speak of does not attach to him personally, but to his stiff,
respectable, ungainly, well-behaved, irrational, and uncivilised
country. You see I am not very patriotic."

"Not quite so much as my friend, Mr. Damer."

"Ha! ha! ha! an excellent creature, isn't he? And so they all are,
dear creatures. But then they are so backward. They are most anxious
that I should join them up the Nile, but--," and then Miss Dawkins
shrugged her shoulders gracefully, and, as she flattered herself, like
a Frenchwoman. After that they rode on in silence for a few moments.

"Yes, I must see Mount Sinai," said Miss Dawkins, and then sighed
deeply. M. Delabordeau, notwithstanding that his country does stand at
the head of all human civilisation, was not courteous enough to declare
that if Miss Dawkins would join his party across the desert, nothing
would be wanting to make his beatitude in this world perfect.

Their road from the village of the chicken-batching ovens lay up along
the left bank of the Nile, through an immense grove of lofty palm-
trees, looking out from among which our visitors could ever and anon
see the heads of the two great Pyramids;--that is, such of them could
see it as felt any solicitude in the matter.

It is astonishing how such things lose their great charm as men find
themselves in their close neighbourhood. To one living in New York or
London, how ecstatic is the interest inspired by these huge structures.
One feels that no price would be too high to pay for seeing them as
long as time and distance, and the world's inexorable task-work, forbid
such a visit. How intense would be the delight of climbing over the