"How on earth we are to eat and drink with those nasty Arab people
around us, I can't conceive. They tell me we shall be eaten up by
them. But, Fanny, what has Mr. Ingram been saying to you all the day?"

"What has he been saying, mamma? Oh! I don't know;--a hundred things,
I dare say. But he has not been talking to me all the time."

"I think he has, Fanny, nearly, since we crossed the river. Oh, dear!
oh, dear! this animal does hurt me so! Every time he moves he flings
his head about, and that gives me such a bump." And then Fanny
commiserated her mother's sufferings, and in her commiseration
contrived to elude any further questionings as to Mr. Ingram's
conversation.

"Majestic piles, are they not?" said Miss Dawkins, who, having changed
her companion, allowed her mind to revert from Mount Sinai to the
Pyramids. They were now riding through cultivated ground, with the
vast extent of the sands of Libya before them. The two Pyramids were
standing on the margin of the sand, with the head of the recumbent
sphynx plainly visible between them. But no idea can be formed of the
size of this immense figure till it is visited much more closely. The
body is covered with sand, and the head and neck alone stand above the
surface of the ground. They were still two miles distant, and the
sphynx as yet was but an obscure mount between the two vast Pyramids.

"Immense piles!" said Miss Dawkins, repeating her own words.

"Yes, they are large," said Mr. Ingram, who did not choose to indulge
in enthusiasm in the presence of Miss Dawkins.