The Nile at this point is muddy, swift and turbid, and does not lack a great deal of being as wide as the Mississippi.

We scrambled up the steep bank at the shabby town of Ghizeh, mounted the donkeys again, and scampered away.  For four or five miles the route lay along a high embankment which they say is to be the bed of a railway the Sultan means to build for no other reason than that when the Empress of the French comes to visit him she can go to the Pyramids in comfort.  This is true Oriental hospitality.  I am very glad it is our privilege to have donkeys instead of cars.

At the distance of a few miles the Pyramids rising above the palms, looked very clean-cut, very grand and imposing, and very soft and filmy, as well.  They swam in a rich haze that took from them all suggestions of unfeeling stone, and made them seem only the airy nothings of a dream —­structures which might blossom into tiers of vague arches, or ornate colonnades, may be, and change and change again, into all graceful forms of architecture, while we looked, and then melt deliciously away and blend with the tremulous atmosphere.

At the end of the levee we left the mules and went in a sailboat across an arm of the Nile or an overflow, and landed where the sands of the Great Sahara left their embankment, as straight as a wall, along the verge of the alluvial plain of the river.  A laborious walk in the flaming sun brought us to the foot of the great Pyramid of Cheops.  It was a fairy vision no longer.  It was a corrugated, unsightly mountain of stone.  Each of its monstrous sides was a wide stairway which rose upward, step above step, narrowing as it went, till it tapered to a point far aloft in the air.  Insect men and women—­pilgrims from the Quaker City—­were creeping about its dizzy perches, and one little black swarm were waving postage stamps from the airy summit—­handkerchiefs will be understood.

Of course we were besieged by a rabble of muscular Egyptians and Arabs who wanted the contract of dragging us to the top—­all tourists are.  Of course you could not hear your own voice for the din that was around you.  Of course the Sheiks said they were the only responsible parties; that all contracts must be made with them, all moneys paid over to them, and none exacted from us by any but themselves alone.  Of course they contracted that the varlets who dragged us up should not mention bucksheesh once.  For such is the usual routine.  Of course we contracted with them, paid them, were delivered into the hands of the draggers, dragged up the Pyramids, and harried and be-deviled for bucksheesh from the foundation clear to the summit.  We paid it, too, for we were purposely spread very far apart over the vast side of the Pyramid.  There was no help near if we called, and the Herculeses who dragged us had a way of asking sweetly and flatteringly for bucksheesh, which was seductive, and of looking fierce and threatening to throw us down the precipice, which was persuasive and convincing.