I cannot see the fun of climbing up that Great Pyramid. It is immense labour, and, like an election, is attended with bribery and corruption at every step, for you have to pay those greedy Moors before they will give you a hand, or the smallest lift.
I could not help shouting out, as I saw a big fat alderman-looking fellow going up, "Twopence, Moor, and up goes the donkey!" It was very vulgar, but I could not help it.
It is time that those forty centuries were relieved. I know of but one man to do it, and that's Widdicombe.
I am certain solitude begets contempt. If I were to stop here another day I should positively hate myself.
I had the bump of travelling, but have quite lost it now, after travelling for a week on a camel.
Stupid people express their astonishment at the quantity of stones collected by the Egyptians to build the Pyramids, and never bestow the smallest wonder at the immense collection of dust; and yet the one is just as wonderful as the other, and, I am sure, much more difficult to get over.
Decidedly travelling in the plains of Egypt will never be comfortable till they introduce watering-carts.
If you wish to ascertain how slowly the sand of human life trickles through the minute glass, go to the Great Desert. But I suppose "what must be, must;" in other words, as the Duke of Bedford would say, "Che Sahara, Sahara." But the proverb is rather musty.
I wonder they do not lay down a railway here. No elevations required, no tunnels excepting through the Needles, and Obelisks, and Tombs; everything is as smooth as a billiard-table; it looks as if it had been laid down on purpose, ready ruled for a series of lines. One thing, however, is very plain, and that is, they do not catch me in the Great Desert again until there is a railway!
