No comments Delayed, 1817Dr. Robert Richardson It was our intention to have sailed at an early hour next morning; but on giving directions for that purpose, it was discovered that the colours had been left behind at Assouan, and it was impossible to sail without them; they were our national banners, the badge and ensign of our country, which we were determined to display wherever wind or wave would carry us. . . .A trusty British tar [a sailor] was despatched with a guide back to the vessels [which they had left below the cataract, transferring to smaller local boats to sail into Nubia], to bring the flag which he had often defended. . . . The next day we spread our sails and banner to the wind, and with a favourable breeze began to stem the current of the north.
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| Egyptian Flag |
Whose Flag is This? 1855
John Gadsby We met a boat with a flag flying aft something like the Union Jack with a goose in the centre. As I did not know to what country it belonged, I took out a chart which I had, ‘Flags of all Nations’, to satisfy myself. The crew all came round me, to look at the chart, and were highly amused; and I was surprised to see that they knew so many of the flags as they did. Pointing to the Stars and Stripes, they exclaimed, “American! American!” To the Tricolour, “Fransowee!” (French); To the Union Jack, “Inglees, tyeeb!” (English, good!); To the Double-Headed Eagle, “Moscow!” (Russian); “Whoo! whoo! whoo!” (holding out their arms as if firing a gun). This was during the war [in the Crimea], I could not, however, find the looked-for flag anywhere upon the chart; so I concluded it was some goose or other who had stuck itself in the middle of the English flag to make itself look singular, and attract attention.
In Nubia more than elsewhere in Egypt, the travelers wrote of the animal life: large mammals, reptiles, and small but destructive insects.