I left my knapsack in Pietro’s keeping and struck off for the great ruins of Karnak. The society intrusted with the preservation of the monuments of upper Egypt has put each important ruin in charge of a guardian, and denies admittance to all who leave Cairo without a ticket issued by the society. The price thereof is little short of a vagabond’s fortune. I journeyed to Karnak, therefore, resolved to be content with a view of her row of sphinxes and a circuit of her outer walls.
About the approach to the ancient palaces the seekers after backsheesh held high court. Before I had shaken off the last screeching youth, I came upon a great iron gate that shut out the unticketed, and paused to peer through the bars for a glimpse of the much-heralded interior. On the ground before the barrier squatted a sleek, well-fed native. He rose and announced himself as the guard; but made no attempt to drive me off.
“You don’t see much from here,” he said, in Arabic, as I turned away. “Have you already seen the temple? Or perhaps you have no ticket?”
“La, ma feesh,” I replied; “therefore I must stay outside.”
“Ah! Then you are no tourist?” smiled the native. “Are you English?”
“Aywa,” I answered, for the Arabic term “inglesi” covers all who speak that tongue, “but no tourist, merely a workingman.”
“Ah,” sighed the guard, “too bad you are an inglesi then; for if you spoke French, the superintendent of the excavations is a good friend of workingmen. But he speaks no English.”
“Where shall I find him?”
“In the office just over the hill, there.”
I took the direction indicated, and came upon a temporary structure, before which an aged European sat motionless in a rocking chair. About him was scattered a miscellaneous collection of statues, broken and whole.