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 Hastern 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 Huropean 
winter. 
Close to the large buildings of Kasr-el-Nil we crossed the 
sacred river and the island of Geziret-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, Chéfren, and 
Menkera, and the Sphinx witb 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. 
