The narrow bridges over the Nile were thick with traffic, and I was quite glad when we got out to the open country and on to a good road with trees all along.
We left our bicycles at the hotel, and walked out to the great Ghizeh Pyramids, really a most marvellous sight.
The big Pyramid covers as much ground as Lincoln's Inn Fields; enormous blocks of stone, apparently just tumbled one on the top of the other, and yet the whole worked into such perfect shape. To think of how they can have brought these vast blocks of stone down, without mechanical help, from Upper Egypt (for there was no such stone to be found near there) is indeed wonderful.
The Temple, also, is a thing to marvel at, great blocks of granite and alabaster cut and fitted together so perfectly, the doorway as straight as possible, and to think that all this work was done from 3000 to 5000 years ago and is still as sound as ever.
We had not time to climb the Pyramid, but of course we paid our respects to the Sphinx, and wished we could stay to see her by moonlight, when she is said to be even more impressive than in the daylight.
They gave us a very good lunch on the balcony of the hotel, which is said to be the best managed in Egypt; and I should think it would be a very pleasant place to stay at, nice airy rooms and a lovely marble swimming-bath at the back.
As we rode back there was a good deal of wind against us, and I was out of practice and rather tired, so I found the crowded streets of Cairo alarming, and was much relieved to give up my bicycle without having run over any one or damaged the machine.
I think there was more of a crowd than usual, as the Khedive had driven to the station to meet the King of Siam, and we saw the whole procession pass on their way back to the palace.
The King of Siam was very gorgeous in a white uniform with much gold lace, and his two sons were a somewhat curious contrast to the natives around, in their Eton suits and top-hats; they are going up the Nile on a private boat.
Helouan is beginning to fill up for the season (we were about the first arrivals), and we have many visitors. We are in comfortable lodgings, quite on the outskirts of the village; the servant who chiefly waits upon us is a fine Arab with a black moustache, who stalks about in a white night-gown down to his heels, tied round with a red sash; he wears a red fez cap with a blue tassel, and red sandals on his feet; he does most of the housework, for which purpose he puts a housemaid's apron with a bib over his night-gown! His name is "Abdul" (the "slave of God"); and there is a small Arab boy called "Ishmael," who runs messages, and is most interested in our doings.