aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

. desirous
THE CITY OP CAIEO. — EGYPT. 283
THE PYBAMmS, THE PYEAJVimS
A picnic from Cairo to the pyramids is one of the
easiest
things, nowadays, in the world. The Great Pyramid, Cheops,
is only some ten or twelve miles from the city, and a
fine carriage-road ; but this is not the route for tourists
of seeing other pyramids, the ruins of Memphis,
Heliopolis, and the tombs at Sakkarah.
Accompany us. It is seven o'clock in the morning, carriage
at the door, the lunch-basket filled, the guide ready.
The streets are yet comparatively quiet. Starting westward,
we cross the bridged Nile, and pass along its banks, under
overarching acacias, by a palatial structure of the viceroy's,
in process of completion, by quaint buildings of less prominence,
by mud-built huts, toward Geezah. Here we alight,
and take to the cars as far as the Bardshain station, where,
finding mules and muleteers, we are off through crooked
paths to the ruins of Memphis. Donkey-riding is doleful
business for a tall man, inasmuch as feet dangling in the
sand become neither grace nor comeliness. But see those
heavily-laden camels on their way to the market, those
toilers winnowing grain by fickle wind-gusts, and, beyond,
those beautiful groves of date-palms, reddening and ripening
to load the tables of the rich !
Now we are upon the threshold of the Mempliian ruins.
Though level with the ground, or buried in the sand, they
cover a vast plain. Egyptian priests informed Herodotus
that Memphis was founded by Menes, a very ancient king
of Egypt, and noted for having turned the Nile from its
course, making a large tract of dry land upon which to
build a city.
In hieroglyphs, Memphis was styled Manofre,
the " land of the pyramids," the " city of the white wall."
According to Diodorus, this waU was seventeen miles in
length, girdling and guarding the city against armies, and
the annual overflow of the " Eternal River." The city,
once or twice rebuilt, had suffered terribly from the Persians