Punch (69.1875)

Januahy 8, 1876.1 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

HE New Year found Punch on his way to India, to j )in the Prince incog. He halted en route to give a word of couueel
to his frhnd Cave at Cairo.

" Shall Punch come within sight of the Pyramids, and not climb the biggest'? On my eyes be it! " cried the
Kbedive, as he lighted his last cigarette after a snug dinner given to his Great Guest and his new Finance Commissioner—
whom he persists in calling " Adullam," because to him, as to that Cave of old, resort those who are in debt and difficulty and
discontent.

Straightway an escort of Pashas and Beys, Agas and Effendees, an army of Arabs—horse and man—dragomen and
khavasses, cooks and chiboukjees and cafeedjees —was at Mr. Punch's orders. But with a majestic wave of the hand, at once
gracious and unmistakeable, that potentate dismissed the backsheesh-breathing brood.

" When Punch visits a poor country, 'tis to make it richer not poorer ; and when Punch meets a Pyramid, it
must be alone ! "

So he went, and gazed, and climbed—with no escort of clamorous t)uts or howling donkey-drivers to mar the solemuity
of that great encounter between the mightiest of mirth-makers and the most majestic of monuments.

Unaided, except by the tail of Toby, he climbed the highest of those sepulchral giants, and stood, at last, on the plat-
form that forms its apex—awe-struck, awe-striking, and—save for his faithful Toby, alone !

Morning had not yet broken. The sun was just peeping above the eastern horizon, little expecting on what a guest
his eye would fall. Above Punch's head still twinkled the stars ; below him gleamed the Desert sands througli the mist of Nile.

But Punch questioned not the Stars of the Future they will not reveal; nor the Sands of the Pasc iney nold buried.
His eye followed the opalescent winding of the New Cut—not that which binds the transpontine Roads of Waterloo and
Blackfriars, but that which, interpontine, links the roadsteads of Alexandria and Suez—the Canal which Lord Palmerston
did his best to burke, and M. Lesseps his better, to plan, preach up, finance, and finish—the Canal which swallowed a great
many thousands of Egyptian fellahs' lives, and more thousands of European fellows' capital—the Canal which drained the
Khedive's spare cash, and opened a new road to India,—the Canal of Good Hop?, vice the Cape of ditto superseded.

"And that," soliloquised Punch, " is the Sewer of Sewers"—(*' Suez," barked Toby, correctively)—'"into which
England is about to throw Four Millions of her money—unless Parliament thinks better of it, that is,—which is quite
possible ! "

" And is Four Millions, or four times four, a penny too much for Britannia to pay for her Indian door-key ? " Such
was the question that vibrated on Punch's tympaau n in a thin and thnlling voice, at once foreign and familiar, strangely
blending melodious music, cynical mockery, and muffled meaning.

Upon that platform, from which Sixty-Eight Volumes of Punch, arm-in-arm with Forty Centuries of Time, were now
contemplating the world at their feet, save Mr. Punch himself, was none of articulate-speaking mortals who could have put
the question. Was it Punch's thought made audible in the stillness of that weird solitude? Was it the Mummy of