We took a train entirely filled with the "Corks," and went up the Nile to Luxor, nearly five hundred miles from Cairo; some of the party were going to other places and would take their turn on the Nile later. When you have seen the ruins at Luxor, Karnak and Thebes you have seen the best there is in Egypt, and there is but little use in looking at minor temples unless you desire to become an Egyptologist. Here is a feast in ruins that will satisfy almost any appetite.
THE TOWER OF DAVID, JERUSALEM
We were quartered on a Nile steamer, moored to the dock, as the hotels were crowded. We had hardly landed on the deck when the flies lit on us in swarms. In all parts of the world I had encountered flies that held the record for abandoned cruelty to man, but they were white-winged angels of peace compared to these tarantulas! They stuck and hung and dug into your flesh with apparent glee. You have whips, whisks, fans and bunches of twigs to chase and defeat them, but it's all no use. You kill a dozen, and a hundred take their place. After standing the pests as long as I could, I got some netting and made bags for my head and hands. This was a great relief, but it had its penalties. Dying without flies is almost as attractive as living on the Nile with them.
Gooley Can was our guide. It may be here said of Gooley that he was an Arab of middle age, well set up for the most part; he spoke fair English, and was a conversational soloist of no mean pretensions. He had a brother who was just a plain guide, with a cast in one eye and a great admiration for Gooley; he was generally full of sadness (and grog), brought about by disappointments in his profession. Gooley had a great reputation, and as he was exclusive he always looked his party over and sized it up before taking the job; also he had one wife and was on the lookout for more. He claimed to have piloted rafts of big men up and down the Nile, and was not to be frowned down by anybody. He was a gorgeous, oriental dresser, and had a wardrobe as big and grand as Berry Wall's; so the "Corks" were fortunate indeed in securing the great man. He was known descriptively as the "Snowball of the Nile."
The Luxor Temple was near by, and we started right into business. Gooley gathered us together and gave us a lecture. He said:
"Laydies en genteelmen, ef you plaze: I shall be your guide for a week and I want you to pay attention to me. I want no disputing of what I say. I am an honest man; I speak the truth, and I know my beeziness. You can't expect less; you should not hope for more."
After this explicit statement, Gooley put a roll in his cuffs, cocked his turban at the correct angle, hitched up his sash, cleared his throat, and began the business of the day. He uncorked a new bottle of adjectives in florid description of each wonder as he reached the ever-lasting wilderness of courts, pillars and obelisks, of hieroglyphics, bas-reliefs, pylons, hypostyles, colonnades, giant rows of columns—till he got out of breath and our brains seemed muddled into a grand pot-pourri done in granite, marble and limestone—but alas! without salt or pepper! Gooley told us what King Bubastis said, what Setee I. did—he of the Armchair Dynasty; how Amenophis III. was no better than he should have been; and that the ladies of those days, including Cleopatra, painted and wore false hair just as they do now.
Gooley had a vein of sarcastic wit about him. He said: