fashion, who were tickled to death to be escorted by
the bronzed giants from "down-under," and though one failed sometimes
to find words that were understood, yet sufficient was said in glance
and shrug to make a very interesting conversation. And the Sultan's
band was always there to fill in pauses and, in fact, played so well as
to be an encouragement to flirtations that were delightful in spite of
differences of nationality.

There was always plenty to see around Cairo, and the education of the
Australian bushman has been widened considerably through those months
in Egypt, though I am afraid some of us swallowed the yarns of the
guides and garnered a vast store of misinformation. These guides were
a set of blackmailers, but once you had engaged one he looked on you as
his personal property, and would let no one rob you but himself. I
would like, even now, to have within reach of my boot the old scoundrel
who took me inside the Great Pyramid. After following him in and by
the light of a candle climbing very carefully in stockinged feet the
granite passage (polished by millions of toes until it was as slippery
as glass), the old ruffian led me into the Queen's chamber, and then
announced that he had lost his candle but would show me the height of
the chamber by burning magnesian wire for the price of one piastre
(five cents) per second. After I had a good flash-light view of the
inside of this room, and marvelled sufficiently at the enormous size of
the blocks of marble in the walls and out of which the sarcophagus was
made, the old son of a thief told me it would be at the same rate that
he would light my way to the outside air again. I only had stockinged
feet, and made the foolish mistake of striking out in the dark. The
old boy howled, but I verily believe that I very nearly displaced one
of the eighty-ton blocks of marble. We arrived at the opening at the
same moment and I got a "full-Nelson" on the greasy blackguard. He
handed over the magnesian wire, also the candle, and was quite willing
to give me as many of his wives as I required before I released him. I
have never been in any place as hot as the inside of the Great Pyramid,
and no longer wonder that a mummy is so dried up. For in five minutes
pretty nearly every drop of moisture in my own body came out through
the pores of my skin.

I also was barmy enough to climb to the top of the Great Pyramid; each
separate block of stone to be surmounted w