One or two thin silvery clouds were hovering
over them, and casting delicate rosy shadows upon the grand simple
old piles.
Along the track we saw a score of pleasant pictures of
Eastern life:- The Pasha's horses and slaves stood caparisoned at
his door; at the gate of one country-house, I am sorry to say, the
Bey's GIG was in waiting, - a most unromantic chariot; the
husbandmen were coming into the city, with their strings of donkeys
and their loads; as they arrived, they stopped and sucked at the
fountain: a column of red-capped troops passed to drill, with
slouched gait, white uniforms, and glittering bayonets. Then we
had the pictures at the quay: the ferryboat, and the red-sailed
river-boat, getting under way, and bound up the stream. There was
the grain market, and the huts on the opposite side; and that
beautiful woman, with silver armlets, and a face the colour of
gold, which (the nose-bag having been luckily removed) beamed
solemnly on us Europeans, like a great yellow harvest moon. The
bunches of purpling dates were pending from the branches; grey
cranes or herons were flying over the cool shining lakes, that the
river's overflow had left behind; water was gurgling through the
courses by the rude locks and barriers formed there, and
overflowing this patch of ground; whilst the neighbouring field was
fast budding into the more brilliant fresh green. Single
dromedaries were stepping along, their riders lolling on their
hunches; low sail-boats were lying in the canals; now, we crossed
an old marble bridge; now, we went, one by one, over a ridge of
slippery earth; now, we floundered through a small lake of mud. At
last, at about half-a-mile off the Pyramid, we came to a piece of
water some two-score yards broad, where a regiment of half-naked
Arabs, seizing upon each individual of the party, bore us off on
their shoulders, to the laughter of all, and the great perplexity
of several, who every moment expected to be pitched into one of the
many holes with which the treacherous lake abounded.
It was nothing but joking and laughter, bullying of guides,
shouting for interpreters, quarrelling about sixpences. We were
acting a farce, with the Pyramids for the scene. There they rose
up enormous under our eyes, and the most absurd trivial things were
going on under their shadow. The sublime had disappeared, vast as
they were. Do you remember how Gulliver lost his awe of the
tremendous Brobdingnag ladies? Every traveller must go through all
sorts of chaffering, and bargaining, and paltry experiences, at
this spot. You look up the tremendous steps, with a score of
savage ruffians bellowing round you; you hear faint cheers and
cries high up, and catch sight of little reptiles crawling upwards;
or, having achieved the summit, they come hopping and bouncing down
again from degree to degree, - the cheers and cries swell louder and
more disagreeable; presently the little jumping thing, no bigger
than an insect a moment ago, bounces down upon you expanded into a
panting Major of Bengal cavalry.
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