DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17#0077
THE PYRAMID OF MEDUM—WASTA.
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VIEW OF THE PYRAMID OF MEDUM : THE VILLAGE TO THE RIGHT.
(From a Water-Colour Drawing by the Author.)
he had been to the Fayum from Sakkarah with a party of sporting English
"officers" and passed by the pyramid, but had not visited it. My guide is a
good man for finding game, but he is not the least bit of an antiquarian, and
therefore I always take him when I can get him, for he is utterly unbiassed.
Of course he knows his way about, and speaks Arabic. He is a gentleman, and
is nice looking, very particular in his dress, and as clean as an Englishman is
expected to be. So we started by rail for Wasta, where it was supposed camels
or donkeys could be got. But camels were not to be obtained. One awful
humped animal appeared, a beggarly account of shreds and patches, all skin
(where there were no holes in it), and bones stretching out everywhere. We
could not both ride on one camel, and such a camel ! Then we inspected the
donkeys. They were about the size of goats, and as skinny and bony as the
ancient camel. We selected two of the least appalling skeletons, and we then
demanded saddles, innocently. Then we were told that a saddle had never
been seen in Wasta. The word for saddle, "berda," seemed unknown here. So
we had to start on bare-backed, angular-sectioned donkeys, so small that our
toes could almost touch the ground. To ride a lean, bare-backed donkey without
stirrups is painful in many ways. After ten miles of this purgatorial procession we
seemed almost at our pyramid, when, lo ! a canal came in our way, and we had
to make a long detour, and after numerous zigzags and advances by parallel
lines at right angles to the pyramid, we found ourselves at the foot of the enormous
%
\
Î|y:-^
VIEW OF THE PYRAMID OF MEDUM : THE VILLAGE TO THE RIGHT.
(From a Water-Colour Drawing by the Author.)
he had been to the Fayum from Sakkarah with a party of sporting English
"officers" and passed by the pyramid, but had not visited it. My guide is a
good man for finding game, but he is not the least bit of an antiquarian, and
therefore I always take him when I can get him, for he is utterly unbiassed.
Of course he knows his way about, and speaks Arabic. He is a gentleman, and
is nice looking, very particular in his dress, and as clean as an Englishman is
expected to be. So we started by rail for Wasta, where it was supposed camels
or donkeys could be got. But camels were not to be obtained. One awful
humped animal appeared, a beggarly account of shreds and patches, all skin
(where there were no holes in it), and bones stretching out everywhere. We
could not both ride on one camel, and such a camel ! Then we inspected the
donkeys. They were about the size of goats, and as skinny and bony as the
ancient camel. We selected two of the least appalling skeletons, and we then
demanded saddles, innocently. Then we were told that a saddle had never
been seen in Wasta. The word for saddle, "berda," seemed unknown here. So
we had to start on bare-backed, angular-sectioned donkeys, so small that our
toes could almost touch the ground. To ride a lean, bare-backed donkey without
stirrups is painful in many ways. After ten miles of this purgatorial procession we
seemed almost at our pyramid, when, lo ! a canal came in our way, and we had
to make a long detour, and after numerous zigzags and advances by parallel
lines at right angles to the pyramid, we found ourselves at the foot of the enormous