expectation anticipation or belief of but few months last when you & I held converse in Sunny New South Wales.

Turning to the North and West, what other recollections of foretime mental impressions, called education, crowd one the other, there Cairo and the Nile, as real as my brain can percieve them, occupy portions of Egypt. Swift do the thoughts fly through time and space – Alexandria, the Phonecians, the Aenid of Virgil, Grecian history, Roman history, the rain of Abyssinia, the valley of the Nile, lakes Albert Nyanza & Victoria, Nyanza, travellers Burton Speeke [Speke] Livingstone, Stanley, Kings of various dynasties Gordon Khartoum Berber Waddy Halfa Suakin Assouan [Aswan] the British & now Australians. Any one of these names or subjects would serve me as text to write you sheets of words, which would be pleasure to me to set down, but might not be so satisfying to you to have to read. When you grow older you may, as I do, wonder what an incomprehensible living structure is the brain of not only a distinguished member of the human family but of the ordinary unit. Again does a train of thought tend to lead the flowing ink from out this nib.

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