EGYPT 255 



" Oh, joyous barbarism ! Give me back 

 the smishine of my monarchy ! " and his gods 

 cried with him in chorus, " Give us back our 

 barbarism ! " 



Again I saw a rent in the Great Pyramid. A 

 fire burned brightly within, and the proud 

 philosopher of all the ages clasped his hands 

 before him and walked into the flames. The 

 massive blocks of stone leaped towards one 

 another and the vision of Meneptah was no more. 



I looked towards the sad, worn, sardonic face 

 of the Sphinx. Still the silent watcher peered 

 through eternity as though those eyes of stone 

 would foresee the day of judgment. Just for 

 a moment I saw a smile steal over the inscrutable 

 countenance — such a smile as a wise man might 

 give a child who has talked to him of philosophy's 

 alphabet; and then the smile was gone, and the 

 moon looked down and seemed in some strange 

 way to hold communion with the brooding 

 Sphinx and the illimitable sands. 



We raced along the side of that gigantic cut 

 through the earth which is known as the Suez 

 Canal, the rift in the sandy isthmus from the 

 Red Sea to the Delta, first excavated by the 

 second Rameses, re-opened by Darius the Persian, 

 and again by the Moslem conquerors. Every 

 schoolboy has read of de Lesseps, whose master- 

 mind consummated the project conceived so 

 very long ago, and made it a magnificent success 

 for modern shipping. His statue guards the 

 northern entrance to the canal, seems to brood 

 over the enormity of the commerce that his 

 fertile brain developed, and proclaims to all who 

 pass this road that Port Said was his creation. 

 The town is a reclamation from the desolate land 



17 



