, embowered in feathery palms,
with camels in the background and an occasional bullock straining at the
wheel which lifts the Nile water on the shadouf. All day natives passed
along the sky line, some on donkeys, others on camels, still others
driving in front laden animals, whose forms could scarcely be
distinguished amid the thick clouds of dust raised by their heavy feet.
The creak of the shadoufs could be heard before we came abreast of the
tireless workers.

Seen from the steamer the glamour of the Orient was over all this
poverty-stricken land, but seen near at hand were revealed all the ugly
features of dirt, disease, hopeless poverty, unending work that yields
only the coarsest and scantiest food. We passed miles on miles of waving
fields of sugar cane, with great factories where this cane was worked up
into sugar. We passed broad fields of cotton, with factories near at
hand for converting the product into cloth. Principalities of
wheat--great seas of emerald green that stood out against a background of
sandy desert--lined the banks at frequent intervals. But all these
evidences of the new wealth that scientific irrigation has brought to
this ancient valley of the Nile means nothing to the Egyptian peasant.
These great industries are in the hands of native or foreign
millionaires, who see to it that the wages of the native workers are
kept down to the lowest level.

BEFORE THE PYRAMIDS AND THE SPHINX

Wintry winds in Cairo, which raised clouds of dust and sand, prevented
me from seeing the pyramids until after my return from Luxor. Then one
still, warm day it was my good fortune to see at their best these oldest
monuments of man's work on this earth. Yet impressive as are these great
masses of stone rising from barren wastes of sand, they did not affect
me so powerfully as the ruins of Karnak and the tombs of the Kings of
Thebes. Three pyramids were constructed at Gizeh and four other groups
at Sakkara, the site of the ancient city of Memphis. That these pyramids
were built for the tombs of kings has now been demonstrated beyond
question, so that the many elaborate theories of the religious
significance of these monuments may be dismissed. The ancient city of
Memphis was for centuries the seat of the government of Egypt, and the
tombs that may be seen to-day at Sakkara preceded the rock-hewn tombs at
Thebes in Upper Egypt. The great antiquity of the tombs at Sakkara makes
these of importance, although much