It is as cool here as March in New York, and I have on my regular winter clothing. The Red Sea voyage and the weather here have toned me up, and I feel in first-rate health. This is one of three fine hotels in Cairo, and is first class in every respect—French cooking, splendid bread and butter, and excellent beef and mutton, which have, no doubt, helped to put me in good condition, after the horrors of our campaign of the India cookery.
Mr. Norris sent a telegram to Baltimore last evening at 5.30, and had an answer at 11.30 P.M., so that we are all now in touch of home.
We have been this afternoon through the bazaars to the great Citadel and the grand Mosque, where I unfortunately stumbled over a prostrate man praying, with his face towards Mecca, and there was a little row, but I apologized and passed on.
Yesterday we started out at nine and did not get back to the hotel until four. We went first to the famous museum three miles distant, over the river, and saw an immense collection of antiquities, illustrating Egyptian history for six thousand years, including the mummies of the great kings, Rameses I., II., and III., and their wives and some of their children. Their remains are not pretty to look at, and it seemed to me to be sacrilegious to expose them for show in a museum at one franc admission. The museum building is very beautiful, having been erected by the Khedive for a palace, the same Khedive who was deposed by the English, and is now in exile in Italy.
One room had marble pillars three feet in diameter and thirty feet high, and the whole building is fitted up in the highest style of modern French art.
We entered carriages and drove over a fine shaded road to the great Pyramids, where we arrived at noon. I at once announced my intention of going to the top of the big Pyramid, as did also Mr. Kolish of Vienna and Miss Roe of Cincinnati, the others of the party declining.
The old Arab sheik, who has charge here, appointed three stalwart Egyptians to assist me, and two others followed with jugs of water; with one man holding each hand, and another to push, we commenced the ascent. The stones were from two to two and a half feet high, making the tallest kind of stairs, but the men were careful and good at pulling and pushing, and I made rapid progress.
They stopped twice to rest, and then I found what violent exertions I had been making, for I was completely blown, and my mouth and throat as dry as if I had not had a drink for a month.
We rested at each stopping-place a few minutes, and rinsing my mouth with water refreshed me; then we rushed on, reaching the top in seventeen minutes. Such had been the violence of the exertion that I could hardly speak for fifteen minutes afterwards. Mr. Kolish being a stout young fellow got along first-rate, and Miss Roe being strong, cool, and fearless came up serenely. From the top the view towards the Nile was of unsurpassed beauty; long stretches of country covered with green as far as the eye could reach. Farther back was a boundless plain, but all sand and desolation. I intended to recite here Napoleon the First's address, "Soldiers of the grand army, forty centuries are looking down upon you," but I was so much engaged getting my breath that I forgot all about it.