ven the
Jewish city of Prague; which astonished me beyond comparison till I
saw the poorer portions of Cairo.'

During his stay in Cairo, the doctor visited the Great Pyramid of
Gizeh, the short journey being performed early in the morning, and
with a guide. The toils and pleasures of the excursion are fairly
described. 'I had read so much of the bulk of the Pyramids, and they
now appeared so positively insignificant in their dimensions, that I,
felt mortified; but I remembered that I had the same impression many
years ago when first approaching the Alps; and I began to consider,
that as the extreme clearness of the atmosphere gave them the
appearance of proximity in the far distance, so it would also partly
account for the diminutive aspect they persisted in presenting. I
dismounted, and scrambled up the bold ledge of rock, and found myself
already a hundred feet above the level of the Nile. Here my Arab guide
produced cold fowl, bread, wine, and Nile water in plenty at the foot
of this mountain of stone, which now began to indicate its colossal
magnitude. Standing beside the pyramid, and looking from the base to
the top, and especially examining the vast dimensions of each separate
stone, I thus obtained an adequate impression of the magnitude of its
dimensions, which produced a calm and speechless but elevated feeling
of awe. The Arabs, men, women, and children, came crowding around me;
but they seemed kind and inoffensive. I was advised to mount up to the
top before the sun gained strength; and, skipping like chamois on a
mountain, two Arabs took hold of me by each wrist, and a third lifted
me up from behind, and thus I began, with resolution and courage, to
ascend the countless layers of huge stones which tower and taper to
the top. Every step was three feet up at a bound; and, really, a
perpendicular hop-step-and-leap of this sort was no joke, move after
move continuing as if for ever. I found that the Arabs did not work so
smoothly as I expected, and that one seemed at a time to be holding
back, while another was dragging me up; and this soon became very
tiresome. Perceiving this, they changed their method, and I was
directed to put my foot on the knee of one Arab, and another pulled me
up by both hands, while a third pushed me behind; and thus I bounded
on in my tread-mill of tedious and very tiresome exertion. I paused
half-way to the top, and rested at the cave. I looked up and down with
a feeling of awe, and