The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1866-05-30

and wholly at the mercy of treacherous
conductor, who pretends to belabor your
beast, and only makes him kick, and
keeps you behind your party, when you
have every reason in the world to wish
to retain your place in it. Only one
thing is worse, mule which carries you
through whole day of wearing Alpine
climbing, just too far from all your friends
to exchange more than a scream at inter-
walls. II there chance on such an cxcur-
sion to be ten pleasant people of your par
ty, and one unpleasant one, whom you
particularly wish neither TO follow, 1t is
inevitably that particular Objectionable
person whose mule your mule will 20 af-
ter, and press past every one else to get
at, and drag your arm out of lis socket if
you try TO turn it back, and finally make
you wish that an avalanche would fall
and bury you and the demon-b brute you
have got under you in the abyss forever.
On horseback you are a lord (or lady) of
creation, with the lower animal subject
unto you. On mule-back, or ass-back,
you are a bale of goods, borne with con-
tumely at the will of the vilest of beasts,
not where you please, but where, when,
and how ii pleascs.
To return to my expedition to the
Pyramids. Very soon the English party
were out of sight, and slowly and wearily
was led zigzag course through fields
of young growing corn, an palm groves,
and past the poor mud villages of the
Fellal-Arabs. Mud, indeed, occupies in
Egypt an amazing prominence in every
view Mud novels, mud fields, where
the rank vegetation is only beginning to
spring through the deposit of the inunda-
ton, mud dams across a thousand chan
nels and bitches, and finally the vast yell
low mud banks of the mighty Nile. If
man were first created in Egypt, it is
small marvel that his bodily force should
be Il ''muddy vesture of decay" In the
course of my pilgrimage on this particu-
lar day my donkey-boy cleverly guided
me into a sort of peninsula of mud, out
of which there was no exit (short of re-
turning on our steps, save by crossing
stream Of some three or four feet deep.
As usual in Egypt, two or three brown
Arabs arose Immediately when wanted,
from the break OF rushes, and volunteered
to carry me across on their shoulders,
their backshish, of course being divided
with the ingenious youth who had brought
me into the trap. What it costs to the
olfactory organs to be carried by Fellah-
Arabs, language altogether fails to de-
scribe.
AT last the troubles of the day were
over; the sands of the Desert were reach
ed, and the siupendous cluster OF edificcs,
the three Pyramids of Ghizch, the
Sphinx, the Cyclopean Temple, and the
splendid tombs were before me and
around. For miles off, in the clear air
OF Egypt, where there is literally no
aerial perspective, l had been able to dis
tingulsh the ranges of stones which con-
stitut' the exterior of all the Pyramids,
save the small portions of the second and
third still covered with their original
coating. 1t was hardly, as Longfelow
says.
1.-The mighty pyramids of stone,
Whom u'case nd tne uesera AIRS
Are but gigantic flights of stairs .
Almost ,s soo, os ,hov coma w;,,,;,
tho ranno of r;s;nn ,hau ,ra sao, ,';,h
,he;r serro,od oJnas al ,ho hon;.a,,ai
lines of the deen stems martod shorr'i,,
,,,,h Tho ;n,onso lI -r 49, - ~
OF all these rp;ns of (,h;zoJ~,Loso
earliest and m;oht;est of tho recorJs of our
race-..ho .,ne bv far Tho n,ost ae.o,;na
and imnress;ye ;s assuredlv ,ho Snh;nr
A human face nav an nienseIv hnman
face. a portrait full of ;nd;v;dual;tv ond
solenn;tv even in TIA colossaI arandanr ~
pazes ot us with the stonv eves h.fnro
which have nasseJ Uehroy nronLo, onJ
Greek philosopher and the Roman con.
oueror. and Arab Kbalif Had Nanoloon
the Great told his troons that s;xtv con.
tur;os looked on them ,b,omaH ,ho
Snhinx's ewes he would have nsod No
unmeanipp metopbor Even tho vorv
ruin and discrace of the mighty corn,on
ance seems 70 render Il noro oa.o,;ur
Half ;mmcasura,Jv suhl;me hole n;,;c''I
nav crotesoue in ne dosolat;an :, i,anI, p
vv;,b e. hro,,, naI',,i., ,,u,,,,aI >, y s'''