ABSTRACT
The voice was grave and sweet, the voice of a fair young man or of a dark young girl, fresh and penetrating, resounding like the song of a cicada disturbed, through the dusty mist of an Egyptian morning. That I might hear it better, I left open one of the windows of the cange, through whose golden grating I looked out, alas, upon an arid coast: we were already far from the cultivated plains and luxuriant palm-groves which surround Damietta. Leaving that town at nightfall, we had quickly come to Esbeh, the seaport and the original site of the crusader's city. I was hardly awake, surprised to find myself no longer rocked by the waves, and the song continued to reach me from time to time as if from someone sitting on the shore, whom I could not see because of the height of the rocks. Again the voice began with melancholy sweetness: " Kaïkelir! Istamboldan! . . . Yelir, Yelir, Istamboldan!"
