After stopping on top for half an hour, we commenced going down, one man holding each of my hands and another holding a rope which was around under my arms. We got along very nicely with only one stop, indeed I think I could have come down perfectly well without help from any one.
There are 250 steps on the big Pyramid, and it is 480 feet high. At one o'clock we had a capital lunch, and then started for the Statue of Memnon only a third of a mile from the Pyramids. Some camels were kneeling ready to take us, and I mounted one. The beast squealed and got up first on his front legs and then on his hind ones, pitching me back and forth, but I hung on and got along very nicely.
The immense statue, partly covered with sand, did not impress me much, but a tomb which I entered near by was a wonder. I measured one of the big stones in the wall and found it was five feet square and seventeen feet long.
We mounted on camels again and Miss Roe and I had a race across the yielding sand, the Cincinnati young lady coming out ahead.
The beggars crowded around and annoyed the ladies so much that I spoke to the old sheik, and he went at them with a whip and scattered them very quickly.
We returned to Cairo the same way we went, observing on the road large numbers of camels, bullocks, and donkeys, and once I counted seven camels loaded with fresh hay. Thus ended one of the wonder days of my life.
Yesterday morning we left here on a steamer, and went up the swift-running waters of the Nile, passing numerous palaces, tombs, and all kinds of Oriental buildings, dozens of water-wheels run by bullocks, and once a steam-pump and boiler, all raising water for irrigation.
We had a stalwart and fancy-dressed dragoman, but he was of little use. We took along a nice lunch and picnicked on the boat, reaching the dock in three hours, where we found about a hundred donkeys and their attendants yelling, screaming, and pushing. After much trouble we each mounted one of the ugly beasts, and started for the ancient city of Memphis, seven miles away. There was a boy with a stick to each donkey, and every time he struck, my beast would kick and nearly unseat me.
A young lady from Boston, Miss Potter, was put in my charge, and several times we had splendid trots and gallops on the sandy roads and plains.