THE EARTH FRAME 



Menes knew ; it at least has remained quite un- 

 disturbed. The traveller may strike off from 

 the Nile and ride ride west for days without a 

 change. There is with him always the glaring 

 sunlight, the sand and rock, the torn and ragged 

 wady, the star-like glance of light from quartz 

 and mica, and overhead the rose-hued sky. 

 Nothing but barren waste below and burning 

 heat above. The two expanses circle and en- 

 close him as he stands upon his central point of 

 sun-fire. One may ride on for hundreds of 

 miles and still there is no change. The opal flash 

 of sands, the glaring rocks, and the trembling, 

 heated atmosphere that is all. How silent 

 and motionless the vast desert ! Simoons may 

 blow and drift the sands hither and thither, but 

 the general appearance does not alter. It never 

 alters. The desert steeds of the Pharaohs per- 

 ished in these wastes ages ago, as yesterday the 

 caravan of the Mecca pilgrims. The Sphinx 

 with its face to the sun and its back to the 

 desert, has felt the far-travelling waves of sand 

 lapping its shoulders through no one knows how 

 many centuries of desolation, but the sands 

 were there before ever it was carved. Will 

 they always remain as now ? Who knows 

 what changes the engines of civilization may 



