CHAPTER X CLIMBING THE GREAT PYRAMID ON MY second trip to Egypt I followed a tele-| phone line in going from Cairo to the Pyra-* mids and as I waded through the sands from the edge of the Nile valley up the plateau where old Cheops stands, I could see a party of foreigners playing lawn-tennis in the court of the hotel which has been built near its base. The next improve¬ ment in modernizing Egypt will probably be cable roads running to the top of these great piles of stone. Already a flagstaff has been planted on the very apex of the biggest of them.

In driving to the Pyramids I passed along an avenue of acacia trees, the intertwining branches of which formed a grand arbour extending to the desert seven miles away. This splendid road was made in a few weeks by order of the extravagant Khedive Ismail Pasha at the time of the opening of the Suez Canal. He had it constructed so that his distinguished visitor, the Empress Eugenie, might drive comfortably to the Pyramids! It is built ten feet above the fields of the Nile valley and on each side the green stretches away to the north and south until it is lost in the horizon. One sees groves of palm trees, camels and don¬ keys, farmers ploughing and women carrying water, together with the other strange scenes that make up the oriental setting of this land of the Arabian Nights.

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