sand, dividing a turkey with our hands,
and had lain down for dessert in Roman
fashion. The night air of the desert was
too keen for us to do more than enjoy it
during a brisk turn to and from the
subterranean temple and the tombs of the
sacred bulls, and so, stiff with a long desert
ride and with climbing the great pyramid,
cold, tired, and dispirited, we listened, first,
to the jests and stories, finally to the grunts
and snores, of Hassan and his troup.

There was a solemn pleasure in relieving
the wakefulness of the night by lifting
the curtain doorway and stepping out
upon the open sand. Mummy rags, whitened
skulls and thigh-bones, and broken pots
which, thousands of years ago, had held
embalmed birds and cats, crunched beneath
the feet. The moon had risen, and the
stars shone brightly so that the proportions
of the terraced pyramid of Sakkara could
be traced against the spangled sky. But
it was the knowledge that we were in the
very centre of the ancient Necropolis of
Memphis, that the relics of humanity
against which we stumbled belonged to the
dwellers in a city in which Moses spent his
youth, and was initiated into the mysteries
of Egyptian priestcraft, long before he
knew that his mission was to lead the
chosen people out into the wilderness; the
knowledge that we were brought face to
face with the relics of civilisation which
was at its height centuries before the faith
we reverence existed in the world, and that
the moon and stars, shining with such
cold brightness, looked down upon a scene
which had remained unaltered in its dreary
bareness and sterile ruin since a period
prior to the commencement of our era—it
was all this which made our first night in,
or rather out, of a tent, delightful. Hassan
had, of course, not thought of water for
toilette purposes, and would not have fed
our patient, willing little steeds, save that
we insisted upon forage being sent for to
a village on the banks of the Nile some
miles distant, and had refused to start till
we were obeyed. Every arrangement was
defective, and those of my companions who
slept professed themselves unrefreshed.
But whenever I have met Egyptian travellers,
who had pursued the ordinary course
of "doing the pyramids," who had so
arranged as to ride back to Cairo the same
afternoon, and who rather plumed
themselves on having been able to chat over the
day's experience at the hotel table d'hôte,
I have mentally thanked Hassan and the
fates which led me, after visiting the great
pyramids and the sphinx, to span the
intervening miles of desert between Ghizeh
and Sakkara, and that my tent accommodation
was so comfortless as to make
me spend half the night and all the early
morning with the mummies, the pyramids,
and the endless sand.

My second experience under canvas was
of a totally different kind, for I accepted
Egyptian out-door relief at Ismailia, and
was made happy. This was the day of the
opening of the canal, and when, through the
courtesy of Nubar Pacha, I had been carried
as far as Lake Timsah, in advance of the
Empress of the French and the other
exalted guests, I found myself, as I thought,
adrift. But, after a little delay, and some
negotiations with a portly French quartermaster,
I was relegated to one of the
tents provided by the Viceroy, and here,
with one companion, I was as comfortable
as the somewhat scanty character of
our tent's fittings permitted. A mattress,
two sheets, a coverlid, and a washing-basin,
comprised the whole of our furniture; and
as we were both compelled to write for
several hours for the English mail next
day, the accommodation was scarcely
sumptuous. We did not eat under canvas, for a
temporary restaurant, with ample meals at
regular hours, had been established hard by;
but we dressed for the vice-regal ball under
canvas; and, under canvas, we wrote all
day at full length on the sand. We
recorded the ceremonies connected with the
opening of the canal, and we frightened a
Greek camp-robber half out of his wits. It
was at the most intensely hot part of the
day, when, head and hand were weary with
the long strain and the awkward attitude,
that I threw myself on my mattress for a few
minutes' rest. I suppose I fell asleep, for
a picturesque-looking gentleman was gently
fingering the straps of my travelling-bag
when I turned on my uneasy couch. I saw
at once that he had a knife and pistol in
his belt; but it was broad daylight, there
were plenty of people about, and there was
not the least danger. My tent was one of
a row, and within shouting distance of the
Roman Catholic church on the one side,
and the crowded refreshment-house on the
other; so I waited quietly till he looked
my way, which he did the instant he found
the bag was locked, and then I dashed my
washing-basin full of water in his face,
shouting, or rather shrieking, at the same
time some strong language in English at
the very top of my voice. I never saw my
friend again. Bounding back with the