Half Hours in Many Lands (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: mixed with asses' heads; while from all sides proceed shouts and screams of " Very fine donkey," " This donkey be Yankee Doodle," "Dan Tucker," "Jem Crow," "Snooks," "Billy Taylor," "Jack and Gill," or some other name suitable to the supposed nationality or taste of the person besieged. BANKS OF THE NILE. Mounted on very good donkeys, selected by a nice lad named Hassan, a well-known hanger-on at the hotel, and one of John Bull's " rascals, sir! " we set off for the Pyramids. My donkey was small and strong, but in the saddle I saw nothing of him except his ears. The ride at first is through the scattered suburbs of Cairo. Passing through these we came to a mound of rubbish which, as I was informed, marked the Babylon of Egypt. We shortly after reached the bank of the old river, which swept swiftly on with its brown muddy-looking water. The first view of the Nile here was to me singularly enjoyable. Indeed the first view of a great historical river is always most interesting. It is one of those features of a country which is as unchangeable as the mountains, the permanent highway, requiring no repair and incapable of decay. And here was the Nile ! Reminiscences began to crowd upon the mind, from Moses to Captain Speke; and one ever and anon wished to convince himself of the fact that this was really the ancient river of history. After crossing the ferry and traversing a flat plain on the western shore, with villages and groves of palm-trees, we reached at last an open space with nothing between us and the Pyramids. The first thing which strikes one is, not their size, for that cannot be measured by the eye, but the high platform on which they stand. It is about 130 feet above the level of the green flat of the Delta, and in the midst of a pure sandy desert. " I neve...