right disappointed. Of course I had
heard a lot about it, and when we got here it wasn't half as big as I
expected. After we had pitched our tents and got straight, two or three
of us thought we would climb up to the top, as we had half an hour to
spare. Just as we set off one of the officers came along and said,
'Where are you going, lads?' and I said, 'The cooks won't have tea ready
for half an hour, sir, so we thought we would just get up to the top and
look round.' And he said, 'If you do you will be late for tea.'

"Well, it didn't seem to us as if it would take more than five minutes
to get to the top and as much to get down again, so off we went. But
directly we began to climb we found the job was not as easy as we had
expected. It looked to us as if there was but a hundred steps to go up;
but each step turned out to be about five feet high, and we hadn't got
up above twenty of them when the trumpet sounded, and we pretty near
broke our necks in coming down again. After that I got more respect for
that lump of stone. Most of the officers went up next day, and a few of
us did manage it, but I wasn't one of them. I did try again; but I
concluded that if I wanted to go up the Nile, and to be of any good when
I got there, I had best give it up, for there would not be anything left
of me to speak of by the time I got to the top. Then those Arab fellows
got round, and shrieked and jabbered and wanted to pull us up; and the
way they go up and down those stones is wonderful. But of course they
have no weight to carry. No, I never should try that job again, not if
we were to be camped here for the next ten years."

"I have been up to the top," Edgar said; "but it is certainly a hard
pull, and there is nothing much to see when you do get there--only so
much more sand in all directions. The view from the great mosque at
Cairo is much finer. Do you have much drill?"

"Morning and evening we work away pretty stiff. It is infantry drill we
have. They say we are not going to fight on the camels, but only to be
carried along by them and to get off and fight if we see the enemy, and
as we are all new to each other there is a good bit of work to be done
to get us down to work as one battalion. We and the 4th make a troop
together. We have drill in the afternoon, too, for a bit. Of a morning
those that like can go across and have a look at the town. I went
yesterday. Rum old place, isn't it? The rummiest thing is the way those
li