‘A JOURNEY IN THE EAST. 301 
unforgettable days, and then went on to the adjacent station, 
from which the train soon bore us off to the North, and in 
a little while the whole party were fast asleep. 
When I awoke early on the morning of the 15th the sun 
was peeping into the carriage, and we had come to a stand- 
still in the small and very neglected station of Bedrascheen, 
where we breakfasted in the dirty waiting-room, and then 
rode off to Memphis on donkeys. The road ran by marshy 
pools, well-tilled fields, and large palm-forests, to the little 
village of Mitrahenne, which lay hidden among the luxuriant 
verdure of the African vegetation. There stood the temple 
of the god Ptah, the great fashioner and maker of all created 
things. 
From Memphis we rode out of the cultivated country to 
the pyramids of Sakkara, in the great Libyan desert, and past 
Mariette’s house to the Apis tombs. 
Here the character of the country is just the same as at 
the pyramids of Gizeh, which one sees at no great distance, 
together with the town and citadel of Cairo and the terraces 
of the Mokattam hills. 
We had a light lunch in the little house near the Apis 
tombs which the late celebrated Hgyptologist Mariette Bey 
built for the pursuance of his researches, and then went to 
the singular low Step-Pyramid to hunt for jackals. Hardly 
had the Arabs begun to climb up the stones, when down came 
a jackal in full flight and fell to my gun. 
After this successful little bit of sport we visited the other 
pyramids of this district, including the small one of King 
Pepi L., recently opened ; and after scrambling in and out of 
it with some difficulty, we left the desert with its ancient 
monuments and rode back to the cultivated country. 
The road led past a berseem field, a very attractive- 
looking cover for game, so we determined to get our servants 
and some fellaheen to beat it, but unluckily the owner 
