He picked his way over the huge blocks of limestone that had tumbled from the ancient monuments toward the third Pyramid, climbed a few feet up its northern side, and disappeared in a black hole. We followed, and, doubled up like balls, slid down, down, down a steep tunnel about three feet square, into utter darkness. As our feet touched a stone floor, Adolph struck a match. The flame showed two small cave-like rooms, and several huge stone coffins.
“Beds waiting for us—you see?” said Adolph. “Probably you’ve chatted with the fellows who used to sleep here. They’re in the British museum in London.”
He dropped the match, and climbed into one of the coffins. I chose another, and found it as comfortable as a stone bed can be, though a bit short. Our sleeping-room was warm, somewhat too warm, in fact, and Hans began to snore. The noise echoed through the vaults like the beating of forty drums. When we awoke it was still as dark as midnight, but our sense of time told us that morning had come. We crawled upward on hands and knees through the tunnel, and out into a sunlight that left us blinking painfully for several minutes.
A crowd of tourists and Arabian rascals were surging about the monuments. Four British soldiers in khaki uniforms kicked their heels on the forehead of the Sphinx, puffing at their pipes as they told the latest garrison jokes. We fought our way through the Arabs who clung to us, took a look at the sights, and then strolled back to Cairo.
CHAPTER XIII
A TRIP UP THE NILE
One fine morning, some two weeks after my introduction to Tom, I left my post in the consul’s household, and set about making plans for a journey up the Nile. For I knew that if I once journeyed up or down this river with open eyes, I would know all there is to know about this long and narrow country.
I left Cairo on foot, and, crossing the Nile, turned southward along a ridge of shifting sand beyond the village of Gizeh. There was an irrigating ditch near the ridge. Scores of natives, moving with the regularity of machinery, were ceaselessly dipping the water that gives life to the fields of Egypt. Between the canal and the sparkling Nile, groups of Egyptian farmers, called fellahs, deaf to the fiery sunshine, set out sugar-cane, or clawed the soil of the dry plain. On the desert wind rode the never-ceasing squawk of the Egyptian water-wheel.
Beyond the Pyramids of Sakkara I found shelter in the palm groves where the ancient city of Memphis once stood, and took my noonday sleep on the statue of King Rameses which lies at full length there. When I was returning to the sandy road, a whole village of dark-faced people came running up, and tried to head me off and make me give them baksheesh. They forced me to run a gauntlet of outstretched arms. It is the national song of Egypt, this cry of baksheesh. Workmen at their labor, women bound for market, children rooting in the streets, drop everything to crowd around the traveler who may be coaxed to “sprinkle iron” among them. Even the unclothed infant astride a mother’s shoulder thrusts forth a dimpled hand to the passing white man, with a gurgle of “sheesh.”
“Along the way shadoofs were ceaselessly dipping up the water that gives life to the fields of Egypt.”