I looked down upon the Pharaoh who is supposed to have oppressed Israel.  The body is well preserved, but it brought thoughts to me of the smallness of the fleshly side of man.  He who once ruled in royal splendor now lies there in very humble silence.  In some cases the cloths wrapped around these mummies are preserved almost perfectly, and I remember a gilt mask that was so bright that one might have taken it for a modern product.  After the body was securely wrapped, a picture was sometimes painted over the face, and now, after the lapse of centuries, some of these are very clear and distinct.  I saw a collection of scarabaei, or beetles, which were anciently worshiped in this country.  Dealers offer figures of this kind for sale, but the most of them are probably manufactured for the tourist trade.

On Lord’s day, October thirtieth, I attended the evening services at the American Mission, and went to Bedrashen the following day.  This is the nearest railway station to Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt, now an irregular pile of ruined mud bricks.  I secured a donkey, and a boy to care for it and tell me where to go.  We soon passed the dilapidated ruins of the old capital.  Two prostrate statues of great size were seen on the way to the Step Pyramid of Sakkara, which is peculiar in that it is built with great offsets or steps, still plainly visible, although large quantities of the rock have crumbled and fallen down.  The Department of Antiquities has posted a notice in French, Arabic and English, to the effect that it is dangerous to make the ascent, and that the government will not be responsible for accidents to tourists who undertake it.  I soon reached the top without any special difficulty, and with no more danger, so far as I could see, than one experiences in climbing a steep hill strewn with rocks.  I entered another pyramid, which has a stone in one side of it twenty-five feet long and about five and a half feet high.  Some more tombs were visited, and the delicate carving on the inner walls was observed.  In one instance a harvest scene was represented, in another the fish in a net could be discerned.  The Serapeum is an underground burial place for the sacred bull, discovered by Mariette in 1850, after having been buried since about 1400 B.C.  In those times the bull was an object of worship in Egypt, and when one died, he was carefully embalmed and put in a stone coffin in one of the chambers of the Serapeum.  Some of these coffins are twelve feet high and fifteen feet long.

Before leaving Cairo, I went into the famous Shepheard’s Hotel, where I received some information about the place from the manager, who looked like a well-salaried city pastor.  The Grand Continental presents a better appearance on the outside, but I do not believe it equals Shepheard’s on the inside.  I was now ready to turn towards home, so I dropped down to Port Said again, where there is little of interest to the tourist except the ever-changing panorama of