hireable donkeys and other beasts of burden, thrusting a warm red
face of inquiry into the shadowy recesses of odoriferous bazaars,
and sauntering at evening in the Esbekiyeh Gardens, cigar in mouth
and hands in pockets, looking on the scene and behaving in it as
if the whole place were but a reflex of Earl's Court Exhibition.
History affects the cheap tripper not at all; he regards the
Pyramids as "good building" merely, and the inscrutable Sphinx
itself as a fine target for empty soda-water bottles, while
perhaps his chiefest regret is that the granite whereof the
ancient monster is hewn is too hard for him to inscribe his
distinguished name thereon. It is true that there is a punishment
inflicted on any person or persons attempting such wanton work--a
fine or the bastinado; yet neither fine nor bastinado would affect
the "tripper" if he could only succeed in carving "'Arry" on the
Sphinx's jaw. But he cannot, and herein is his own misery.
Otherwise he comports himself in Egypt as he does at Margate, with
no more thought, reflection, or reverence than dignify the
composition of his far-off Simian ancestor.

Taking him all in all, he is, however, no worse, and in some
respects better, than the "swagger" folk who "do" Egypt, or
rather, consent in a languid way to be "done" by Egypt. These are
the people who annually leave England on the plea of being unable
to stand the cheery, frosty, and in every respect healthy winter
of their native country--that winter, which with its wild winds,
its sparkling frost and snow, its holly trees bright with scarlet
berries, its merry hunters galloping over field and moor during
daylight hours, and its great log fires roaring up the chimneys at
evening, was sufficiently good for their forefathers to thrive
upon and live through contentedly up to a hale and hearty old age