The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-04-01
A VISIT TO THE PYRAMIDS.

sion. The blank feeling you suecumb
| to, and which you mistake at first for
| disappointment, is really the sense OF
awe acting upon nerves which are high
| " strung. In vain do you gaze up
wards and sideways, and endeaEor to go
| through the process of mental guaglng.
The huge masses battle you utterly, and
every expectation based on reading, or
| upon the oral evidence of friends, seems
to have been untrustworthy. You can
not analyZe, nor compare, nor pronounce
any one particular to have been false.
But the pyramids you see, and touch,
| and climb, and the pyramids as they
have existed in the imagination, are
things utterly distinct, and no convic-
tions or impressions concerning them
are stronger than this, until you escape
from their mystic glamour, and view
| them once more in the distance, ana
| from the long and sandy plain leading
to Sakkara. The pyramid which, as
every one learns in childhood, has base
larger than the area of Lincoln's Inn
| fields, is far more easily climbed than
one would have thought possible. To
step from block to block of stone, with
a powerful Arab hold of each hand, and
with q third to push you when necessary
from behind, is laborious, but easy; and
| to rest on the roomy summit and drink
in its grand expanse of view, are expe-
riences to remember for life. When the
two Arabs, either on the ascent or de-
scent, jump different ways, their ten
| dency is to tear you in two, or to bring
your arms out by the sockets; but this
is mere detail. and the men are obliging
and intelligent. That you should be
bothered to have your name cut upon
one of the stones; that constant refer
ence should be made to your bearers eX-
1 tot of hao
sounds like Euhral, and supposed to re-
semble an English cheer, should be Civ
en- half way, and when you reach the
top, are things of course. All the way
up, however, we had been puzzled by al
lusions to ''good prints" 'tgood print
ings-write." from the Arabs, to which,
supposing them to refer to propositions
for inscribing our names, we had per-
sistently shaken our heads. Yielding,
when on top, to repeated signs to look
at some object at the further corner, we
found good prints" to mean our Prince
of Wales, and his signature, edward,
1922" to be one of the popular sights
of the place.
The extent of the foundations and the
magnitude of the works being carried
on here by the government are taken in
at a glance. Looking downward, the
black flies running to and fro on the yell
low sands are Arabs completing the last
portions of the road thither; the long
strings of beetles harnessed in a line are
camels laden with rock for its side wall
the tiny puff of smoke and the sharp re-
port which follows comes from a blast
ing party bound to clear a tomb from
the dust and rubbish of centuries by a
certain day. The rich color of the land
scape, with its variety of browns and
yellows, relieved by the brightest green
the mud village rising out of the waters
as one might imagine colonies of beavers
to do on the sudden subsiding ola flood;
the desert arid, endless, and with q GER
tain rolling look like yellow water, but
showing countless hills and valleys the
back of the sphinx's head, looking mass
i've and mighty even from this height
and the groups of other pyramids to be
seen miles off in the direction of our
nights camping ground are what one
remembers best.
The shadows have grown long, and
the afternoon comparatively cool, before
we can bring ourselves to leave the vi
cinity of the great pyramids. The in
terror of the kings and queens cham
bcrs have been explored, the tombs
brought to tight within the last few
months have been admired in all their
solidity and eXpanse, when our ride
across the desert to Sakkara is COM
menced. AS evening draws on, and the
silent calm of the desert asserts itself,
native life here, and the nature of its va
rieties and vicissitudes, begin to be I'M
derstood. The difficulties to be master
ed, and the magnitude of the work un-
dertaken to facilitate the transport and
enlarge the field of observation of the
strangers arriving are comprehended.
YOnder patch of dried milIet-stalks is a
village. Its sheik is smoking OH the
ground outside n larger bundle of the
dried leaves and straw than the rest, and
behind this division, which is exactly
like one of the partitions to farm yard,
are his children and wives. a naked
black boy, buffalo or two, some tur-
keys, and half score of camels, and as
many men and women, are at the doors
of tents, or peer at us over the upright
thatch. They were swept out of their
village few weeks ago by the flood. 1t
stood where yon cluster of palms peeps
above the water, and this is the substi-
tute for their homes. Asked whether
he hopes to return soon, the sheik re-
plies that he returns no more; that in
his lifetime his village has been washed
away three times, and that now, having
had several of their number drowned,
and wives and children left desolate, he
and his people have determined to abide
in the desert henceforth. Asked again
by a traveller eager for statistical infor-
nation, whether he is heavily taxed, he
politely evades the question, and says
that, having nothing left in the world,
he cannot pay tribute at all. He is
grave, handsome man of fifty, with an
iFon-gray beard, and a most dignified
bearing, who insists upon our resting
and taking coffee, and whose attendants
refuse a gratuity on our leaving, pro-
testing, with some of their masters dig
nifty, that they are already under weigh
ty obligations to the strangers for hav-
ing honored them with their presence.
This simple hospitality stood out in
stronger contrast from the hungry clam
or OF the jewellers by the pyramids,
, whom we had left; and when we were
taken to the tent of poor fellow whose
hands and arms had been injured by an
explosion of gunpowder, and asked to
prescribe for him, it seemed as If the
stories one had read of Arab goodness
and Arab faith were fully realized. We
pass another tribe of people washed out
of their homes, and who are hard at
work building new village, as well as
: droves of camels, one with genuine
Bedouin leading it, spear in hand, and
herds of goats and cattle. The color of
} the distant landscape increases in soft
ness and beauty after shutdown, and
, when the brown villages and remote
and lofty mountain range to the left are
enriched by the afterglow. To the right,
: however, all is ugliness and desolation,
the great desert stretching away in un-
3 broken waves, or hills of sand and stone,
: and in no respect resembling the level
; plain one had been taught to look for.
Darkness came on rapidly, and the
: shouts of one of our party rolling with
: his head foremost into a mummy pit was
2 our first intimation that we had reached
; the ancient Metropolis of Memphis, and
f were near our journeys end. The most
5 important of the smaller series of pyra-
: mids here, built in degrees or terraces,
a had been our landmark as long as the
: light lasted; and it was near this, and by
: the temporary and solitary house of Ma
: rietta Bey, the French explorer, whose
b important discoveries are so well known
e and who is still excavating for the Vic
eroy, that our tents were pitched We
were in the desert, and with nothing
: around us but the bleached bones OF
n men and camels, mummy-cloths of the
e sacred animals, most of which are re-
: moved to the museum at Boolah, the
n mutilated stones and fragments OF