The Tears of Isis

This book describes the travel of Richard and Mary Carrington in Egypt and along the Nile from delta to source in 1955/56. I particularly enjoyed Carringtons East From Tunis - his journey from Tunisia through Libya to Egypt. This book, The Tears of Isis follows on from that.

It isn't a full time journey, Mary takes a job in Cairo, and they make numerous connections which are to assist them in their onward travels. It was an interesting time for the three countries through which they travelled, all in different phases of transition from British Protectorates. Egypt had been a republic since 1953, and there was plenty of anti-British sentiment, although this was non-confrontational from the Carrington's perspective. Their entry into Sudan occurred on the day of independence, where Sudan were taking the reins from the British administration, and (from Carrington's observations) were continuing to run systems and processes set up by the British, and heralding the positive moves Britain were making in its withdrawal. Uganda, which was not to gain independence until 1962 was still run by the British, and this brought some strange disappointments to Carrington: P236/7

Our steamer, Lugard II, was alongside the quay, painted white and looking very spick and span with its brilliantly polished brasses and smart young English officers in immaculate white ducks. Sadly, these typical manifestations of the English character were carried through into other departments of the ship, as we soon found when we went on board. We were served with glasses of warm Amstel beer, and lunch consisted of brown Windsor soup, overcooked beef, boiled potatoes, watery greens and a custard tart. It was very easy for me to observe the self-imposed diet that i had begun with my fever.

We first stood by the source on the evening of January 25th 1956, both of us with mixed emotions. I agreed utterly with Speke:”The scene was not exactly what I expected...” And the feeling of anticlimax implicit in his remarks was heightened still further by the many changes that had taken place by this time.We approached the source down a tarmac road lined on one side by bungalows bearing such names as Lily Mansion, Old Dutch, and Mon Repos. Among these was a hotel with a red corrugated iron roof, its walls painted in the particular shade of biscuit and green associated with middle-class homes built on English by-passes. men were alighting from the smaller types of Morris, Ford and Austin cars to take their evening beer on the terrace, surrounded by the hollyhocks and marigolds of an English garden. Meanwhile their wives st in segregated groups watching the children play in the car park and retrieving an occasional ball from the middle of a flower garden.