Mr.
Frank Cook had insisted upon our being the guests of his firm on their
tourist steamer _Amasis_.
My relations with Messrs. Thomas Cook and Son go back for many years, and
with the Midland of England, my _Alma Mater_, the firm is, perhaps, more
closely associated than with any other railway. It was on the Midland
system that, in 1841, its business began. In that year the founder of
the firm, Mr. Thomas Cook, arranged with the Midland the first public
excursion train on record. It ran from Leicester to Loughborough and
back at a fare of one shilling, and carried 570 passengers. This was the
first small beginning of that great tourist business which now encircles
the habitable globe. Mr. Thomas Cook was a Derbyshire man and was born
in 1808. My father knew him well, often talked to me about him, and told
me stories of the excursion and tourist trade in its early days. But I
am digressing, and must return to Old Father Nile, who was in great
flood. We saw him at his best. His banks were teeming with happy dusky
figures and the smiling irrigated land was bright with fertility. Our
journey to Assouan occupied eleven days, a leisurely progress averaging
about two and a-half miles an hour.
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