CHAPTER XI THE PYRAMIDS REVISITED THIS is the third time that I have made lengthy visits to the Pyramids of Egypt. On my first trip I rode to them on a donkey. The next time I came out from Cairo in a comfortable carriage, and to-day I passed over the same route on an electric trolley, paying seven and a half cents for the trip. The street cars to the Pyramids start at the end of the bridge, opposite Cairo, and pass along the side of the wide avenue shaded by acacia trees. The cars are open so that one can look out over the Nile valley as he goes. We whizzed by caravans of donkeys, loaded with all sorts of farm prod¬ ucts, and by camels, ridden by gowned men, bobbing up and down in the saddles as they went. There were men, women, and children on foot, and veiled women on donkeys.

The cars were filled with Egyptians. Two dark¬ faced men in black gowns and white turbans sat on the seat beside me. In front was a yellow-skinned Arab dandy in a red fez and long gown, while just behind me sat a woman with a black veil fastened to her headdress by a brass spool. As we neared the Pyramids we stopped at a cafe where American drinks were sold, and a little farther on was a great modern hotel with telephones and electric lights.

When I previously visited Egypt, the sands about the 8?