DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0030
12 A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE.
but the rugged, rock-like aspect of that giant staircase
takes us by surprise, nevertheless. Nor does it look like a
partial ruin either. It looks as if it had been left un-
finished, and as if the workmen might be coming back to-
morrow morning.
The color again is a surprise. Few persons can be aware
beforehand of the rich tawny hue that Egyptian limestone
assumes after ages of exposure to the blaze of an Egyptian
sky. Seen in certain lights, the pyramids look like piles
of massy gold.
Having but one hour and forty minutes to spend on the
spot, we resolutely refused on this first occasion to be
shown anything, or told anything, or to be taken any-
where—except, indeed, for a few minutes to the brink of
the sand hollow in which the Sphinx lies conchant. We
wished to give our whole attention, and all the short time
at our disposal, to the great pyramid only. To gain some
impression of the outer aspect and size of this enormous
structure—to steady our minds to something like an under-
standing of its age—was enough, and more than enough,
for so brief a visit.
For it is no easy task to realize, however imperfectly,
the duration of six or seven thousand jrears; and the great
pyramid, which is supposed to have been some four thou-
sand two hundred and odd years old at the time of the
birth of Christ, is now in its seventh millenary. Stand-
ing there close against the base of it; touching it; measur-
ing her own height against one of its lowest blocks; looking
up all the stages of that vast, receding, rugged wall, which
leads upward like an Alpine buttress and seems almost to
touch the sky, the writer suddenly became aware that
these remote dates had never presented themselves to her
mind until this moment as anything but abstract numerals.
Now, for the first time, they resolved themselves into
something concrete, definite, real. They were no longer
figures, but years with their changes of season, their high
and low Niles, their seed-times and harvests. The con-
sciousness of that moment will never, perhaps, quite wear
away. It was as if one had been snatched up for an
instant to some vast height overlooking the plains of time,
and had seen the centuries mapped out beneath one's feet.
To appreciate the size of the great pyramid is less diffi-
cult than to apprehend its age. No one who has walked
but the rugged, rock-like aspect of that giant staircase
takes us by surprise, nevertheless. Nor does it look like a
partial ruin either. It looks as if it had been left un-
finished, and as if the workmen might be coming back to-
morrow morning.
The color again is a surprise. Few persons can be aware
beforehand of the rich tawny hue that Egyptian limestone
assumes after ages of exposure to the blaze of an Egyptian
sky. Seen in certain lights, the pyramids look like piles
of massy gold.
Having but one hour and forty minutes to spend on the
spot, we resolutely refused on this first occasion to be
shown anything, or told anything, or to be taken any-
where—except, indeed, for a few minutes to the brink of
the sand hollow in which the Sphinx lies conchant. We
wished to give our whole attention, and all the short time
at our disposal, to the great pyramid only. To gain some
impression of the outer aspect and size of this enormous
structure—to steady our minds to something like an under-
standing of its age—was enough, and more than enough,
for so brief a visit.
For it is no easy task to realize, however imperfectly,
the duration of six or seven thousand jrears; and the great
pyramid, which is supposed to have been some four thou-
sand two hundred and odd years old at the time of the
birth of Christ, is now in its seventh millenary. Stand-
ing there close against the base of it; touching it; measur-
ing her own height against one of its lowest blocks; looking
up all the stages of that vast, receding, rugged wall, which
leads upward like an Alpine buttress and seems almost to
touch the sky, the writer suddenly became aware that
these remote dates had never presented themselves to her
mind until this moment as anything but abstract numerals.
Now, for the first time, they resolved themselves into
something concrete, definite, real. They were no longer
figures, but years with their changes of season, their high
and low Niles, their seed-times and harvests. The con-
sciousness of that moment will never, perhaps, quite wear
away. It was as if one had been snatched up for an
instant to some vast height overlooking the plains of time,
and had seen the centuries mapped out beneath one's feet.
To appreciate the size of the great pyramid is less diffi-
cult than to apprehend its age. No one who has walked