bland impassible Sphynx looked out upon the picture from her throne in

the sands as placidly and pensively as she had looked upon its like full

fifty lagging centuries ago.

We suffered torture no pen can describe from the hungry appeals for

bucksheesh that gleamed from Arab eyes and poured incessantly from Arab

lips. Why try to call up the traditions of vanished Egyptian grandeur;

why try to fancy Egypt following dead Rameses to his tomb in the Pyramid,

or the long multitude of Israel departing over the desert yonder? Why

try to think at all? The thing was impossible. One must bring his

meditations cut and dried, or else cut and dry them afterward.

The traditional Arab proposed, in the traditional way, to run down

Cheops, cross the eighth of a mile of sand intervening between it and the

tall pyramid of Cephron, ascend to Cephron's summit and return to us on

the top of Cheops--all in nine minutes by the watch, and the whole

service to be rendered for a single dollar. In the first flush of

irritation, I said let the Arab and his exploits go to the mischief.

But stay. The upper third of Cephron was coated with dressed marble,

smooth as glass. A blessed thought entered my brain. He must infallibly

break his neck. Close the contract with dispatch, I said, and let him

go. He started. We watched. He went bounding down the vast broadside,

spring after spring, like an ibex. He grew small and smaller till he

became a bobbing pigmy, away down toward the bottom--then disappeared.

We turned and peered over the other side--forty seconds--eighty seconds

--a hundred--happiness, he is dead already!--two minutes--and a quarter

712

The Innocents Abroad