Explore "Morocco" by S.L. Bensusan on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai, / Whose portals are alternate Night and Day, / How Sultan after Sultan with his pomp / Abode his destined hour and went his way. / _The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam._
There are certain cities that cannot be approached for the first time by any sympathetic traveller without a sense of solemnity and reverence that is not far removed from awe. Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Damascus, and Jerusalem may be cited as examples; each in its turn has filled me with great wonder and deep joy. But all of these are to be reached nowadays by the railway, that great modern purge of sensibility. Even Jerusalem is not exempt. A single line stretches from Jaffa by the sea to the very gates of the Holy City, playing hide-and-seek among the mountains of Judaea by the way, because the Turk was too poor to tunnel a direct path.