have donkeys instead of cars.

At the distance of a few miles the Pyramids rising above the palms,

looked very clean-cut, very grand and imposing, and very soft and filmy,

as well. They swam in a rich haze that took from them all suggestions of

unfeeling stone, and made them seem only the airy nothings of a dream

--structures which might blossom into tiers of vague arches, or ornate

colonnades, may be, and change and change again, into all graceful forms

of architecture, while we looked, and then melt deliciously away and

blend with the tremulous atmosphere.

At the end of the levee we left the mules and went in a sailboat across

an arm of the Nile or an overflow, and landed where the sands of the

Great Sahara left their embankment, as straight as a wall, along the

verge of the alluvial plain of the river. A laborious walk in the

flaming sun brought us to the foot of the great Pyramid of Cheops. It

was a fairy vision no longer. It was a corrugated, unsightly mountain of

stone. Each of its monstrous sides was a wide stairway which rose

upward, step above step, narrowing as it went, till it tapered to a point

far aloft in the air. Insect men and women--pilgrims from the Quaker

City--were creeping about its dizzy perches, and one little black swarm

were waving postage stamps from the airy summit--handkerchiefs will be

understood.

Of course we were besieged by a rabble of muscular Egyptians and Arabs

who wanted the contract of dragging us to the top--all tourists are. Of

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The Innocents Abroad