Ever your faithful reader,
C. Lizzie B.
London, England.
Dear St. Nicholas: I am an American girl who left New York four years ago, during which time I have been a constant reader of St. Nicholas. My school friends who read English all want it also. You have been forwarded to me from London as far as Turkey and Egypt. And so, if you can only spare a few minutes, I would like to tell you about the pyramids and the sphinx.
From Shepherd's Hotel, Cairo, it is a beautiful drive of seven miles through an archway of large trees by the side of the Nile. There are several pyramids. The chief one is said to be 463 feet high, and one would think the top would be very small; but you will no doubt be surprised to hear that the Khedive gave a dinner to twenty-four guests upon the top of a pyramid. The dinner was served in the usual manner by Arab waiters; the gentlemen walked up, while the ladies were carried up in chairs. The pyramids are built like stairs,—one stone on top the other, with only an edge for a foothold.
Many tourists try to climb the structure, which is very fatiguing work. We gave an expert Arab fifty cents to do it in ten minutes; he went up in six minutes and down in four minutes. From the pyramid to the sphinx is quite a little walk through thick sand; and the Sphinx is so big you can hardly see it all at once. The English soldiers knocked off some of its right hand and all its nose. It is cut from a solid rock and looks as black as iron. The Egyptian postage stamps have pictures of both the pyramid and the sphinx. The temple dedicated to the sphinx lies in ruins here, but the remains are very beautiful, being nearly all of alabaster; and in the cellar they have just discovered an image, which is so immense they can't get it out from the place where it has lain so many hundred years. Some time I will write a letter about the Holy Land, as I lived there two months. I hope you will print my letter; it is my first attempt, and I am fourteen years old. Your March number will find me at Alexandria, for I take the Beyrouth steamer next week. I hope, dear ST. NICHOLAS, your Egyptian friend has not tired you, and I also hope this may find a place in your Letter-box.
Your loving Egyptian friend,
Maud Stanley F.
Mohegan Lake, N. Y.
Dear St. Nicholas: I send you this letter, a true story about a fish-hawk.