Not knowing the ropes, we engaged a carriage at 100 piastres to take us from the city out to the plateau. This is not as much as it sounds, but it is about twice the usual rate. After we struck the long road leading across the valley and saw the trolley cars gliding by and leaving us far behind, we decided to send the carriage back to the city and take to the trolley, where we would feel at home. The driver informed us that he could not return to the city, as the big bridge had been opened to permit the passing of boats, and that it would be three hours before he could drive back to town. It seems that he was right. The big bridge swings open but once a day, and then it stays open for a few hours, and the man who finds himself "bridged" must either swim or engage a boat.
It is a five minutes' climb from the end of the drive up to the rocky plateau on which the pyramids are perched, and the ordinary tourist goes afoot. But we were pining for Oriental extravagance and new sensations, so we engaged camels. The camel allotted to me was destitute of hair, and when first discovered was in a comatose condition. His or her name was Zenobia, and the brunette in charge said that its age was either six or sixty. It sounded more like "six," but the general appearance of the animal seemed to back up the "sixty" theory. As we approached, Zenobia opened one eye and took a hard look at the party, and then made a low wailing sound which doubtless meant "More trouble for me." The venerable animal creaked at every joint as it slowly rose into the air on the instalment plan, a foot or two at a time.
We had come thousands of miles to see the Pyramids, and for the next ten minutes we were so busy hanging on to those undulating ships of the desert that we overlooked even the big Pyramid, which was spread out before us 750 feet wide and 450 feet high. Riding a camel is like sitting on a high trestle that is giving way at the joints and is about to collapse. The distance to the ground is probably ten feet, but you seem to be fifty feet in the air. As soon as we could escape from the camels we walked around and gazed in solemn silence at the Sphinx and the three Pyramids and doubtless thought all of the things that were appropriate to the time and place.
The great Pyramid of Cheops has been advertised so extensively that doubtless many people will be surprised to learn that there is a whole flock of Pyramids on this plateau along the edge of the Libyan desert. There are Pyramids to the north and Pyramids to the south, five groups in all, sixty of them, and they vary in size from a stingy little mound looking like an extinct lime kiln up to the behemoth specimen which is photographed by every Cook tourist.
Why do these Pyramids vary so greatly in size? Each was built by some royal personage as an enduring monument to his administration and the last resting place of his remains. The most eminent students of Egyptology now agree that the size of each of these Pyramids is a fair measure of the length of each king's reign. The reason that Cheops has the biggest Pyramid is that he held office longer than the others. When a king mounted the throne, if he was feeling rugged and was what an insurance company would call a "preferred risk" he would block out the foundation of a Pyramid tomb that would require, say, ten years for the building. If, at the end of ten years, he was still feeling in good physical condition and confident of lasting a while longer he would widen the foundations and put on additional layers up to the summit. Labor was free and materials were cheap, and he kept everybody working on his tomb as long as he lived. Finally, when the court physicians began to warn him that his time was limited, he would begin putting on the outer coating of dressed stone and arrange for the inscriptions. The ruler who lasted only three or four years was buried in a squatty little Pyramid, which soon became hidden under the drifting sands of the desert. Cheops kept piling up the huge blocks for thirty years, and that is why his Pyramid holds the record. If Methusaleh had been a Pyramid builder he would have been compelled to put up a tomb probably a mile and a half high and about eleven miles around the base. In a revolutionary South American republic the ruler would probably get no further than laying the corner stone.
We visited the pyramids. Also, we looked at the golf links, staked out across the barren sands—not to be played on, but merely to be featured in the hotel advertisement. Think of a golf course which is one huge hazard! Drive the ball in any direction and you can't play out of the sand! Forty centuries gazing down on a bow-legged tourist in fuzzy Scotch stockings!
Most of the pleasure seekers that we encountered in the neighbourhood of the Pyramids seemed to be quite elderly—some of the more sprightly as young as sixty, and from that going up to where it would be better to stop guessing. Mr. Peasley gave an explanation of their presence. He said that the dry climate of Egypt would preserve antiquities for an indefinite period.
Here they were, these male and female octogenarians, not propped up in arm chairs dividing the family silverware and arranging bequests to hospitals and libraries, but out on the blinding desert, thousands of miles from home, falling off donkeys, climbing up on camels, devouring guide books, rummaging around for time tables, kicking on the charges, and leading on the whole a life of purple strenuosity. We heard of two English women, sisters, both over seventy, who had just returned from Khartoum, from which point they had gone on a hunting expedition still further into the interior. They had to wear mosquito bags and semi-male attire, and were out in the wild country for days at a time, chasing gazelles, hyenas, and other indigenous fauna.
Just as I am about to conclude this treatise it occurs to me that, although I have given a wealth of useful information regarding the Pyramids, I have rather overlooked our old friend the Sphinx. I can only say in passing that it looks exactly like the printed advertisements. There is no deception about it. It is in a bad state of repair, but this is not surprising when we consider its age. Herodotus does not mention the Sphinx. It was right there at the time. In fact, it had been there fourteen hundred years when he first arrived. It seems strange that an observing traveller should have overlooked a monument sixty-six feet high, with a face nearly fourteen feet wide, a nose five feet and seven inches long, and wearing a smile that measures over seven feet! Herodotus either walked by without seeing it or else he did not think it worthy of mention. The only plausible explanation is that he was too busy figuring up the garlic statistics.