On His Second Visit, Ali Said, Mr. Twain Had A Bad
Foot, And Declared He Could Not Be Bothered With
The second Pyramid.
He had been up and down without a guide; he had disturbed the jackal
which lives near
Its summit, and which I saw running in the sunshine
as Ali drew near its lair, and he was satisfied to rest on his
immortal laurels. To the Bedouins of the Pyramids Mark Twain's world-
wide celebrity is owing to one fact alone: he is the only Roumi who
has climbed the second Pyramid. That is why his name is known to every
one.
It was the "Little Christmas," and from the villages in the plain the
Egyptians came pouring out to visit their dead in the desert
cemeteries as I passed by to visit the dead in the tombs far off on
the horizon. Women, swathed in black, gathered in groups and jumped
monotonously up and down, to the accompaniment of stained hands
clapping, and strange and weary songs. Tiny children blew furiously
into tin trumpets, emitting sounds that were terribly European. Men
strode seriously by, or stood in knots among the graves, talking
vivaciously of the things of this life. As the sun rose higher in the
heavens, this visit to the dead became a carnival of the living.
Laughter and shrill cries of merriment betokened the resignation of
the mourners. The sand-dunes were black with running figures, racing,
leaping, chasing one another, rolling over and over in the warm and
golden grains.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 12 of 135
Words from 2992 to 3247
of 36756
