236 EXTRACTS FROM 



The following day our way again led us through the entire 

 European quarter, where I was much charmed with the happy 

 admixture of Eastern and Western architecture in the houses, 

 which were built in country-house style, picked out with 

 Oriental decorations, and with the rustling palm-trees and 

 the luxuriant gardens with their fragrant flowers and shrubs. 

 I was also amazed at the sight of innumerable birds of prey 

 in the very middle of the town, for thousands of Parasitic 

 Kites were flying about or sitting on the roofs, and Egyptian 

 Vultures were sailing low over the streets. I heard, too, the 

 singing of birds, the cooing of Turtle-Doves, and breathed 

 with delight the delicious air of divine Egypt, congratulating 

 myself on having for once escaped the hardships of a European 

 winter. 



Close to the large buildings of Kasr-el-Nil we crossed the 

 sacred river and the island of Greziret-Bulak, and driving past 

 some viceregal palaces and magnificent gardens, soon reached 

 an embankment, along which a highroad bordered with trees 

 ran straight through the fields and half-submerged ground of 

 the cultivated land, and passing a wretched Arab village led 

 up to the very edge of the desert. 



Having inspected the Pyramids of Cheops, Chefren, and 

 Menkera, and the Sphinx with its body buried in the desert 

 sands, we got some Arabs to go up the second Pyramid and 

 drive down the jackals which it harbours. We were, how- 

 ever, badly posted; so a couple of jackals broke through 

 unhurt and scurried off into the boundless waste, which is 

 here intersected by hills and valleys. Several ineffectual 

 shots had, however, been fired at them from below as they 

 sprang about among the stones with extraordinary agility 

 halfway up, and therefore much too far off. 



The Pyramids looked to me more like artificial hills than 

 architectural monuments, especially when men and animals 

 were clambering about them. 



