1883] THE SPHINX 295
no bad language on the occasion; I am afraid that vocabulary has been long exhausted.
The Nile is now beginning to show a rise of about two feet, and many people expect that the inundations, which will commence, I believe, in another two or three weeks, will be instrumental in driving away the cholera by flushing the country and removing impurities. I hope this may be the case, for the poor fellaheen have suffered pretty well already — the number of deaths recorded up to now is about 3000. It has now reached Cairo, as you will have seen, but hitherto the sufferers have belonged to the poorer classes, amongst whom bad food and uncleanly habits have seriously contributed to keep the disease alive; my great anxiety is, of course, to keep the troops free, and I am in great hopes that we shall succeed. The weather has been too hot lately to enable me to go far from Cairo and visit the tombs of Upper Egypt and the Pyramids, and excepting those at Gizeh I have seen none except at a distance. [Another flattened mosquito ^^ (This will give you an idea of the frightful interruption I am subject to.) These distant ones, which can be seen from here, are at Sakhara, about 10 or 12 miles off, and, with the tombs, are in some respects more interesting than those of Gizeh, which, although the finest in Egypt as regards elevation, proportion, and the wonderful construction of the inner chambers and galleries, are devoid of all hieroglyphics and paintings, which are to be found in marvellous preservation in Sakhara; it is very tempting to see those distant pyramids and to be obliged to postpone visiting them till cooler weather sets in. I thought a great deal of Mr. Pownall on visiting the Sphinx, which looks like the battered head of a prize-fighter; the wig, however, is almost untouched, and the features are sufficiently distinct to enable you to trace their Nubian origin, and much of the red paint which formerly covered it is still visible. The outline of the couchant figure is perfectly clear and rises some six feet or more above the sand which buries the remainder; its sides [another mosquito'],
as far as can be seen, are much honeycombed. The whole figure was exposed to view after much labour some years ago, and disclosed an altar between the animal's ifore-paws; it was, however, impossible to keep it clear from the drifting sand for any length of time, and it is covered up to the extent now seen. There is a wateringplace with sulphur baths on the edge of the Desert immediately opposite Sakhara, where there is a good hotel, to which self and staff go sometimes on Sundays for a little change; with this exception and visits to Gizeh and the Barrage, at the point of separation of the Rosetta and Damietta branches [of the Nile], my explorations have been limited to the town, where I wander about from 5.30 to 7, or between the same hours at evening. There is plenty to amuse and interest me in the bazaar, the mosques, and especially the Coptic churches in old Cairo, which are of very great age, probably seventh or eighth century; underneath one of these is a curious little crypt, quite dark, consisting of nave, aisles, and altar, the roof being supported by eight little marble monolith pillars. There are three recesses connected with an absurd tradition implicitly believed in, that these were occupied respectively by our Saviour, the Virgin, and Joseph. In another church there is some beautiful carved and inlaid work of different kinds of wood, mixed with ivory, of really exquisite design and execution; and in other kinds of inlaid work known as Opus Alexandrinum there is a happy mixture of marbles and mother-of-pearl, which I have never seen before, which is particularly pleasing in effect, and though incongruous perhaps in material is by no means so in colour; the mother-of-pearl catches the light and gives life and warmth to the whole work. Talking of traditions, I drove to the site of another absurd one, some 4 or 5 miles outside the other extremity of the town — the Virgin's Tree, a wild fig tree, probably 300 years old, under which the Holy Family are supposed to have reposed. But about another mile farther north is a really interesting monument, a pyramid [? obelisk], said to be the oldest in Egypt, and
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