Cairo, June 9, 1S83. — ^The heat here is beginning in earnest; the nights and mornings are comparatively cool, and that is a great point.... I have been dining out a great deal lately, and to-night give my first dinner in return. Next week I give two more, and after that I shall hope for a little quiet, which will be acceptable this hot weather. People are leaving Cairo very fast to escape the summer heat; some go to Ramleh for the cool sea breezes, but the majority go to Europe. The Khedive has just left for the Ras-el-Zin Palace in Alexandria, and in a few days this place will be half deserted. The great place for carriages and promeneurs, the Rotten Row of Cairo, is a road called the Shoolton Road, about four miles long, well planted with trees, leading from the Khedive's many palaces. It is well watered, and is a pleasant drive, but yesterday it was almost empty; in about three months people will be all back again, and then we shall be lively enough. I am looking forward to our next full moon for an excursion to the Pyramids; it is too hot to go there now until late in the afternoon, so that a good moon is necessary to give you time for a good view of them. The Tombs of the Caliphs are just outside the town, and I shall go to see them in the course of the next few days, and then make a round of the mosques, which, I am told, are worth seeing. The bazaar is, I think, not equal to the one in Constantinople, except perhaps as regards the extent to which you can be robbed there, but it has all the Oriental characteristics and is most picturesque.
Cairo, June 19. — I paid yesterday my first visit to the Gizeh Pyramids. We went a small party, consisting of General Valentine Baker, now Baker Pasha, head of the Egyptian Constabulary, his wife and pretty daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Rowsell (he administers the domain lands), and the staff from here, besides General Dormer, who is chief of the staff. We left here at 4.30, which is as early as the heat will allow, and arrived in an hour and a half, a distance of about 8 miles, along a fairly good road raised about 6 or 7 feet above the surrounding plain, and planted with an avenue of trees — a very different route from the old donkey track which formerly existed. The Pyramids are situated upon rocky ground at the extreme verge of the Desert, within a few hundred yards of where cultivation ceases. The surroundings of the Pyramids are one vast necropolis, and there can be little doubt but that if the ground were carefully explored, a large number of tombs would be discovered. There is more to see than I expected. The vastness of the great Pyramid, for I had not time to explore more than one, is not easy to realise, but I think at last that I succeeded in doing so, and appreciated what a stupendous work it is, and what unparalleled labour and exquisite construction are shown in the building. Its vertical height is 50 or 60 feet greater than that of St. Paul's; the casing has been entirely removed, and instead of each side presenting, as it formerly did, one uniformly smooth surface from base to apex, a gradation of the different courses of huge blocks of stone, rising in steps, is exposed to view. This smooth covering is, however, visible in the adjoining Pyramid, the upper portion of which remains still undisturbed. I went a short way up the outside, sufficiently so to satisfy me that there was nothing to be gained in going higher; the interior I have left for my next visit. The Sphinx is within 300 or 400 yards, cut out of the solid rock, the head much mutilated, exactly as one has seen it represented, much of the original dark red paint still visible with which it was decorated thousands of years ago.
1883] MYSTERIOUS MECHANICAL POWER 293