Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



of the storage of yet more of the life-giving 

 floods of the upper reaches. 



The train conveys us now along the banks of 

 the mighty river (the well-laid rails emphasizing 

 the meeting-place of cultivation and desert) by 

 way of Luxor, past the temples of Kom Ombo 

 and Karnac, under the frowning cliffs that shut 

 in the tombs of the kings in their gloomy gorge, 

 to Cairo, a more modern city with its gleaming 

 minarets and mosques, its palaces and gardens, 

 and the citadel towering over all, set off against 

 a background of the Mokattam hills, whilst the 

 Pyramids act the part of three guardian senti- 

 nels, shielding the cosmopolitan populace from 

 injury. 



The Pyramids of Ghizeh stand on a plain, which 

 after the inundation is bright with vegetation, and 

 dotted all over with villages embosomed in 



o 



thickets of date palms, tamarisks, acacias, and 

 sycamores, than which nothing could well be 

 more picturesque at the distance of a mile or 

 two. The Pyramids have been so often described 

 that it is needless to repeat the oft-reiterated words 

 used to express the wonder and astonishment of 

 every visitor to these oldest and grandest of 

 human monuments, hoary with the age of 

 sixty centuries. The crowds of Arabs, who 

 inhabit the rookery near by, clamour in broken 

 English for money and the honour of escorting 

 the effendi up the vast staircase which leads to the 



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