Palm-Trees and Moonlight

“It was not yet evening, but there was no other village for some distance above, and we thought it best to pass the night here. Accordingly we laid the boat up at the bank, and spread our carpets under the palm-trees. Here we sat till the sun went down, and the moonlight came gloriously over us. Never was there such a moon, never such skies, never such stars as these. And when the night comes, and I sit in the holy light that sanctifies even this apparently. God-forgotten land, I think there can be no life in all the world like this. Palm-trees, moonlight, and the Nile! What more? Sometimes – sometimes, I say – not often – on such nights as these, I remember a distant land of cold storms and biting frosts. Often-how often! how earnestly, how fondly, I remember a land of gleaming firesides and beloved faces; and I see the sad countenances of two who look for my coming, and then I long to be away. God keep us all to meet in a land that I love better than Jerusalem itself, for all my darling memories of childhood and of you!”