Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/289

235 them, that they seemed actually to grow smaller as we approached. We drove to the very foot of the great pyramid of Cheops, and our carriage was at once surrounded by a crowd of Arabs. We drove them all away and demanded to see the Sheik, who lives here and professes to control these wild children of the desert. We told him to select for each of us two good men from the expectant crowd, and commenced at once the ascent. Figures can convey but an inadequate idea of the immensity of this vast pile. It is 480 feet high; higher than the tallest spire in Europe; 200 feet taller than Trinity Church steeple. The base is 764 feet on each side, and it covers an area of twelve acres. The Public Square in Cleveland, including the streets that surround it, is, I believe, but ten acres. To build the causeway to carry the stone from the Nile, would require 100,000 men for ten years, and to build the monument, 360,000 men for twenty years. The difficulty of climbing the pyramid is not so much from the steepness of the ascent, as the great size of the blocks of stone composing each layer. An Arab taking hold of each hand lifts us up from one layer to the next, and it is a succession of steps about three feet high, with a space of one or two feet to stand upon. When about a third of the way up we stopped to rest, and another Arab popped out from behind a stone and urged us to engage his services. He explained by pantomime how useful he could be in pushing us up behind. Boys carrying small earthern bottles of water followed us up, knowing that we should be thirsty enough to give them a few piaster for a drink before we reached the top. Our Arabs wore no clothing, but a white cotton shirt, and kept up a constant chattering like so many black birds. To spring from block to block and pull us up after them did not seem to tire them in the least. On the summit is a space about 25 feet square, the apex as well as the casing of the pyramids having been removed by the Caliphs for constructing mosques and palaces at Cairo. We reached the top just in time to see the sun rise above the horizon of the great ocean desert, and spread out before us was one of the finest panoramas in the world. The dryness and purity of the air in Egypt enables one to see objects at a great distance.

We could see the Nile winding its way through a carpet of verdure, on which are many scattered villagesthe city of Cairo with its domes, minarets and palaces