III

SAKKARA

It was the "Little Christmas" of the Egyptians as I rode to Sakkara,
after seeing a wonderful feat, the ascent and descent of the second
Pyramid in nineteen minutes by a young Bedouin called Mohammed Ali who
very seriously informed me that the only Roumi who had ever reached the
top was an "American gentlemens" called Mark Twain, on his first visit
to Egypt. On his second visit, Ali said, Mr. Twain had a bad foot, and
declared he could not be bothered with the second Pyramid. He had been
up and down without a guide; he had disturbed the jackal which lives
near its summit, and which I saw running in the sunshine as Ali drew
near its lair, and he was satisfied to rest on his immortal laurels. To
the Bedouins of the Pyramids Mark Twain's world-wide celebrity is owing
to one fact alone: he is the only Roumi who has climbed the second
Pyramid. That is why his name is known to every one.

It was the "Little Christmas," and from the villages in the plain the
Egyptians came pouring out to visit their dead in the desert cemeteries
as I passed by to visit the dead in the tombs far off on the horizon.
Women, swathed in black, gathered in groups and jumped monotonously up
and down, to the accompaniment of stained hands clapping, and strange
and weary songs. Tiny children blew furiously into tin trumpets,
emitting sounds that were terribly European. Men strode seriously by,
or stood in knots among the graves, talking vivaciously of the things of
this life. As the sun rose higher in the heavens, this visit to the dead
became a carnival of the living. Laughter and shrill cries of merriment
betokened the resignation of the mourners. The sand-dunes were black
with running figures, racing, leaping, chasing one another, rolling over