VISIT TO EGYPT 403 



symbols seemed alien to Mr. Shaler's spirit. Rameses the Great, 

 bragging his way down through the centuries in stone and 

 graven images, became actually repulsive to him. Yet when he 

 afterward gazed upon the well-preserved face in the Museum 

 at Cairo and observed its strong resemblance to the portrait 

 busts of Caesar, he was more inclined to take him at his own 

 exalted valuation. Nevertheless there were times, while trav- 

 elling up the Nile, when he regained his imaginative power of 

 projecting himself sympathetically into far-away scenes and 

 transactions. The burnished mountains that had melted into 

 the sands of the desert, the swarthy fellah at his immemorial 

 task of lifting water from the Nile, in his changeless work and 

 attitude to Mr. Shaler's eye apathetic link in Egypt's immutable 

 chain of custom, the ancient idols and superstitions, all set 

 his fancy spinning. The story told of the weeping and wailing of 

 men and women on the banks of the Nile when the mummies of 

 their great kings, disturbed in their long rest, were conveyed 

 down the river to Cairo, was a picture of spiritual desolation 

 that lingered in his mind. 



The great irrigation works that the English were constructing 

 interested him immensely, while the geology of the banks of the 

 Nile and the neighborhood of Cairo offered a profitable field for 

 study. The results of his observations he afterward made use 

 of in his lectures at Cambridge. 



Yet in spite of a lack of enthusiasm for the land of Egypt, 

 the slight touch with its spiritual motives gained in some weeks 

 of travel could not fail to affect one of his receptive nature. The 

 ages during which these people warred with death, seeking sal- 

 vation of the memory of the individual to himself or his kind, 

 was to him exceedingly impressive. Under the influence of this 

 persuasive and elaborate effort at self-perpetuation he began 

 while there to write his autobiography. 



Greece affected him very differently from Egypt. It was like a 

 smiling return to an intellectual home. He had much the same 

 feeling that a graduate has when he goes back to his beloved 



