CHAPTER XVI.
CIGARETTE EN BACCHANTE.
Vanitas vanitatum! The dust of death lies over the fallen altars of Bubastis, where once all Egypt came down the flood of glowing Nile, and Herodotus mused under the shadowy foliage, looking on the lake-like rings of water.

The Temple of the Sun, where the beauty of Asenath beguiled the Israelite to forget his sale into bondage and banishment, lies in shapeless hillocks, over which canter the mules of dragomen and chatter the tongues of tourists.

Where the Lutetian Palace of Julian saluted their darling as Augustus, the sledge-hammer and the stucco of the Haussmann fiat bear desolation in their wake.

Levantine dice are rattled where Hypatia's voice was heard.

Bills of exchange are trafficked in where Cleopatra wandered under the palm aisles of her rose gardens.