Train conversations

“So you’re coming directly from Egypt? Where is Egypt again?”
“Egypt lies in the zone left of the equator which is called heat in geography. It borders in the north on the quarantine, in the south on the Turkish army, in the west on biblical history, and runs into the English ambassador in the east.” (Remaining text continues in this vain, mocking the traveller’s false erudition.)
(Fliegende Blätter, Munich, 1869)