New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-05-23

out the door and told him not to come again until
he brought il "
"Yes:-wellp
II was that boy"
Iouestioned Achmet to know whether he mad
told the story of my first visit with ITS seno-eomc
nterlude; but he had not. The mans astonishing
memory after so many years of tourists, had recog-
nized me and reproduced the incident with all its
minor details.
BY this time. several other carriages had arrived
from Cairo. Parties were lunching on the cold
steps, bargaining for modern scarabe strolling to-
ward the Sphinx with crowd of Arabs at their
heels, or climbing the steps of the Great Pyramid
with many an awkward straddle, showed from be-
low and pulled up from above. There were tweed
coats eye glasses canes, chignons, fans. parasos-
but let not the romantic reader suppose that the
sublime rcpose of the old Egyptian world was in the
least preiudiced by these objects They were but as
driftwood or sea-weed, surging around the base OF
mightier natural pyramids along the shores OF Nor
way or Maine. One is carried so far back-set IN
the presence of such imperious human will and I'M
hndered power-that the real and far more perma-
nent greatness of age fades away, and Its care
less representatives become, for the time, mere
stingless insects that hum and buzz for few min
utes, to be carried away by the next breeze. No.
you might pack billiard-rooms, lager-beer saloons
cats chdntdnts stock brokers offices, and free-lrade
Leagues, around the pyramids, hold political meet
ings with speaker standing on the SphinXs head,
or make the adytum of the old temple below resound
with revival hymns, and you could not diminish the
impression which these wonderful monuments exact
and compel Won to feel. dead faith-a lost race
a forgotten power-a half-recovered history names
and glories and supreme human forces become as
shadows vet what tremendous overwhelming
records they have left behind!
As | rested in the shade, looking up TO the gray
pnnaces so foreshortencd by nearness that much
of their actual hight was lost yet still indescrbaby
huge could think of but one thing we must have
new Chronology of Man. There, beforeme, the Usher
Mosaic reckoning was not only antedated, but pre-
vous growth, of long, uncertain DURATION was made
evident. There in stones scattered about the Desert
were inscriptions cut long before any tradition OF
Hebrew, Sanskrit Phenican, or Greek-clear, III
tegbe words, almost as legbe to modern scholar
ship as those of living languages This one long,
unbroken stream of light into the remote Past nights
up darker historic appartions on all sides, and
sweeps us. with or without our WILL 10 new and
wonderful backward starting point OF course, the
learned in all countries are familiar with all our
recently acquired knowledge this point but is it
not time to make it the property of the people
everywhere-to discard the unmanly fear that one
form of truth can ever harm any other form-to re-
veal anew, through the grandeur of Mans slow
development the unspcakable grandeur OF the
Divine Soul by which 1t is directedf
Would not venture to say that even the English
tourist who addressed me with " is thcre-aw-
anything particular to see here" was not touched
somewhere in the roots of his externally indifferent
nature. am quite sure that cold chicken was not
the only thought of the young ladies who sat lunch
ing on the steps When | find a gay young Irish
man. to whom snipe and wild ducks are prime
interest nevertheless going out to see the Pyramids
by moonlight, and then again at o'clock in the
morning TO climb them for the sunrise. l am con-
WINGED that Cheops builded better than he knew,
and that the pile of stones means much more TO the
world than the depository Of his royal carcase.
Well: | meant to send you practical, realistic
reports of Egypt, and this letter will be sure to
bring down upon me the wrath of Mark Twain, and
all who disrus earnest impressions. Iplead guilty,
however, and confess that | do not wholly belong
TO the age which makes jokes of accidents and muir
ders, and finds material for laughter III classic
II. L.