Labrador looks at the Orient : notes of travel in the Near and the Far East / by Sir Wilfred Thomas Grenfell.

  • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Labrador looks at the Orient : notes of travel in the Near and the Far East / by Sir Wilfred Thomas Grenfell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    especially if they were Semitic, should have ever left Egypt in possession of so many of their goods and chattels as it would have us believe. Even it the narrator did wish to conceal any hereditary tenacity of his race, at least he considered that feat worthy of space in the Scripture itself. The sights of Cairo, however, far outweigh all lesser experiences. How can curiosity, the most powerful im¬ pulse of travellers, be better catered to than by digging up ancient dignitaries and labelling the treasure-trove in glass cases ? The great museum of the city provides treasures of that kind to satisfy the most self-indulgent. Here are dead kings and queens, priests and politicians, in long, immense variety. You can choose and specialize to an unlimited ex¬ tent. This all tends to emphasize the one great conviction of the Egyptians that is provided for in the Creed, namely, the resurrection of the body, and the consequent desirability of preserving all that you can of it, and if possible as much furniture and domestic equipment as may still be service¬ able when the Day of Judgment arrives. Our own investi¬ gations convinced us that the success achieved has been perhaps more complete than one might hope for, but even so it left much to be desired, and the departure of deter- minded egotists suggests that there must be some gap in their philosophy—which on the whole so incomplete a preparation in the face of such mighty expenditure really only emphasizes. However, time has increased the intense interest in man’s past, recently stressed so vividly in Dayton, while the opportunity enlarges with the lapse of years, and with a growing margin of wealth to expend on less utilitarian and purely barbaric hobbies. On the other hand, there seemed to be little to encourage the ardent evolutionist with regard to the real things that count in life. We still can match a great many of the undesirable features of the life of those days if one’s daily papers are to be a gauge of our twentieth-century civilization. There are many in high political circles closer home than Thebes, who would be a