The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1876-10-12

you begin to wonder if it will be large
enough to stand on, or if you will have
to straddle it and perhaps roll down on
the other side. 1t is large enough to
build house on. [ ached for shelter
of some sort while was up there, and,
having looked over all the world of
sand, with the blue Nile flowing through
it between shores of emerald and fields
of corn and groves of palm, L was glad
to slide down into the narrow shadow
under the highest step, and there rest
for half an hour. 1t was the place to
DREAM GORGEOUS DREAMS,
fo conjure up the ghosts of the past and
take long speculative looks into the fu
ture. ButI did none of this. Some one
was continually loading me with spuri-
GUS antiquities and imploring me to
purchase the same at fabulous prices.
When their prayers were unanswered
and | had grown weary of requesting
them to shut up shop and retire from
business, they turned on me with
threats, and limited ever so darkly that
If L cared to return to my people with
complete skeleton it would be well for
me to reduce their stock in trade at as
early an hour as convenient. They did
drop in their prices; justice to them
eompels me to state that the handful of
coins they at first offered at ten francs
they at last did not scorn to receive six
sous for. We came to terms, and easi-
ly enough, for as felt assured of my
saf ty inasmuch as they were RESPONSE
bic for it, and as there is in my eye or
my heart something that almost at once
establishes an answering fellowship
between any dark skin and myself, we
struck hands very shortly and ex-
changed talismans, aId the cry of
6GckSheeSh died upon their lips. To be
! sure, that time honored.
CUSTOM OF THE BEDAwEEs,
that confidential confession which they
make to every traveller on his way down
the pyramid, was made to me- / was
sworn to secrecy, of course, and then
learned how the sheik was quite brute
and had plenty of money and lots of
wives; how there were too many pyra-
mid-climbers for the good of the craft,
and how all the money that came to
| them was put into general fund, out
Of which each of the too many Beda-
wees received his little share. Times
we're hard and they couldn't eat sand
forever; would therefore give them
little before we came quite to the bot
tom and say nothing about it, lest the
sheik's wrath should be turned against |
them? L did it with pleasure; they
were good fellows in spite of their au-
daciouS humbuggery. They were hard |
working, cheerful, witty and obligiro |
fellows and much jollier companions
than the majority of tourists one falls |
i'll with in ones travels. When my legs |
gave out, which they certainly did on
the way down, was lifted bodily from
one step to another, and, beguiled with
the gossip of the desert, I felt, when
they set me at last over my boots in the |
sand, that it was blessed thing to
have been so near the sky on so solid a
foundation-nearcr the sky than is the |
dome of St. Paul's in London, nearer
than st. Peters in Rome, as near or
nearer than the tower of StraSburg |
Cathedral, the
HIGHEST TOWER IN THE WORLD.
Who would bury himself in the bowels
of that tomb of Cheops! Not l! There
are tombs enough, and old temples un-
der the sand that have their roofs
broken open and know what fresh air
and sunshine are. The blaekness of |
darkness has been accumulating all l
these thousands of years in the breath
less hollow of the pyramid, so that now
a single sunbeam would be choked to
death if it were possible for it to find its
way in there. Your Egyptian darkness
is bottled up in these mummy pits to
be felt and written about by people who
don't know what it is until they have
emerged from an exploration of the
pyramid three shades blacker in the
face, and with their mouth full of it.
There was a tent pitched out in the
desert. One must needs go twice or
thrice to the pyramids to grow used to
their bulk before they would duly i'm
press him. On my second visit had
resolved to see sunset and moon
rise, both generously provided by Provi-
dence, and repaired to the tent in the
desert and slept the sleep of the just for
a good part of the afternoon. was
awakened in the white heat of the West,
and saw the three pyramids trembling
and changing color in the irresistible
food of light that deluged them.
THE SPHINX
lost by comparison, and in the glare of
day L was but feebi7 impressed with the
magnitude of the image; moreover, the
face is so shattered and the body so sur
rounded by sand drifts that it is difficult
to get distinct view of it. When the
sky was as a rose in fullest bloom, and
the distant Nile ribbon of red gold,
and the pyramids were as live Goals
famed with a soft breath, and the
Sphinx was flushed with joy, felt that
there are some events in this life that
never grow hackneyed, however often
repeated. This was one of them. When
[ looked again there was a visible
change. The flush went out of that
scornful face, the hard lines were soft
ened, the wrinkles smoothed away, as
the mellow moonlight fell upon it over
the vast solitude of the desert. 1t mat
ters little whether it be the image of
man or woman, brute or human,
the eternal mystery that en-
shrouds it is deepened, is hallowed
when the night gathers about it and
all the stars swim overhead in startling
brilliancy, and all the sands stretch
away to the horizon in drifts as white
as snow. One fact we are sure of-this
is the most ancient idol of the East, a
type of the first face, and one that will
endure to the end of time, and will then
fix its placid gaze upon the pitiful OBJ
ject writhing at its feet, the final victim
of perishing world. We know that
those melancholy eyes looked over the
broad Nile waters from lonely island,
and saw the hordes of slaves that for
ten long years toiled as the ants toll un-
til they had built monstrous caravan
sary that rose out of the Nile to the |
solid platform of the island. Three
hundred and sixty-six thousand souls
tugging az the mighty blocks of stone
that were brought from the distant
duarries of Arabia, and then the greater
work began! For twenty years IA
THE ARMY OF WORKERS.
heaved the great stones together, and
at last the vanity of CheOps was salts