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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3710-0.txt b/3710-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d29879c --- /dev/null +++ b/3710-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1663 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids, by +Anthony Trollope + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids + + +Author: Anthony Trollope + + + +Release Date: January 16, 2015 [eBook #3710] +[This file was first posted on July 31, 2001] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN UNPROTECTED FEMALE AT THE +PYRAMIDS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall “Tales of All Countries” +edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + AN UNPROTECTED FEMALE AT THE PYRAMIDS + + +IN the happy days when we were young, no description conveyed to us so +complete an idea of mysterious reality as that of an Oriental city. We +knew it was actually there, but had such vague notions of its ways and +looks! Let any one remember his early impressions as to Bagdad or Grand +Cairo, and then say if this was not so. It was probably taken from the +“Arabian Nights,” and the picture produced was one of strange, fantastic, +luxurious houses; of women who were either very young and very beautiful, +or else very old and very cunning; but in either state exercising much +more influence in life than women in the East do now; of good-natured, +capricious, though sometimes tyrannical monarchs; and of life full of +quaint mysteries, quite unintelligible in every phasis, and on that +account the more picturesque. + +And perhaps Grand Cairo has thus filled us with more wonder even than +Bagdad. We have been in a certain manner at home at Bagdad, but have +only visited Grand Cairo occasionally. I know no place which was to me, +in early years, so delightfully mysterious as Grand Cairo. + +But the route to India and Australia has changed all this. Men from all +countries going to the East, now pass through Cairo, and its streets and +costumes are no longer strange to us. It has become also a resort for +invalids, or rather for those who fear that they may become invalids if +they remain in a cold climate during the winter months. And thus at +Cairo there is always to be found a considerable population of French, +Americans, and of English. Oriental life is brought home to us, +dreadfully diluted by western customs, and the delights of the “Arabian +Nights” are shorn of half their value. When we have seen a thing it is +never so magnificent to us as when it was half unknown. + +It is not much that we deign to learn from these Orientals,—we who glory +in our civilisation. We do not copy their silence or their +abstemiousness, nor that invariable mindfulness of his own personal +dignity which always adheres to a Turk or to an Arab. We chatter as much +at Cairo as elsewhere, and eat as much and drink as much, and dress +ourselves generally in the same old ugly costume. But we do usually take +upon ourselves to wear red caps, and we do ride on donkeys. + +Nor are the visitors from the West to Cairo by any means confined to the +male sex. Ladies are to be seen in the streets quite regardless of the +Mahommedan custom which presumes a veil to be necessary for an appearance +in public; and, to tell the truth, the Mahommedans in general do not +appear to be much shocked by their effrontery. + +A quarter of the town has in this way become inhabited by men wearing +coats and waistcoats, and by women who are without veils; but the English +tongue in Egypt finds its centre at Shepheard’s Hotel. It is here that +people congregate who are looking out for parties to visit with them the +Upper Nile, and who are generally all smiles and courtesy; and here also +are to be found they who have just returned from this journey, and who +are often in a frame of mind towards their companions that is much less +amiable. From hence, during the winter, a cortége proceeds almost daily +to the pyramids, or to Memphis, or to the petrified forest, or to the +City of the Sun. And then, again, four or five times a month the house +is filled with young aspirants going out to India, male and female, full +of valour and bloom; or with others coming home, no longer young, no +longer aspiring, but laden with children and grievances. + +The party with whom we are at present concerned is not about to proceed +further than the Pyramids, and we shall be able to go with them and +return in one and the same day. + +It consisted chiefly of an English family, Mr. and Mrs. Damer, their +daughter, and two young sons;—of these chiefly, because they were the +nucleus to which the others had attached themselves as adherents; they +had originated the journey, and in the whole management of it Mr. Damer +regarded himself as the master. + +The adherents were, firstly, M. Delabordeau, a Frenchman, now resident in +Cairo, who had given out that he was in some way concerned in the canal +about to be made between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. In +discussion on this subject he had become acquainted with Mr. Damer; and +although the latter gentleman, true to English interests, perpetually +declared that the canal would never be made, and thus irritated M. +Delabordeau not a little—nevertheless, some measure of friendship had +grown up between them. + +There was also an American gentleman, Mr. Jefferson Ingram, who was +comprising all countries and all nations in one grand tour, as American +gentlemen so often do. He was young and good-looking, and had made +himself especially agreeable to Mr. Damer, who had declared, more than +once, that Mr. Ingram was by far the most rational American he had ever +met. Mr. Ingram would listen to Mr. Damer by the half-hour as to the +virtue of the British Constitution, and had even sat by almost with +patience when Mr. Damer had expressed a doubt as to the good working of +the United States’ scheme of policy,—which, in an American, was most +wonderful. But some of the sojourners at Shepheard’s had observed that +Mr. Ingram was in the habit of talking with Miss Damer almost as much as +with her father, and argued from that, that fond as the young man was of +politics, he did sometimes turn his mind to other things also. + +And then there was Miss Dawkins. Now Miss Dawkins was an important +person, both as to herself and as to her line of life, and she must be +described. She was, in the first place, an unprotected female of about +thirty years of age. As this is becoming an established profession, +setting itself up as it were in opposition to the old world idea that +women, like green peas, cannot come to perfection without +supporting-sticks, it will be understood at once what were Miss Dawkins’s +sentiments. She considered—or at any rate so expressed herself—that peas +could grow very well without sticks, and could not only grow thus +unsupported, but could also make their way about the world without any +incumbrance of sticks whatsoever. She did not intend, she said, to rival +Ida Pfeiffer, seeing that she was attached in a moderate way to bed and +board, and was attached to society in a manner almost more than moderate; +but she had no idea of being prevented from seeing anything she wished to +see because she had neither father, nor husband, nor brother available +for the purpose of escort. She was a human creature, with arms and legs, +she said; and she intended to use them. And this was all very well; but +nevertheless she had a strong inclination to use the arms and legs of +other people when she could make them serviceable. + +In person Miss Dawkins was not without attraction. I should exaggerate +if I were to say that she was beautiful and elegant; but she was good +looking, and not usually ill mannered. She was tall, and gifted with +features rather sharp and with eyes very bright. Her hair was of the +darkest shade of brown, and was always worn in bandeaux, very neatly. +She appeared generally in black, though other circumstances did not lead +one to suppose that she was in mourning; and then, no other travelling +costume is so convenient! She always wore a dark broad-brimmed straw +hat, as to the ribbons on which she was rather particular. She was very +neat about her gloves and boots; and though it cannot be said that her +dress was got up without reference to expense, there can be no doubt that +it was not effected without considerable outlay,—and more considerable +thought. + +Miss Dawkins—Sabrina Dawkins was her name, but she seldom had friends +about her intimate enough to use the word Sabrina—was certainly a clever +young woman. She could talk on most subjects, if not well, at least well +enough to amuse. If she had not read much, she never showed any +lamentable deficiency; she was good-humoured, as a rule, and could on +occasions be very soft and winning. People who had known her long would +sometimes say that she was selfish; but with new acquaintance she was +forbearing and self-denying. + +With what income Miss Dawkins was blessed no one seemed to know. She +lived like a gentlewoman, as far as outward appearance went, and never +seemed to be in want; but some people would say that she knew very well +how many sides there were to a shilling, and some enemy had once declared +that she was an “old soldier.” Such was Miss Dawkins. + +She also, as well as Mr. Ingram and M. Delabordeau, had laid herself out +to find the weak side of Mr. Damer. Mr. Damer, with all his family, was +going up the Nile, and it was known that he had room for two in his boat +over and above his own family. Miss Dawkins had told him that she had +not quite made up her mind to undergo so great a fatigue, but that, +nevertheless, she had a longing of the soul to see something of Nubia. +To this Mr. Damer had answered nothing but “Oh!” which Miss Dawkins had +not found to be encouraging. + +But she had not on that account despaired. To a married man there are +always two sides, and in this instance there was Mrs. Damer as well as +Mr. Damer. When Mr. Damer said “Oh!” Miss Dawkins sighed, and said, +“Yes, indeed!” then smiled, and betook herself to Mrs. Damer. + +Now Mrs. Damer was soft-hearted, and also somewhat old-fashioned. She +did not conceive any violent affection for Miss Dawkins, but she told her +daughter that “the single lady by herself was a very nice young woman, +and that it was a thousand pities she should have to go about so much +alone like.” + +Miss Damer had turned up her pretty nose, thinking, perhaps, how small +was the chance that it ever should be her own lot to be an unprotected +female. But Miss Dawkins carried her point at any rate as regarded the +expedition to the Pyramids. + +Miss Damer, I have said, had a pretty nose. I may also say that she had +pretty eyes, mouth, and chin, with other necessary appendages, all +pretty. As to the two Master Damers, who were respectively of the ages +of fifteen and sixteen, it may be sufficient to say that they were +conspicuous for red caps and for the constancy with which they raced +their donkeys. + +And now the donkeys, and the donkey boys, and the dragomans were all +standing at the steps of Shepheard’s Hotel. To each donkey there was a +donkey-boy, and to each gentleman there was a dragoman, so that a goodly +cortége was assembled, and a goodly noise was made. It may here be +remarked, perhaps with some little pride, that not half the noise is +given in Egypt to persons speaking any other language that is bestowed on +those whose vocabulary is English. + +This lasted for half an hour. Had the party been French the donkeys +would have arrived only fifteen minutes before the appointed time. And +then out came Damer père and Damer mère, Damer fille, and Damer fils. +Damer mère was leaning on her husband, as was her wont. She was not an +unprotected female, and had no desire to make any attempts in that line. +Damer fille was attended sedulously by Mr. Ingram, for whose +demolishment, however, Mr. Damer still brought up, in a loud voice, the +fag ends of certain political arguments which he would fain have poured +direct into the ears of his opponent, had not his wife been so persistent +in claiming her privileges. M. Delabordeau should have followed with +Miss Dawkins, but his French politeness, or else his fear of the +unprotected female, taught him to walk on the other side of the mistress +of the party. + +Miss Dawkins left the house with an eager young Damer yelling on each +side of her; but nevertheless, though thus neglected by the gentlemen of +the party, she was all smiles and prettiness, and looked so sweetly on +Mr. Ingram when that gentleman stayed a moment to help her on to her +donkey, that his heart almost misgave him for leaving her as soon as she +was in her seat. + +And then they were off. In going from the hotel to the Pyramids our +party had not to pass through any of the queer old narrow streets of the +true Cairo—Cairo the Oriental. They all lay behind them as they went +down by the back of the hotel, by the barracks of the Pasha and the +College of the Dervishes, to the village of old Cairo and the banks of +the Nile. + +Here they were kept half an hour while their dragomans made a bargain +with the ferryman, a stately reis, or captain of a boat, who declared +with much dignity that he could not carry them over for a sum less than +six times the amount to which he was justly entitled; while the +dragomans, with great energy on behalf of their masters, offered him only +five times that sum. + +As far as the reis was concerned, the contest might soon have been at an +end, for the man was not without a conscience; and would have been +content with five times and a half; but then the three dragomans +quarrelled among themselves as to which should have the paying of the +money, and the affair became very tedious. + +“What horrid, odious men!” said Miss Dawkins, appealing to Mr. Damer. +“Do you think they will let us go over at all?” + +“Well, I suppose they will; people do get over generally, I believe. +Abdallah! Abdallah! why don’t you pay the man? That fellow is always +striving to save half a piastre for me.” + +“I wish he wasn’t quite so particular,” said Mrs. Damer, who was already +becoming rather tired; “but I’m sure he’s a very honest man in trying to +protect us from being robbed.” + +“That he is,” said Miss Dawkins. “What a delightful trait of national +character it is to see these men so faithful to their employers.” And +then at last they got over the ferry, Mr. Ingram having descended among +the combatants, and settled the matter in dispute by threats and shouts, +and an uplifted stick. + +They crossed the broad Nile exactly at the spot where the nilometer, or +river guage, measures from day to day, and from year to year, the +increasing or decreasing treasures of the stream, and landed at a village +where thousands of eggs are made into chickens by the process of +artificial incubation. + +Mrs. Damer thought that it was very hard upon the maternal hens—the hens +which should have been maternal—that they should be thus robbed of the +delights of motherhood. + +“So unnatural, you know,” said Miss Dawkins; “so opposed to the fostering +principles of creation. Don’t you think so, Mr. Ingram?” + +Mr. Ingram said he didn’t know. He was again seating Miss Damer on her +donkey, and it must be presumed that he performed this feat clumsily; for +Fanny Damer could jump on and off the animal with hardly a finger to help +her, when her brother or her father was her escort; but now, under the +hands of Mr. Ingram, this work of mounting was one which required +considerable time and care. All which Miss Dawkins observed with +precision. + +“It’s all very well talking,” said Mr. Damer, bringing up his donkey +nearly alongside that of Mr. Ingram, and ignoring his daughter’s +presence, just as he would have done that of his dog; “but you must admit +that political power is more equally distributed in England than it is in +America.” + +“Perhaps it is,” said Mr. Ingram; “equally distributed among, we will +say, three dozen families,” and he made a feint as though to hold in his +impetuous donkey, using the spur, however, at the same time on the side +that was unseen by Mr. Damer. As he did so, Fanny’s donkey became +equally impetuous, and the two cantered on in advance of the whole party. +It was quite in vain that Mr. Damer, at the top of his voice, shouted out +something about “three dozen corruptible demagogues.” Mr. Ingram found +it quite impossible to restrain his donkey so as to listen to the +sarcasm. + +“I do believe papa would talk politics,” said Fanny, “if he were at the +top of Mont Blanc, or under the Falls of Niagara. I do hate politics, +Mr. Ingram.” + +“I am sorry for that, very,” said Mr. Ingram, almost sadly. + +“Sorry, why? You don’t want me to talk politics, do you?” + +“In America we are all politicians, more or less; and, therefore, I +suppose you will hate us all.” + +“Well, I rather think I should,” said Fanny; “you would be such bores.” +But there was something in her eye, as she spoke, which atoned for the +harshness of her words. + +“A very nice young man is Mr. Ingram; don’t you think so?” said Miss +Dawkins to Mrs. Damer. Mrs. Damer was going along upon her donkey, not +altogether comfortably. She much wished to have her lord and legitimate +protector by her side, but he had left her to the care of a dragoman +whose English was not intelligible to her, and she was rather cross. + +“Indeed, Miss Dawkins, I don’t know who are nice and who are not. This +nasty donkey stumbles at ever step. There! I know I shall be down +directly.” + +“You need not be at all afraid of that; they are perfectly safe, I +believe, always,” said Miss Dawkins, rising in her stirrup, and handling +her reins quite triumphantly. “A very little practice will make you +quite at home.” + +“I don’t know what you mean by a very little practice. I have been here +six weeks. Why did you put me on such a bad donkey as this?” and she +turned to Abdallah, the dragoman. + +“Him berry good donkey, my lady; berry good,—best of all. Call him Jack +in Cairo. Him go to Pyramid and back, and mind noting.” + +“What does he say, Miss Dawkins?” + +“He says that that donkey is one called Jack. If so I’ve had him myself +many times, and Jack is a very good donkey.” + +“I wish you had him now with all my heart,” said Mrs. Damer. Upon which +Miss Dawkins offered to change; but those perils of mounting and +dismounting were to Mrs. Damer a great deal too severe to admit of this. + +“Seven miles of canal to be carried out into the sea, at a minimum depth +of twenty-three feet, and the stone to be fetched from Heaven knows +where! All the money in France wouldn’t do it.” This was addressed by +Mr. Damer to M. Delabordeau, whom he had caught after the abrupt flight +of Mr. Ingram. + +“Den we will borrow a leetle from England,” said M. Delabordeau. + +“Precious little, I can tell you. Such stock would not hold its price in +our markets for twenty-four hours. If it were made, the freights would +be too heavy to allow of merchandise passing through. The heavy goods +would all go round; and as for passengers and mails, you don’t expect to +get them, I suppose, while there is a railroad ready made to their hand?” + +“Ye vill carry all your ships through vidout any transportation. Think +of that, my friend.” + +“Pshaw! You are worse than Ingram. Of all the plans I ever heard of it +is the most monstrous, the most impracticable, the most—” But here he +was interrupted by the entreaties of his wife, who had, in absolute deed +and fact, slipped from her donkey, and was now calling lustily for her +husband’s aid. Whereupon Miss Dawkins allied herself to the Frenchman, +and listened with an air of strong conviction to those arguments which +were so weak in the ears of Mr. Damer. M. Delabordeau was about to ride +across the Great Desert to Jerusalem, and it might perhaps be quite as +well to do that with him, as to go up the Nile as far as the second +cataract with the Damers. + +“And so, M. Delabordeau, you intend really to start for Mount Sinai?” + +“Yes, mees; ve intend to make one start on Monday week.” + +“And so on to Jerusalem. You are quite right. It would be a thousand +pities to be in these countries, and to return without going over such +ground as that. I shall certainly go to Jerusalem myself by that route.” + +“Vot, mees! you? Would you not find it too much fatigante?” + +“I care nothing for fatigue, if I like the party I am with,—nothing at +all, literally. You will hardly understand me, perhaps, M. Delabordeau; +but I do not see any reason why I, as a young woman, should not make any +journey that is practicable for a young man.” + +“Ah! dat is great resolution for you, mees.” + +“I mean as far as fatigue is concerned. You are a Frenchman, and belong +to the nation that is at the head of all human civilisation—” + +M. Delabordeau took off his hat and bowed low, to the peak of his donkey +saddle. He dearly loved to hear his country praised, as Miss Dawkins was +aware. + +“And I am sure you must agree with me,” continued Miss Dawkins, “that the +time is gone by for women to consider themselves helpless animals, or to +be so considered by others.” + +“Mees Dawkins vould never be considered, not in any times at all, to be +one helpless animal,” said M. Delabordeau civilly. + +“I do not, at any rate, intend to be so regarded,” said she. “It suits +me to travel alone; not that I am averse to society; quite the contrary; +if I meet pleasant people I am always ready to join them. But it suits +me to travel without any permanent party, and I do not see why false +shame should prevent my seeing the world as thoroughly as though I +belonged to the other sex. Why should it, M. Delabordeau?” + +M. Delabordeau declared that he did not see any reason why it should. + +“I am passionately anxious to stand upon Mount Sinai,” continued Miss +Dawkins; “to press with my feet the earliest spot in sacred history, of +the identity of which we are certain; to feel within me the awe-inspiring +thrill of that thrice sacred hour!” + +The Frenchman looked as though he did not quite understand her, but he +said that it would be magnifique. + +“You have already made up your party I suppose, M. Delabordeau?” + +M. Delabordeau gave the names of two Frenchmen and one Englishman who +were going with him. + +“Upon my word it is a great temptation to join you,” said Miss Dawkins, +“only for that horrid Englishman.” + +“Vat, Mr. Stanley?” + +“Oh, I don’t mean any disrespect to Mr. Stanley. The horridness I speak +of does not attach to him personally, but to his stiff, respectable, +ungainly, well-behaved, irrational, and uncivilised country. You see I +am not very patriotic.” + +“Not quite so much as my friend, Mr. Damer.” + +“Ha! ha! ha! an excellent creature, isn’t he? And so they all are, dear +creatures. But then they are so backward. They are most anxious that I +should join them up the Nile, but—,” and then Miss Dawkins shrugged her +shoulders gracefully, and, as she flattered herself, like a Frenchwoman. +After that they rode on in silence for a few moments. + +“Yes, I must see Mount Sinai,” said Miss Dawkins, and then sighed deeply. +M. Delabordeau, notwithstanding that his country does stand at the head +of all human civilisation, was not courteous enough to declare that if +Miss Dawkins would join his party across the desert, nothing would be +wanting to make his beatitude in this world perfect. + +Their road from the village of the chicken-hatching ovens lay up along +the left bank of the Nile, through an immense grove of lofty palm-trees, +looking out from among which our visitors could ever and anon see the +heads of the two great Pyramids;—that is, such of them could see it as +felt any solicitude in the matter. + +It is astonishing how such things lose their great charm as men find +themselves in their close neighbourhood. To one living in New York or +London, how ecstatic is the interest inspired by these huge structures. +One feels that no price would be too high to pay for seeing them as long +as time and distance, and the world’s inexorable task-work, forbid such a +visit. How intense would be the delight of climbing over the wondrous +handiwork of those wondrous architects so long since dead; how thrilling +the awe with which one would penetrate down into their interior +caves—those caves in which lay buried the bones of ancient kings, whose +very names seem to have come to us almost from another world! + +But all these feelings become strangely dim, their acute edges +wonderfully worn, as the subjects which inspired them are brought near to +us. “Ah! so those are the Pyramids, are they?” says the traveller, when +the first glimpse of them is shown to him from the window of a railway +carriage. “Dear me; they don’t look so very high, do they? For Heaven’s +sake put the blind down, or we shall be destroyed by the dust.” And then +the ecstasy and keen delight of the Pyramids has vanished for ever. + +Our friends, therefore, who for weeks past had seen from a distance, +though they had not yet visited them, did not seem to have any strong +feeling on the subject as they trotted through the grove of palm-trees. +Mr. Damer had not yet escaped from his wife, who was still fretful from +the result of her little accident. + +“It was all the chattering of that Miss Dawkins,” said Mrs. Damer. “She +would not let me attend to what I was doing.” + +“Miss Dawkins is an ass,” said her husband. + +“It is a pity she has no one to look after her,” said Mrs. Damer. M. +Delabordeau was still listening to Miss Dawkins’s raptures about Mount +Sinai. “I wonder whether she has got any money,” said M. Delabordeau to +himself. “It can’t be much,” he went on thinking, “or she would not be +left in this way by herself.” And the result of his thoughts was that +Miss Dawkins, if undertaken, might probably become more plague than +profit. As to Miss Dawkins herself, though she was ecstatic about Mount +Sinai—which was not present—she seemed to have forgotten the poor +Pyramids, which were then before her nose. + +The two lads were riding races along the dusty path, much to the disgust +of their donkey-boys. Their time for enjoyment was to come. There were +hampers to be opened; and then the absolute climbing of the Pyramids +would actually be a delight to them. + +As for Miss Damer and Mr. Ingram, it was clear that they had forgotten +palm-trees, Pyramids, the Nile, and all Egypt. They had escaped to a +much fairer paradise. + +“Could I bear to live among Republicans?” said Fanny, repeating the last +words of her American lover, and looking down from her donkey to the +ground as she did so. “I hardly know what Republicans are, Mr. Ingram.” + +“Let me teach you,” said he. + +“You do talk such nonsense. I declare there is that Miss Dawkins looking +at us as though she had twenty eyes. Could you not teach her, Mr. +Ingram?” + +And so they emerged from the palm-tree grove, through a village crowded +with dirty, straggling Arab children, on to the cultivated plain, beyond +which the Pyramids stood, now full before them; the two large Pyramids, a +smaller one, and the huge sphynx’s head all in a group together. + +“Fanny,” said Bob Damer, riding up to her, “mamma wants you; so toddle +back.” + +“Mamma wants me! What can she want me for now?” said Fanny, with a look +of anything but filial duty in her face. + +“To protect her from Miss Dawkins, I think. She wants you to ride at her +side, so that Dawkins mayn’t get at her. Now, Mr. Ingram, I’ll bet you +half-a-crown I’m at the top of the big Pyramid before you.” + +Poor Fanny! She obeyed, however; doubtless feeling that it would not do +as yet to show too plainly that she preferred Mr. Ingram to her mother. +She arrested her donkey, therefore, till Mrs. Damer overtook her; and Mr. +Ingram, as he paused for a moment with her while she did so, fell into +the hands of Miss Dawkins. + +“I cannot think, Fanny, how you get on so quick,” said Mrs. Damer. “I’m +always last; but then my donkey is such a very nasty one. Look there, +now; he’s always trying to get me off.” + +“We shall soon be at the Pyramids now, mamma.” + +“How on earth I am ever to get back again I cannot think. I am so tired +now that I can hardly sit.” + +“You’ll be better, mamma, when you get your luncheon and a glass of +wine.” + +“How on earth we are to eat and drink with those nasty Arab people around +us, I can’t conceive. They tell me we shall be eaten up by them. But, +Fanny, what has Mr. Ingram been saying to you all the day?” + +“What has he been saying, mamma? Oh! I don’t know;—a hundred things, I +dare say. But he has not been talking to me all the time.” + +“I think he has, Fanny, nearly, since we crossed the river. Oh, dear! +oh, dear! this animal does hurt me so! Every time he moves he flings his +head about, and that gives me such a bump.” And then Fanny commiserated +her mother’s sufferings, and in her commiseration contrived to elude any +further questionings as to Mr. Ingram’s conversation. + +“Majestic piles, are they not?” said Miss Dawkins, who, having changed +her companion, allowed her mind to revert from Mount Sinai to the +Pyramids. They were now riding through cultivated ground, with the vast +extent of the sands of Libya before them. The two Pyramids were standing +on the margin of the sand, with the head of the recumbent sphynx plainly +visible between them. But no idea can be formed of the size of this +immense figure till it is visited much more closely. The body is covered +with sand, and the head and neck alone stand above the surface of the +ground. They were still two miles distant, and the sphynx as yet was but +an obscure mount between the two vast Pyramids. + +“Immense piles!” said Miss Dawkins, repeating her own words. + +“Yes, they are large,” said Mr. Ingram, who did not choose to indulge in +enthusiasm in the presence of Miss Dawkins. + +“Enormous! What a grand idea!—eh, Mr. Ingram? The human race does not +create such things as those nowadays!” + +“No, indeed,” he answered; “but perhaps we create better things.” + +“Better! You do not mean to say, Mr. Ingram, that you are an +utilitarian. I do, in truth, hope better things of you than that. Yes! +steam mills are better, no doubt, and mechanics’ institutes and penny +newspapers. But is nothing to be valued but what is useful?” And Miss +Dawkins, in the height of her enthusiasm, switched her donkey severely +over the shoulder. + +“I might, perhaps, have said also that we create more beautiful things,” +said Mr. Ingram. + +“But we cannot create older things.” + +“No, certainly; we cannot do that.” + +“Nor can we imbue what we do create with the grand associations which +environ those piles with so intense an interest. Think of the mighty +dead, Mr. Ingram, and of their great homes when living. Think of the +hands which it took to raise those huge blocks—” + +“And of the lives which it cost.” + +“Doubtless. The tyranny and invincible power of the royal architects add +to the grandeur of the idea. One would not wish to have back the kings +of Egypt.” + +“Well, no; they would be neither useful nor beautiful.” + +“Perhaps not; and I do not wish to be picturesque at the expense of my +fellow-creatures.” + +“I doubt, even, whether they would be picturesque.” + +“You know what I mean, Mr. Ingram. But the associations of such names, +and the presence of the stupendous works with which they are connected, +fill the soul with awe. Such, at least, is the effect with mine.” + +“I fear that my tendencies, Miss Dawkins, are more realistic than your +own.” + +“You belong to a young country, Mr. Ingram, and are naturally prone to +think of material life. The necessity of living looms large before you.” + +“Very large, indeed, Miss Dawkins.” + +“Whereas with us, with some of us at least, the material aspect has given +place to one in which poetry and enthusiasm prevail. To such among us +the associations of past times are very dear. Cheops, to me, is more +than Napoleon Bonaparte.” + +“That is more than most of your countrymen can say, at any rate, just at +present.” + +“I am a woman,” continued Miss Dawkins. + +Mr. Ingram took off his hat in acknowledgment both of the announcement +and of the fact. + +“And to us it is not given—not given as yet—to share in the great deeds +of the present. The envy of your sex has driven us from the paths which +lead to honour. But the deeds of the past are as much ours as yours.” + +“Oh, quite as much.” + +“’Tis to your country that we look for enfranchisement from this +thraldom. Yes, Mr. Ingram, the women of America have that strength of +mind which has been wanting to those of Europe. In the United States +woman will at last learn to exercise her proper mission.” + +Mr. Ingram expressed a sincere wish that such might be the case; and then +wondering at the ingenuity with which Miss Dawkins had travelled round +from Cheops and his Pyramid to the rights of women in America, he +contrived to fall back, under the pretence of asking after the ailments +of Mrs. Damer. + +And now at last they were on the sand, in the absolute desert, making +their way up to the very foot of the most northern of the two Pyramids. +They were by this time surrounded by a crowd of Arab guides, or Arabs +professing to be guides, who had already ascertained that Mr. Damer was +the chief of the party, and were accordingly driving him almost to +madness by the offers of their services, and their assurance that he +could not possibly see the outside or the inside of either structure, or +even remain alive upon the ground, unless he at once accepted their +offers made at their own prices. + +“Get away, will you?” said he. “I don’t want any of you, and I won’t +have you! If you take hold of me I’ll shoot you!” This was said to one +specially energetic Arab, who, in his efforts to secure his prey, had +caught hold of Mr. Damer by the leg. + +“Yes, yes, I say! Englishmen always take me;—me—me, and then no break +him leg. Yes—yes—yes;—I go. Master, say yes. Only one leetle ten +shillings!” + +“Abdallah!” shouted Mr. Damer, “why don’t you take this man away? Why +don’t you make him understand that if all the Pyramids depended on it, I +would not give him sixpence!” + +And then Abdallah, thus invoked, came up, and explained to the man in +Arabic that he would gain his object more surely if he would behave +himself a little more quietly; a hint which the man took for one minute, +and for one minute only. + +And then poor Mrs. Damer replied to an application for backsheish by the +gift of a sixpence. Unfortunate woman! The word backsheish means, I +believe, a gift; but it has come in Egypt to signify money, and is +eternally dinned into the ears of strangers by Arab suppliants. Mrs. +Damer ought to have known better, as, during the last six weeks she had +never shown her face out of Shepheard’s Hotel without being pestered for +backsheish; but she was tired and weak, and foolishly thought to rid +herself of the man who was annoying her. + +No sooner had the coin dropped from her hand into that of the Arab, than +she was surrounded by a cluster of beggars, who loudly made their +petitions as though they would, each of them, individually be injured if +treated with less liberality than that first comer. They took hold of +her donkey, her bridle, her saddle, her legs, and at last her arms and +hands, screaming for backsheish in voices that were neither sweet nor +mild. + +In her dismay she did give away sundry small coins—all, probably, that +she had about her; but this only made the matter worse. Money was going, +and each man, by sufficient energy, might hope to get some of it. They +were very energetic, and so frightened the poor lady that she would +certainly have fallen, had she not been kept on her seat by the pressure +around her. + +“Oh, dear! oh, dear! get away,” she cried. “I haven’t got any more; +indeed I haven’t. Go away, I tell you! Mr. Damer! oh, Mr. Damer!” and +then, in the excess of her agony, she uttered one loud, long, and +continuous shriek. + +Up came Mr. Damer; up came Abdallah; up came M. Delabordeau; up came Mr. +Ingram, and at last she was rescued. “You shouldn’t go away and leave me +to the mercy of these nasty people. As to that Abdallah, he is of no use +to anybody.” + +“Why you bodder de good lady, you dem blackguard?” said Abdallah, raising +his stick, as though he were going to lay them all low with a blow. “Now +you get noting, you tief!” + +The Arabs for a moment retired to a little distance, like flies driven +from a sugar-bowl; but it was easy to see that, like the flies, they +would return at the first vacant moment. + +And now they had reached the very foot of the Pyramids and proceeded to +dismount from their donkeys. Their intention was first to ascend to the +top, then to come down to their banquet, and after that to penetrate into +the interior. And all this would seem to be easy of performance. The +Pyramid is undoubtedly high, but it is so constructed as to admit of +climbing without difficulty. A lady mounting it would undoubtedly need +some assistance, but any man possessed of moderate activity would require +no aid at all. + +But our friends were at once imbued with the tremendous nature of the +task before them. A sheikh of the Arabs came forth, who communicated +with them through Abdallah. The work could be done, no doubt, he said; +but a great many men would be wanted to assist. Each lady must have four +Arabs, and each gentlemen three; and then, seeing that the work would be +peculiarly severe on this special day, each of these numerous Arabs must +be remunerated by some very large number of piastres. + +Mr. Damer, who was by no means a close man in his money dealings, opened +his eyes with surprise, and mildly expostulated; M. Delabordeau, who was +rather a close man in his reckonings, immediately buttoned up his +breeches pocket and declared that he should decline to mount the Pyramid +at all at that price; and then Mr. Ingram descended to the combat. + +The protestations of the men were fearful. They declared, with loud +voices, eager actions, and manifold English oaths, that an attempt was +being made to rob them. They had a right to demand the sums which they +were charging, and it was a shame that English gentlemen should come and +take the bread out of their mouths. And so they screeched, gesticulated, +and swore, and frightened poor Mrs. Damer almost into fits. + +But at last it was settled and away they started, the sheikh declaring +that the bargain had been made at so low a rate as to leave him not one +piastre for himself. Each man had an Arab on each side of him, and Miss +Dawkins and Miss Damer had each, in addition, one behind. Mrs. Damer was +so frightened as altogether to have lost all ambition to ascend. She sat +below on a fragment of stone, with the three dragomans standing around +her as guards; but even with the three dragomans the attacks on her were +so frequent, and as she declared afterwards she was so bewildered, that +she never had time to remember that she had come there from England to +see the Pyramids, and that she was now immediately under them. + +The boys, utterly ignoring their guides, scrambled up quicker than the +Arabs could follow them. Mr. Damer started off at a pace which soon +brought him to the end of his tether, and from that point was dragged up +by the sheer strength of his assistants; thereby accomplishing the wishes +of the men, who induce their victims to start as rapidly as possible, in +order that they may soon find themselves helpless from want of wind. Mr. +Ingram endeavoured to attach himself to Fanny, and she would have been +nothing loth to have him at her right hand instead of the hideous brown, +shrieking, one-eyed Arab who took hold of her. But it was soon found +that any such arrangement was impossible. Each guide felt that if he +lost his own peculiar hold he would lose his prey, and held on, +therefore, with invincible tenacity. Miss Dawkins looked, too, as though +she had thought to be attended to by some Christian cavalier, but no +Christian cavalier was forthcoming. M. Delabordeau was the wisest, for +he took the matter quietly, did as he was bid, and allowed the guides +nearly to carry him to the top of the edifice. + +“Ha! so this is the top of the Pyramid, is it?” said Mr. Damer, bringing +out his words one by one, being terribly out of breath. “Very wonderful, +very wonderful, indeed!” + +“It is wonderful,” said Miss Dawkins, whose breath had not failed her in +the least, “very wonderful, indeed! Only think, Mr. Damer, you might +travel on for days and days, till days became months, through those +interminable sands, and yet you would never come to the end of them. Is +it not quite stupendous?” + +“Ah, yes, quite,—puff, puff”—said Mr. Damer striving to regain his +breath. + +Mr. Damer was now at her disposal; weak and worn with toil and travel, +out of breath, and with half his manhood gone; if ever she might prevail +over him so as to procure from his mouth an assent to that Nile +proposition, it would be now. And after all, that Nile proposition was +the best one now before her. She did not quite like the idea of starting +off across the Great Desert without any lady, and was not sure that she +was prepared to be fallen in love with by M. Delabordeau, even if there +should ultimately be any readiness on the part of that gentleman to +perform the rôle of lover. With Mr. Ingram the matter was different, nor +was she so diffident of her own charms as to think it altogether +impossible that she might succeed, in the teeth of that little chit, +Fanny Damer. That Mr. Ingram would join the party up the Nile she had +very little doubt; and then there would be one place left for her. She +would thus, at any rate, become commingled with a most respectable +family, who might be of material service to her. + +Thus actuated she commenced an earnest attack upon Mr. Damer. + +“Stupendous!” she said again, for she was fond of repeating favourite +words. “What a wondrous race must have been those Egyptian kings of +old!” + +“I dare say they were,” said Mr. Damer, wiping his brow as he sat upon a +large loose stone, a fragment lying on the flat top of the Pyramid, one +of those stones with which the complete apex was once made, or was once +about to be made. + +“A magnificent race! so gigantic in their conceptions! Their ideas +altogether overwhelm us poor, insignificant, latter-day mortals. They +built these vast Pyramids; but for us, it is task enough to climb to +their top.” + +“Quite enough,” ejaculated Mr. Damer. + +But Mr. Damer would not always remain weak and out of breath, and it was +absolutely necessary for Miss Dawkins to hurry away from Cheops and his +tomb, to Thebes and Karnac. + +“After seeing this it is impossible for any one with a spark of +imagination to leave Egypt without going farther a-field.” + +Mr. Damer merely wiped his brow and grunted. This Miss Dawkins took as a +signal of weakness, and went on with her task perseveringly. + +“For myself, I have resolved to go up, at any rate, as far as Asouan and +the first cataract. I had thought of acceding to the wishes of a party +who are going across the Great Desert by Mount Sinai to Jerusalem; but +the kindness of yourself and Mrs. Damer is so great, and the prospect of +joining in your boat is so pleasurable, that I have made up my mind to +accept your very kind offer.” + +This, it will be acknowledged, was bold on the part of Miss Dawkins; but +what will not audacity effect? To use the slang of modern language, +cheek carries everything nowadays. And whatever may have been Miss +Dawkins’s deficiencies, in this virtue she was not deficient. + +“I have made up my mind to accept your very kind offer,” she said, +shining on Mr. Damer with her blandest smile. + +What was a stout, breathless, perspiring, middle-aged gentleman to do +under such circumstances? Mr. Damer was a man who, in most matters, had +his own way. That his wife should have given such an invitation without +consulting him, was, he knew, quite impossible. She would as soon have +thought of asking all those Arab guides to accompany them. Nor was it to +be thought of that he should allow himself to be kidnapped into such an +arrangement by the impudence of any Miss Dawkins. But there was, he +felt, a difficulty in answering such a proposition from a young lady with +a direct negative, especially while he was so scant of breath. So he +wiped his brow again, and looked at her. + +“But I can only agree to this on one understanding,” continued Miss +Dawkins, “and that is, that I am allowed to defray my own full share of +the expense of the journey.” + +Upon hearing this Mr. Damer thought that he saw his way out of the wood. +“Wherever I go, Miss Dawkins, I am always the paymaster myself,” and this +he contrived to say with some sternness, palpitating though he still was; +and the sternness which was deficient in his voice he endeavoured to put +into his countenance. + +But he did not know Miss Dawkins. “Oh, Mr. Damer,” she said, and as she +spoke her smile became almost blander than it was before; “oh, Mr. Damer, +I could not think of suffering you to be so liberal; I could not, indeed. +But I shall be quite content that you should pay everything, and let me +settle with you in one sum afterwards.” + +Mr. Damer’s breath was now rather more under his own command. “I am +afraid, Miss Dawkins,” he said, “that Mrs. Damer’s weak state of health +will not admit of such an arrangement.” + +“What, about the paying?” + +“Not only as to that, but we are a family party, Miss Dawkins; and great +as would be the benefit of your society to all of us, in Mrs. Damer’s +present state of health, I am afraid—in short, you would not find it +agreeable.—And therefore—” this he added, seeing that she was still about +to persevere—“I fear that we must forego the advantage you offer.” + +And then, looking into his face, Miss Dawkins did perceive that even her +audacity would not prevail. + +“Oh, very well,” she said, and moving from the stone on which she had +been sitting, she walked off, carrying her head very high, to a corner of +the Pyramid from which she could look forth alone towards the sands of +Libya. + +In the mean time another little overture was being made on the top of the +same Pyramid,—an overture which was not received quite in the same +spirit. While Mr. Damer was recovering his breath for the sake of +answering Miss Dawkins, Miss Damer had walked to the further corner of +the square platform on which they were placed, and there sat herself down +with her face turned towards Cairo. Perhaps it was not singular that Mr. +Ingram should have followed her. + +This would have been very well if a dozen Arabs had not also followed +them. But as this was the case, Mr. Ingram had to play his game under +some difficulty. He had no sooner seated himself beside her than they +came and stood directly in front of the seat, shutting out the view, and +by no means improving the fragrance of the air around them. + +“And this, then, Miss Damer, will be our last excursion together,” he +said, in his tenderest, softest tone. + +“De good Englishman will gib de poor Arab one little backsheish,” said an +Arab, putting out his hand and shaking Mr. Ingram’s shoulder. + +“Yes, yes, yes; him gib backsheish,” said another. + +“Him berry good man,” said a third, putting up his filthy hand, and +touching Mr. Ingram’s face. + +“And young lady berry good, too; she give backsheish to poor Arab.” + +“Yes,” said a fourth, preparing to take a similar liberty with Miss +Damer. + +This was too much for Mr. Ingram. He had already used very positive +language in his endeavour to assure his tormentors that they would not +get a piastre from him. But this only changed their soft persuasions +into threats. Upon hearing which, and upon seeing what the man attempted +to do in his endeavour to get money from Miss Damer, he raised his stick, +and struck first one and then the other as violently as he could upon +their heads. + +Any ordinary civilised men would have been stunned by such blows, for +they fell on the bare foreheads of the Arabs; but the objects of the +American’s wrath merely skulked away; and the others, convinced by the +only arguments which they understood, followed in pursuit of victims who +might be less pugnacious. + +It is hard for a man to be at once tender and pugnacious—to be +sentimental, while he is putting forth his physical strength with all the +violence in his power. It is difficult, also, for him to be gentle +instantly after having been in a rage. So he changed his tactics at the +moment, and came to the point at once in a manner befitting his present +state of mind. + +“Those vile wretches have put me in such a heat,” he said, “that I hardly +know what I am saying. But the fact is this, Miss Damer, I cannot leave +Cairo without knowing—. You understand what I mean, Miss Damer.” + +“Indeed I do not, Mr. Ingram; except that I am afraid you mean nonsense.” + +“Yes, you do; you know that I love you. I am sure you must know it. At +any rate you know it now.” + +“Mr. Ingram, you should not talk in such a way.” + +“Why should I not? But the truth is, Fanny, I can talk in no other way. +I do love you dearly. Can you love me well enough to go and be my wife +in a country far away from your own?” + +Before she left the top of the Pyramid Fanny Damer had said that she +would try. + +Mr. Ingram was now a proud and happy man, and seemed to think the steps +of the Pyramid too small for his elastic energy. But Fanny feared that +her troubles were to come. There was papa—that terrible bugbear on all +such occasions. What would papa say? She was sure her papa would not +allow her to marry and go so far away from her own family and country. +For herself, she liked the Americans—always had liked them; so she +said;—would desire nothing better than to live among them. But papa! +And Fanny sighed as she felt that all the recognised miseries of a young +lady in love were about to fall upon her. + +Nevertheless, at her lover’s instance, she promised, and declared, in +twenty different loving phrases, that nothing on earth should ever make +her false to her love or to her lover. + +“Fanny, where are you? Why are you not ready to come down?” shouted Mr. +Damer, not in the best of tempers. He felt that he had almost been +unkind to an unprotected female, and his heart misgave him. And yet it +would have misgiven him more had he allowed himself to be entrapped by +Miss Dawkins. + +“I am quite ready, papa,” said Fanny, running up to him—for it may be +understood that there is quite room enough for a young lady to run on the +top of the Pyramid. + +“I am sure I don’t know where you have been all the time,” said Mr. +Damer; “and where are those two boys?” + +Fanny pointed to the top of the other Pyramid, and there they were, +conspicuous with their red caps. + +“And M. Delabordeau?” + +“Oh! he has gone down, I think;—no, he is there with Miss Dawkins.” And +in truth Miss Dawkins was leaning on his arm most affectionately, as she +stooped over and looked down upon the ruins below her. + +“And where is that fellow, Ingram?” said Mr. Damer, looking about him. +“He is always out of the way when he’s wanted.” + +To this Fanny said nothing. Why should she? She was not Mr. Ingram’s +keeper. + +And then they all descended, each again with his proper number of Arabs +to hurry and embarrass him; and they found Mr. Damer at the bottom, like +a piece of sugar covered with flies. She was heard to declare afterwards +that she would not go to the Pyramids again, not if they were to be given +to her for herself, as ornaments for her garden. + +The picnic lunch among the big stones at the foot of the Pyramid was not +a very gay affair. Miss Dawkins talked more than any one else, being +determined to show that she bore her defeat gallantly. Her conversation, +however, was chiefly addressed to M. Delabordeau, and he seemed to think +more of his cold chicken and ham than he did of her wit and attention. + +Fanny hardly spoke a word. There was her father before her and she could +not eat, much less talk, as she thought of all that she would have to go +through. What would he say to the idea of having an American for a +son-in-law? + +Nor was Mr. Ingram very lively. A young man when he has been just +accepted, never is so. His happiness under the present circumstances +was, no doubt, intense, but it was of a silent nature. + +And then the interior of the building had to be visited. To tell the +truth none of the party would have cared to perform this feat had it not +been for the honour of the thing. To have come from Paris, New York, or +London, to the Pyramids, and then not to have visited the very tomb of +Cheops, would have shown on the part of all of them an indifference to +subjects of interest which would have been altogether fatal to their +character as travellers. And so a party for the interior was made up. + +Miss Damer when she saw the aperture through which it was expected that +she should descend, at once declared for staying with her mother. Miss +Dawkins, however, was enthusiastic for the journey. “Persons with so +very little command over their nerves might really as well stay at home,” +she said to Mr. Ingram, who glowered at her dreadfully for expressing +such an opinion about his Fanny. + +This entrance into the Pyramids is a terrible task, which should be +undertaken by no lady. Those who perform it have to creep down, and then +to be dragged up, through infinite dirt, foul smells, and bad air; and +when they have done it, they see nothing. But they do earn the +gratification of saying that they have been inside a Pyramid. + +“Well, I’ve done that once,” said Mr. Damer, coming out, “and I do not +think that any one will catch me doing it again. I never was in such a +filthy place in my life.” + +“Oh, Fanny! I am so glad you did not go; I am sure it is not fit for +ladies,” said poor Mrs. Damer, forgetful of her friend Miss Dawkins. + +“I should have been ashamed of myself,” said Miss Dawkins, bristling up, +and throwing back her head as she stood, “if I had allowed any +consideration to have prevented my visiting such a spot. If it be not +improper for men to go there, how can it be improper for women?” + +“I did not say improper, my dear,” said Mrs. Damer, apologetically. + +“And as for the fatigue, what can a woman be worth who is afraid to +encounter as much as I have now gone through for the sake of visiting the +last resting-place of such a king as Cheops?” And Miss Dawkins, as she +pronounced the last words, looked round her with disdain upon poor Fanny +Damer. + +“But I meant the dirt,” said Mrs. Damer. + +“Dirt!” ejaculated Miss Dawkins, and then walked away. Why should she +now submit her high tone of feeling to the Damers, or why care longer for +their good opinion? Therefore she scattered contempt around her as she +ejaculated the last word, “dirt.” + +And then the return home! “I know I shall never get there,” said Mrs. +Damer, looking piteously up into her husband’s face. + +“Nonsense, my dear; nonsense; you must get there.” Mrs. Damer groaned, +and acknowledged in her heart that she must,—either dead or alive. + +“And, Jefferson,” said Fanny, whispering—for there had been a moment +since their descent in which she had been instructed to call him by his +Christian name—“never mind talking to me going home. I will ride by +mamma. Do you go with papa and put him in good humour; and it he says +anything about the lords and the bishops, don’t you contradict him, you +know.” + +What will not a man do for love? Mr. Ingram promised. + +And in this way they started; the two boys led the van; then came Mr. +Damer and Mr. Ingram, unusually and unpatriotically acquiescent as to +England’s aristocratic propensities; then Miss Dawkins riding, alas! +alone; after her, M. Delabordeau, also alone,—the ungallant Frenchman! +And the rear was brought up by Mrs. Damer and her daughter, flanked on +each side by a dragoman, with a third dragoman behind them. + +And in this order they went back to Cairo, riding their donkeys, and +crossing the ferry solemnly, and, for the most part, silently. Mr. +Ingram did talk, as he had an important object in view,—that of putting +Mr. Damer into a good humour. + +In this he succeeded so well that by the time they had remounted, after +crossing the Nile, Mr. Damer opened his heart to his companion on the +subject that was troubling him, and told him all about Miss Dawkins. + +“I don’t see why we should have a companion that we don’t like for eight +or ten weeks, merely because it seems rude to refuse a lady.” + +“Indeed, I agree with you,” said Mr. Ingram; “I should call it +weak-minded to give way in such a case.” + +“My daughter does not like her at all,” continued Mr. Damer. + +“Nor would she be a nice companion for Miss Damer; not according to my +way of thinking,” said Mr. Ingram. + +“And as to my having asked her, or Mrs. Damer having asked her! Why, God +bless my soul, it is pure invention on the woman’s part!” + +“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Mr. Ingram; “I must say she plays her game well; +but then she is an old soldier, and has the benefit of experience.” What +would Miss Dawkins have said had she known that Mr. Ingram called her an +old soldier? + +“I don’t like the kind of thing at all,” said Mr. Damer, who was very +serious upon the subject. “You see the position in which I am placed. I +am forced to be very rude, or—” + +“I don’t call it rude at all.” + +“Disobliging, then; or else I must have all my comfort invaded and +pleasure destroyed by, by, by—” And Mr. Damer paused, being at a loss +for an appropriate name for Miss Dawkins. + +“By an unprotected female,” suggested Mr. Ingram. + +“Yes, just so. I am as fond of pleasant company as anybody; but then I +like to choose it myself.” + +“So do I,” said Mr. Ingram, thinking of his own choice. + +“Now, Ingram, if you would join us, we should be delighted.” + +“Upon my word, sir, the offer is too flattering,” said Ingram, +hesitatingly; for he felt that he could not undertake such a journey +until Mr. Damer knew on what terms he stood with Fanny. + +“You are a terrible democrat,” said Mr. Damer, laughing; “but then, on +that matter, you know, we could agree to differ.” + +“Exactly so,” said Mr. Ingram, who had not collected his thoughts or made +up his mind as to what he had better say and do, on the spur of the +moment. + +“Well, what do you say to it?” said Mr. Damer, encouragingly. But Ingram +paused before he answered. + +“For Heaven’s sake, my dear fellow, don’t have the slightest hesitation +in refusing, if you don’t like the plan.” + +“The fact is, Mr. Damer, I should like it too well.” + +“Like it too well?” + +“Yes, sir, and I may as well tell you now as later. I had intended this +evening to have asked for your permission to address your daughter.” + +“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Damer, looking as though a totally new idea +had now been opened to him. + +“And under these circumstances, I will now wait and see whether or no you +will renew your offer.” + +“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Damer, again. It often does strike an old +gentleman as very odd that any man should fall in love with his daughter, +whom he has not ceased to look upon as a child. The case is generally +quite different with mothers. They seem to think that every young man +must fall in love with their girls. + +“And have you said anything to Fanny about this?” asked Mr. Damer. + +“Yes, sir, I have her permission to speak to you.” + +“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Damer; and by this time they had arrived at +Shepheard’s Hotel. + +“Oh, mamma,” said Fanny, as soon as she found herself alone with her +mother that evening, “I have something that I must tell you.” + +“Oh, Fanny, don’t tell me anything to-night, for I am a great deal too +tired to listen.” + +“But oh, mamma, pray;—you must listen to this; indeed you must.” And +Fanny knelt down at her mother’s knee, and looked beseechingly up into +her face. + +“What is it, Fanny? You know that all my bones are sore, and I am so +tired that I am almost dead.” + +“Mamma, Mr. Ingram has—” + +“Has what, my dear? has he done anything wrong?” + +“No, mamma: but he has;—he has proposed to me.” And Fanny, bursting into +tears, hid her face in her mother’s lap. + +And thus the story was told on both sides of the house. On the next day, +as a matter of course, all the difficulties and dangers of such a +marriage as that which was now projected were insisted on by both father +and mother. It was improper; it would cause a severing of the family not +to be thought of; it would be an alliance of a dangerous nature, and not +at all calculated to insure happiness; and, in short, it was impossible. +On that day, therefore, they all went to bed very unhappy. But on the +next day, as was also a matter of course, seeing that there were no +pecuniary difficulties, the mother and father were talked over, and Mr. +Ingram was accepted as a son-in-law. It need hardly be said that the +offer of a place in Mr. Damer’s boat was again made, and that on this +occasion it was accepted without hesitation. + +There was an American Protestant clergyman resident in Cairo, with whom, +among other persons, Miss Dawkins had become acquainted. Upon this +gentleman or upon his wife Miss Dawkins called a few days after the +journey to the Pyramid, and finding him in his study, thus performed her +duty to her neighbour,— + +“You know your countryman Mr. Ingram, I think?” said she. + +“Oh, yes; very intimately.” + +“If you have any regard for him, Mr. Burton,” such was the gentleman’s +name, “I think you should put him on his guard.” + +“On his guard against what?” said Mr. Burton with a serious air, for +there was something serious in the threat of impending misfortune as +conveyed by Miss Dawkins. + +“Why,” said she, “those Damers, I fear, are dangerous people.” + +“Do you mean that they will borrow money of him?” + +“Oh, no; not that, exactly; but they are clearly setting their cap at +him.” + +“Setting their cap at him?” + +“Yes; there is a daughter, you know; a little chit of a thing; and I fear +Mr. Ingram may be caught before he knows where he is. It would be such a +pity, you know. He is going up the river with them, I hear. That, in +his place, is very foolish. They asked me, but I positively refused.” + +Mr. Burton remarked that “In such a matter as that Mr. Ingram would be +perfectly able to take care of himself.” + +“Well, perhaps so; but seeing what was going on, I thought it my duty to +tell you.” And so Miss Dawkins took her leave. + +Mr. Ingram did go up the Nile with the Damers, as did an old friend of +the Damers who arrived from England. And a very pleasant trip they had +of it. And, as far as the present historian knows, the two lovers were +shortly afterwards married in England. + +Poor Miss Dawkins was left in Cairo for some time on her beam ends. But +she was one of those who are not easily vanquished. After an interval of +ten days she made acquaintance with an Irish family—having utterly failed +in moving the hard heart of M. Delabordeau—and with these she proceeded +to Constantinople. They consisted of two brothers and a sister, and +were, therefore, very convenient for matrimonial purposes. But +nevertheless, when I last heard of Miss Dawkins, she was still an +unprotected female. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN UNPROTECTED FEMALE AT THE +PYRAMIDS*** + + +******* This file should be named 3710-0.txt or 3710-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/1/3710 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids + + +Author: Anthony Trollope + + + +Release Date: January 16, 2015 [eBook #3710] +[This file was first posted on July 31, 2001] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN UNPROTECTED FEMALE AT THE +PYRAMIDS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall “Tales of All +Countries” edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>AN UNPROTECTED FEMALE AT THE PYRAMIDS</h1> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the happy days when we were +young, no description conveyed to us so complete an idea of +mysterious reality as that of an Oriental city. We knew it +was actually there, but had such vague notions of its ways and +looks! Let any one remember his early impressions as to +Bagdad or Grand Cairo, and then say if this was not so. It +was probably taken from the “Arabian Nights,” and the +picture produced was one of strange, fantastic, luxurious houses; +of women who were either very young and very beautiful, or else +very old and very cunning; but in either state exercising much +more influence in life than women in the East do now; of +good-natured, capricious, though sometimes tyrannical monarchs; +and of life full of quaint mysteries, quite unintelligible in +every phasis, and on that account the more picturesque.</p> +<p>And perhaps Grand Cairo has thus filled us with more wonder +even than Bagdad. We have been in a certain manner at home +at Bagdad, but have only visited Grand Cairo occasionally. +I know no place which was to me, in early years, so delightfully +mysterious as Grand Cairo.</p> +<p>But the route to India and Australia has changed all +this. Men from all countries going to the East, now pass +through Cairo, and its streets and costumes are no longer strange +to us. It has become also a resort for invalids, or rather +for those who fear that they may become invalids if they remain +in a cold climate during the winter months. And thus at +Cairo there is always to be found a considerable population of +French, Americans, and of English. Oriental life is brought +home to us, dreadfully diluted by western customs, and the +delights of the “Arabian Nights” are shorn of half +their value. When we have seen a thing it is never so +magnificent to us as when it was half unknown.</p> +<p>It is not much that we deign to learn from these +Orientals,—we who glory in our civilisation. We do +not copy their silence or their abstemiousness, nor that +invariable mindfulness of his own personal dignity which always +adheres to a Turk or to an Arab. We chatter as much at +Cairo as elsewhere, and eat as much and drink as much, and dress +ourselves generally in the same old ugly costume. But we do +usually take upon ourselves to wear red caps, and we do ride on +donkeys.</p> +<p>Nor are the visitors from the West to Cairo by any means +confined to the male sex. Ladies are to be seen in the +streets quite regardless of the Mahommedan custom which presumes +a veil to be necessary for an appearance in public; and, to tell +the truth, the Mahommedans in general do not appear to be much +shocked by their effrontery.</p> +<p>A quarter of the town has in this way become inhabited by men +wearing coats and waistcoats, and by women who are without veils; +but the English tongue in Egypt finds its centre at +Shepheard’s Hotel. It is here that people congregate +who are looking out for parties to visit with them the Upper +Nile, and who are generally all smiles and courtesy; and here +also are to be found they who have just returned from this +journey, and who are often in a frame of mind towards their +companions that is much less amiable. From hence, during +the winter, a cortége proceeds almost daily to the +pyramids, or to Memphis, or to the petrified forest, or to the +City of the Sun. And then, again, four or five times a +month the house is filled with young aspirants going out to +India, male and female, full of valour and bloom; or with others +coming home, no longer young, no longer aspiring, but laden with +children and grievances.</p> +<p>The party with whom we are at present concerned is not about +to proceed further than the Pyramids, and we shall be able to go +with them and return in one and the same day.</p> +<p>It consisted chiefly of an English family, Mr. and Mrs. Damer, +their daughter, and two young sons;—of these chiefly, +because they were the nucleus to which the others had attached +themselves as adherents; they had originated the journey, and in +the whole management of it Mr. Damer regarded himself as the +master.</p> +<p>The adherents were, firstly, M. Delabordeau, a Frenchman, now +resident in Cairo, who had given out that he was in some way +concerned in the canal about to be made between the Mediterranean +and the Red Sea. In discussion on this subject he had +become acquainted with Mr. Damer; and although the latter +gentleman, true to English interests, perpetually declared that +the canal would never be made, and thus irritated M. Delabordeau +not a little—nevertheless, some measure of friendship had +grown up between them.</p> +<p>There was also an American gentleman, Mr. Jefferson Ingram, +who was comprising all countries and all nations in one grand +tour, as American gentlemen so often do. He was young and +good-looking, and had made himself especially agreeable to Mr. +Damer, who had declared, more than once, that Mr. Ingram was by +far the most rational American he had ever met. Mr. Ingram +would listen to Mr. Damer by the half-hour as to the virtue of +the British Constitution, and had even sat by almost with +patience when Mr. Damer had expressed a doubt as to the good +working of the United States’ scheme of +policy,—which, in an American, was most wonderful. +But some of the sojourners at Shepheard’s had observed that +Mr. Ingram was in the habit of talking with Miss Damer almost as +much as with her father, and argued from that, that fond as the +young man was of politics, he did sometimes turn his mind to +other things also.</p> +<p>And then there was Miss Dawkins. Now Miss Dawkins was an +important person, both as to herself and as to her line of life, +and she must be described. She was, in the first place, an +unprotected female of about thirty years of age. As this is +becoming an established profession, setting itself up as it were +in opposition to the old world idea that women, like green peas, +cannot come to perfection without supporting-sticks, it will be +understood at once what were Miss Dawkins’s +sentiments. She considered—or at any rate so +expressed herself—that peas could grow very well without +sticks, and could not only grow thus unsupported, but could also +make their way about the world without any incumbrance of sticks +whatsoever. She did not intend, she said, to rival Ida +Pfeiffer, seeing that she was attached in a moderate way to bed +and board, and was attached to society in a manner almost more +than moderate; but she had no idea of being prevented from seeing +anything she wished to see because she had neither father, nor +husband, nor brother available for the purpose of escort. +She was a human creature, with arms and legs, she said; and she +intended to use them. And this was all very well; but +nevertheless she had a strong inclination to use the arms and +legs of other people when she could make them serviceable.</p> +<p>In person Miss Dawkins was not without attraction. I +should exaggerate if I were to say that she was beautiful and +elegant; but she was good looking, and not usually ill +mannered. She was tall, and gifted with features rather +sharp and with eyes very bright. Her hair was of the +darkest shade of brown, and was always worn in bandeaux, very +neatly. She appeared generally in black, though other +circumstances did not lead one to suppose that she was in +mourning; and then, no other travelling costume is so +convenient! She always wore a dark broad-brimmed straw hat, +as to the ribbons on which she was rather particular. She +was very neat about her gloves and boots; and though it cannot be +said that her dress was got up without reference to expense, +there can be no doubt that it was not effected without +considerable outlay,—and more considerable thought.</p> +<p>Miss Dawkins—Sabrina Dawkins was her name, but she +seldom had friends about her intimate enough to use the word +Sabrina—was certainly a clever young woman. She could +talk on most subjects, if not well, at least well enough to +amuse. If she had not read much, she never showed any +lamentable deficiency; she was good-humoured, as a rule, and +could on occasions be very soft and winning. People who had +known her long would sometimes say that she was selfish; but with +new acquaintance she was forbearing and self-denying.</p> +<p>With what income Miss Dawkins was blessed no one seemed to +know. She lived like a gentlewoman, as far as outward +appearance went, and never seemed to be in want; but some people +would say that she knew very well how many sides there were to a +shilling, and some enemy had once declared that she was an +“old soldier.” Such was Miss Dawkins.</p> +<p>She also, as well as Mr. Ingram and M. Delabordeau, had laid +herself out to find the weak side of Mr. Damer. Mr. Damer, +with all his family, was going up the Nile, and it was known that +he had room for two in his boat over and above his own +family. Miss Dawkins had told him that she had not quite +made up her mind to undergo so great a fatigue, but that, +nevertheless, she had a longing of the soul to see something of +Nubia. To this Mr. Damer had answered nothing but +“Oh!” which Miss Dawkins had not found to be +encouraging.</p> +<p>But she had not on that account despaired. To a married +man there are always two sides, and in this instance there was +Mrs. Damer as well as Mr. Damer. When Mr. Damer said +“Oh!” Miss Dawkins sighed, and said, “Yes, +indeed!” then smiled, and betook herself to Mrs. Damer.</p> +<p>Now Mrs. Damer was soft-hearted, and also somewhat +old-fashioned. She did not conceive any violent affection +for Miss Dawkins, but she told her daughter that “the +single lady by herself was a very nice young woman, and that it +was a thousand pities she should have to go about so much alone +like.”</p> +<p>Miss Damer had turned up her pretty nose, thinking, perhaps, +how small was the chance that it ever should be her own lot to be +an unprotected female. But Miss Dawkins carried her point +at any rate as regarded the expedition to the Pyramids.</p> +<p>Miss Damer, I have said, had a pretty nose. I may also +say that she had pretty eyes, mouth, and chin, with other +necessary appendages, all pretty. As to the two Master +Damers, who were respectively of the ages of fifteen and sixteen, +it may be sufficient to say that they were conspicuous for red +caps and for the constancy with which they raced their +donkeys.</p> +<p>And now the donkeys, and the donkey boys, and the dragomans +were all standing at the steps of Shepheard’s Hotel. +To each donkey there was a donkey-boy, and to each gentleman +there was a dragoman, so that a goodly cortége was +assembled, and a goodly noise was made. It may here be +remarked, perhaps with some little pride, that not half the noise +is given in Egypt to persons speaking any other language that is +bestowed on those whose vocabulary is English.</p> +<p>This lasted for half an hour. Had the party been French +the donkeys would have arrived only fifteen minutes before the +appointed time. And then out came Damer père and +Damer mère, Damer fille, and Damer fils. Damer +mère was leaning on her husband, as was her wont. +She was not an unprotected female, and had no desire to make any +attempts in that line. Damer fille was attended sedulously +by Mr. Ingram, for whose demolishment, however, Mr. Damer still +brought up, in a loud voice, the fag ends of certain political +arguments which he would fain have poured direct into the ears of +his opponent, had not his wife been so persistent in claiming her +privileges. M. Delabordeau should have followed with Miss +Dawkins, but his French politeness, or else his fear of the +unprotected female, taught him to walk on the other side of the +mistress of the party.</p> +<p>Miss Dawkins left the house with an eager young Damer yelling +on each side of her; but nevertheless, though thus neglected by +the gentlemen of the party, she was all smiles and prettiness, +and looked so sweetly on Mr. Ingram when that gentleman stayed a +moment to help her on to her donkey, that his heart almost +misgave him for leaving her as soon as she was in her seat.</p> +<p>And then they were off. In going from the hotel to the +Pyramids our party had not to pass through any of the queer old +narrow streets of the true Cairo—Cairo the Oriental. +They all lay behind them as they went down by the back of the +hotel, by the barracks of the Pasha and the College of the +Dervishes, to the village of old Cairo and the banks of the +Nile.</p> +<p>Here they were kept half an hour while their dragomans made a +bargain with the ferryman, a stately reis, or captain of a boat, +who declared with much dignity that he could not carry them over +for a sum less than six times the amount to which he was justly +entitled; while the dragomans, with great energy on behalf of +their masters, offered him only five times that sum.</p> +<p>As far as the reis was concerned, the contest might soon have +been at an end, for the man was not without a conscience; and +would have been content with five times and a half; but then the +three dragomans quarrelled among themselves as to which should +have the paying of the money, and the affair became very +tedious.</p> +<p>“What horrid, odious men!” said Miss Dawkins, +appealing to Mr. Damer. “Do you think they will let +us go over at all?”</p> +<p>“Well, I suppose they will; people do get over +generally, I believe. Abdallah! Abdallah! why +don’t you pay the man? That fellow is always striving +to save half a piastre for me.”</p> +<p>“I wish he wasn’t quite so particular,” said +Mrs. Damer, who was already becoming rather tired; “but +I’m sure he’s a very honest man in trying to protect +us from being robbed.”</p> +<p>“That he is,” said Miss Dawkins. “What +a delightful trait of national character it is to see these men +so faithful to their employers.” And then at last +they got over the ferry, Mr. Ingram having descended among the +combatants, and settled the matter in dispute by threats and +shouts, and an uplifted stick.</p> +<p>They crossed the broad Nile exactly at the spot where the +nilometer, or river guage, measures from day to day, and from +year to year, the increasing or decreasing treasures of the +stream, and landed at a village where thousands of eggs are made +into chickens by the process of artificial incubation.</p> +<p>Mrs. Damer thought that it was very hard upon the maternal +hens—the hens which should have been maternal—that +they should be thus robbed of the delights of motherhood.</p> +<p>“So unnatural, you know,” said Miss Dawkins; +“so opposed to the fostering principles of creation. +Don’t you think so, Mr. Ingram?”</p> +<p>Mr. Ingram said he didn’t know. He was again +seating Miss Damer on her donkey, and it must be presumed that he +performed this feat clumsily; for Fanny Damer could jump on and +off the animal with hardly a finger to help her, when her brother +or her father was her escort; but now, under the hands of Mr. +Ingram, this work of mounting was one which required considerable +time and care. All which Miss Dawkins observed with +precision.</p> +<p>“It’s all very well talking,” said Mr. +Damer, bringing up his donkey nearly alongside that of Mr. +Ingram, and ignoring his daughter’s presence, just as he +would have done that of his dog; “but you must admit that +political power is more equally distributed in England than it is +in America.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps it is,” said Mr. Ingram; “equally +distributed among, we will say, three dozen families,” and +he made a feint as though to hold in his impetuous donkey, using +the spur, however, at the same time on the side that was unseen +by Mr. Damer. As he did so, Fanny’s donkey became +equally impetuous, and the two cantered on in advance of the +whole party. It was quite in vain that Mr. Damer, at the +top of his voice, shouted out something about “three dozen +corruptible demagogues.” Mr. Ingram found it quite +impossible to restrain his donkey so as to listen to the +sarcasm.</p> +<p>“I do believe papa would talk politics,” said +Fanny, “if he were at the top of Mont Blanc, or under the +Falls of Niagara. I do hate politics, Mr. +Ingram.”</p> +<p>“I am sorry for that, very,” said Mr. Ingram, +almost sadly.</p> +<p>“Sorry, why? You don’t want me to talk +politics, do you?”</p> +<p>“In America we are all politicians, more or less; and, +therefore, I suppose you will hate us all.”</p> +<p>“Well, I rather think I should,” said Fanny; +“you would be such bores.” But there was +something in her eye, as she spoke, which atoned for the +harshness of her words.</p> +<p>“A very nice young man is Mr. Ingram; don’t you +think so?” said Miss Dawkins to Mrs. Damer. Mrs. +Damer was going along upon her donkey, not altogether +comfortably. She much wished to have her lord and +legitimate protector by her side, but he had left her to the care +of a dragoman whose English was not intelligible to her, and she +was rather cross.</p> +<p>“Indeed, Miss Dawkins, I don’t know who are nice +and who are not. This nasty donkey stumbles at ever +step. There! I know I shall be down +directly.”</p> +<p>“You need not be at all afraid of that; they are +perfectly safe, I believe, always,” said Miss Dawkins, +rising in her stirrup, and handling her reins quite +triumphantly. “A very little practice will make you +quite at home.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know what you mean by a very little +practice. I have been here six weeks. Why did you put +me on such a bad donkey as this?” and she turned to +Abdallah, the dragoman.</p> +<p>“Him berry good donkey, my lady; berry good,—best +of all. Call him Jack in Cairo. Him go to Pyramid and +back, and mind noting.”</p> +<p>“What does he say, Miss Dawkins?”</p> +<p>“He says that that donkey is one called Jack. If +so I’ve had him myself many times, and Jack is a very good +donkey.”</p> +<p>“I wish you had him now with all my heart,” said +Mrs. Damer. Upon which Miss Dawkins offered to change; but +those perils of mounting and dismounting were to Mrs. Damer a +great deal too severe to admit of this.</p> +<p>“Seven miles of canal to be carried out into the sea, at +a minimum depth of twenty-three feet, and the stone to be fetched +from Heaven knows where! All the money in France +wouldn’t do it.” This was addressed by Mr. +Damer to M. Delabordeau, whom he had caught after the abrupt +flight of Mr. Ingram.</p> +<p>“Den we will borrow a leetle from England,” said +M. Delabordeau.</p> +<p>“Precious little, I can tell you. Such stock would +not hold its price in our markets for twenty-four hours. If +it were made, the freights would be too heavy to allow of +merchandise passing through. The heavy goods would all go +round; and as for passengers and mails, you don’t expect to +get them, I suppose, while there is a railroad ready made to +their hand?”</p> +<p>“Ye vill carry all your ships through vidout any +transportation. Think of that, my friend.”</p> +<p>“Pshaw! You are worse than Ingram. Of all +the plans I ever heard of it is the most monstrous, the most +impracticable, the most—” But here he was +interrupted by the entreaties of his wife, who had, in absolute +deed and fact, slipped from her donkey, and was now calling +lustily for her husband’s aid. Whereupon Miss Dawkins +allied herself to the Frenchman, and listened with an air of +strong conviction to those arguments which were so weak in the +ears of Mr. Damer. M. Delabordeau was about to ride across +the Great Desert to Jerusalem, and it might perhaps be quite as +well to do that with him, as to go up the Nile as far as the +second cataract with the Damers.</p> +<p>“And so, M. Delabordeau, you intend really to start for +Mount Sinai?”</p> +<p>“Yes, mees; ve intend to make one start on Monday +week.”</p> +<p>“And so on to Jerusalem. You are quite +right. It would be a thousand pities to be in these +countries, and to return without going over such ground as +that. I shall certainly go to Jerusalem myself by that +route.”</p> +<p>“Vot, mees! you? Would you not find it too much +fatigante?”</p> +<p>“I care nothing for fatigue, if I like the party I am +with,—nothing at all, literally. You will hardly +understand me, perhaps, M. Delabordeau; but I do not see any +reason why I, as a young woman, should not make any journey that +is practicable for a young man.”</p> +<p>“Ah! dat is great resolution for you, mees.”</p> +<p>“I mean as far as fatigue is concerned. You are a +Frenchman, and belong to the nation that is at the head of all +human civilisation—”</p> +<p>M. Delabordeau took off his hat and bowed low, to the peak of +his donkey saddle. He dearly loved to hear his country +praised, as Miss Dawkins was aware.</p> +<p>“And I am sure you must agree with me,” continued +Miss Dawkins, “that the time is gone by for women to +consider themselves helpless animals, or to be so considered by +others.”</p> +<p>“Mees Dawkins vould never be considered, not in any +times at all, to be one helpless animal,” said M. +Delabordeau civilly.</p> +<p>“I do not, at any rate, intend to be so regarded,” +said she. “It suits me to travel alone; not that I am +averse to society; quite the contrary; if I meet pleasant people +I am always ready to join them. But it suits me to travel +without any permanent party, and I do not see why false shame +should prevent my seeing the world as thoroughly as though I +belonged to the other sex. Why should it, M. +Delabordeau?”</p> +<p>M. Delabordeau declared that he did not see any reason why it +should.</p> +<p>“I am passionately anxious to stand upon Mount +Sinai,” continued Miss Dawkins; “to press with my +feet the earliest spot in sacred history, of the identity of +which we are certain; to feel within me the awe-inspiring thrill +of that thrice sacred hour!”</p> +<p>The Frenchman looked as though he did not quite understand +her, but he said that it would be magnifique.</p> +<p>“You have already made up your party I suppose, M. +Delabordeau?”</p> +<p>M. Delabordeau gave the names of two Frenchmen and one +Englishman who were going with him.</p> +<p>“Upon my word it is a great temptation to join +you,” said Miss Dawkins, “only for that horrid +Englishman.”</p> +<p>“Vat, Mr. Stanley?”</p> +<p>“Oh, I don’t mean any disrespect to Mr. +Stanley. The horridness I speak of does not attach to him +personally, but to his stiff, respectable, ungainly, +well-behaved, irrational, and uncivilised country. You see +I am not very patriotic.”</p> +<p>“Not quite so much as my friend, Mr. Damer.”</p> +<p>“Ha! ha! ha! an excellent creature, isn’t +he? And so they all are, dear creatures. But then +they are so backward. They are most anxious that I should +join them up the Nile, but—,” and then Miss Dawkins +shrugged her shoulders gracefully, and, as she flattered herself, +like a Frenchwoman. After that they rode on in silence for +a few moments.</p> +<p>“Yes, I must see Mount Sinai,” said Miss Dawkins, +and then sighed deeply. M. Delabordeau, notwithstanding +that his country does stand at the head of all human +civilisation, was not courteous enough to declare that if Miss +Dawkins would join his party across the desert, nothing would be +wanting to make his beatitude in this world perfect.</p> +<p>Their road from the village of the chicken-hatching ovens lay +up along the left bank of the Nile, through an immense grove of +lofty palm-trees, looking out from among which our visitors could +ever and anon see the heads of the two great Pyramids;—that +is, such of them could see it as felt any solicitude in the +matter.</p> +<p>It is astonishing how such things lose their great charm as +men find themselves in their close neighbourhood. To one +living in New York or London, how ecstatic is the interest +inspired by these huge structures. One feels that no price +would be too high to pay for seeing them as long as time and +distance, and the world’s inexorable task-work, forbid such +a visit. How intense would be the delight of climbing over +the wondrous handiwork of those wondrous architects so long since +dead; how thrilling the awe with which one would penetrate down +into their interior caves—those caves in which lay buried +the bones of ancient kings, whose very names seem to have come to +us almost from another world!</p> +<p>But all these feelings become strangely dim, their acute edges +wonderfully worn, as the subjects which inspired them are brought +near to us. “Ah! so those are the Pyramids, are +they?” says the traveller, when the first glimpse of them +is shown to him from the window of a railway carriage. +“Dear me; they don’t look so very high, do +they? For Heaven’s sake put the blind down, or we +shall be destroyed by the dust.” And then the ecstasy +and keen delight of the Pyramids has vanished for ever.</p> +<p>Our friends, therefore, who for weeks past had seen from a +distance, though they had not yet visited them, did not seem to +have any strong feeling on the subject as they trotted through +the grove of palm-trees. Mr. Damer had not yet escaped from +his wife, who was still fretful from the result of her little +accident.</p> +<p>“It was all the chattering of that Miss Dawkins,” +said Mrs. Damer. “She would not let me attend to what +I was doing.”</p> +<p>“Miss Dawkins is an ass,” said her husband.</p> +<p>“It is a pity she has no one to look after her,” +said Mrs. Damer. M. Delabordeau was still listening to Miss +Dawkins’s raptures about Mount Sinai. “I wonder +whether she has got any money,” said M. Delabordeau to +himself. “It can’t be much,” he went on +thinking, “or she would not be left in this way by +herself.” And the result of his thoughts was that +Miss Dawkins, if undertaken, might probably become more plague +than profit. As to Miss Dawkins herself, though she was +ecstatic about Mount Sinai—which was not present—she +seemed to have forgotten the poor Pyramids, which were then +before her nose.</p> +<p>The two lads were riding races along the dusty path, much to +the disgust of their donkey-boys. Their time for enjoyment +was to come. There were hampers to be opened; and then the +absolute climbing of the Pyramids would actually be a delight to +them.</p> +<p>As for Miss Damer and Mr. Ingram, it was clear that they had +forgotten palm-trees, Pyramids, the Nile, and all Egypt. +They had escaped to a much fairer paradise.</p> +<p>“Could I bear to live among Republicans?” said +Fanny, repeating the last words of her American lover, and +looking down from her donkey to the ground as she did so. +“I hardly know what Republicans are, Mr. Ingram.”</p> +<p>“Let me teach you,” said he.</p> +<p>“You do talk such nonsense. I declare there is +that Miss Dawkins looking at us as though she had twenty +eyes. Could you not teach her, Mr. Ingram?”</p> +<p>And so they emerged from the palm-tree grove, through a +village crowded with dirty, straggling Arab children, on to the +cultivated plain, beyond which the Pyramids stood, now full +before them; the two large Pyramids, a smaller one, and the huge +sphynx’s head all in a group together.</p> +<p>“Fanny,” said Bob Damer, riding up to her, +“mamma wants you; so toddle back.”</p> +<p>“Mamma wants me! What can she want me for +now?” said Fanny, with a look of anything but filial duty +in her face.</p> +<p>“To protect her from Miss Dawkins, I think. She +wants you to ride at her side, so that Dawkins mayn’t get +at her. Now, Mr. Ingram, I’ll bet you half-a-crown +I’m at the top of the big Pyramid before you.”</p> +<p>Poor Fanny! She obeyed, however; doubtless feeling that +it would not do as yet to show too plainly that she preferred Mr. +Ingram to her mother. She arrested her donkey, therefore, +till Mrs. Damer overtook her; and Mr. Ingram, as he paused for a +moment with her while she did so, fell into the hands of Miss +Dawkins.</p> +<p>“I cannot think, Fanny, how you get on so quick,” +said Mrs. Damer. “I’m always last; but then my +donkey is such a very nasty one. Look there, now; +he’s always trying to get me off.”</p> +<p>“We shall soon be at the Pyramids now, mamma.”</p> +<p>“How on earth I am ever to get back again I cannot +think. I am so tired now that I can hardly sit.”</p> +<p>“You’ll be better, mamma, when you get your +luncheon and a glass of wine.”</p> +<p>“How on earth we are to eat and drink with those nasty +Arab people around us, I can’t conceive. They tell me +we shall be eaten up by them. But, Fanny, what has Mr. +Ingram been saying to you all the day?”</p> +<p>“What has he been saying, mamma? Oh! I +don’t know;—a hundred things, I dare say. But +he has not been talking to me all the time.”</p> +<p>“I think he has, Fanny, nearly, since we crossed the +river. Oh, dear! oh, dear! this animal does hurt me +so! Every time he moves he flings his head about, and that +gives me such a bump.” And then Fanny commiserated +her mother’s sufferings, and in her commiseration contrived +to elude any further questionings as to Mr. Ingram’s +conversation.</p> +<p>“Majestic piles, are they not?” said Miss Dawkins, +who, having changed her companion, allowed her mind to revert +from Mount Sinai to the Pyramids. They were now riding +through cultivated ground, with the vast extent of the sands of +Libya before them. The two Pyramids were standing on the +margin of the sand, with the head of the recumbent sphynx plainly +visible between them. But no idea can be formed of the size +of this immense figure till it is visited much more +closely. The body is covered with sand, and the head and +neck alone stand above the surface of the ground. They were +still two miles distant, and the sphynx as yet was but an obscure +mount between the two vast Pyramids.</p> +<p>“Immense piles!” said Miss Dawkins, repeating her +own words.</p> +<p>“Yes, they are large,” said Mr. Ingram, who did +not choose to indulge in enthusiasm in the presence of Miss +Dawkins.</p> +<p>“Enormous! What a grand idea!—eh, Mr. +Ingram? The human race does not create such things as those +nowadays!”</p> +<p>“No, indeed,” he answered; “but perhaps we +create better things.”</p> +<p>“Better! You do not mean to say, Mr. Ingram, that +you are an utilitarian. I do, in truth, hope better things +of you than that. Yes! steam mills are better, no doubt, +and mechanics’ institutes and penny newspapers. But +is nothing to be valued but what is useful?” And Miss +Dawkins, in the height of her enthusiasm, switched her donkey +severely over the shoulder.</p> +<p>“I might, perhaps, have said also that we create more +beautiful things,” said Mr. Ingram.</p> +<p>“But we cannot create older things.”</p> +<p>“No, certainly; we cannot do that.”</p> +<p>“Nor can we imbue what we do create with the grand +associations which environ those piles with so intense an +interest. Think of the mighty dead, Mr. Ingram, and of +their great homes when living. Think of the hands which it +took to raise those huge blocks—”</p> +<p>“And of the lives which it cost.”</p> +<p>“Doubtless. The tyranny and invincible power of +the royal architects add to the grandeur of the idea. One +would not wish to have back the kings of Egypt.”</p> +<p>“Well, no; they would be neither useful nor +beautiful.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps not; and I do not wish to be picturesque at the +expense of my fellow-creatures.”</p> +<p>“I doubt, even, whether they would be +picturesque.”</p> +<p>“You know what I mean, Mr. Ingram. But the +associations of such names, and the presence of the stupendous +works with which they are connected, fill the soul with +awe. Such, at least, is the effect with mine.”</p> +<p>“I fear that my tendencies, Miss Dawkins, are more +realistic than your own.”</p> +<p>“You belong to a young country, Mr. Ingram, and are +naturally prone to think of material life. The necessity of +living looms large before you.”</p> +<p>“Very large, indeed, Miss Dawkins.”</p> +<p>“Whereas with us, with some of us at least, the material +aspect has given place to one in which poetry and enthusiasm +prevail. To such among us the associations of past times +are very dear. Cheops, to me, is more than Napoleon +Bonaparte.”</p> +<p>“That is more than most of your countrymen can say, at +any rate, just at present.”</p> +<p>“I am a woman,” continued Miss Dawkins.</p> +<p>Mr. Ingram took off his hat in acknowledgment both of the +announcement and of the fact.</p> +<p>“And to us it is not given—not given as +yet—to share in the great deeds of the present. The +envy of your sex has driven us from the paths which lead to +honour. But the deeds of the past are as much ours as +yours.”</p> +<p>“Oh, quite as much.”</p> +<p>“’Tis to your country that we look for +enfranchisement from this thraldom. Yes, Mr. Ingram, the +women of America have that strength of mind which has been +wanting to those of Europe. In the United States woman will +at last learn to exercise her proper mission.”</p> +<p>Mr. Ingram expressed a sincere wish that such might be the +case; and then wondering at the ingenuity with which Miss Dawkins +had travelled round from Cheops and his Pyramid to the rights of +women in America, he contrived to fall back, under the pretence +of asking after the ailments of Mrs. Damer.</p> +<p>And now at last they were on the sand, in the absolute desert, +making their way up to the very foot of the most northern of the +two Pyramids. They were by this time surrounded by a crowd +of Arab guides, or Arabs professing to be guides, who had already +ascertained that Mr. Damer was the chief of the party, and were +accordingly driving him almost to madness by the offers of their +services, and their assurance that he could not possibly see the +outside or the inside of either structure, or even remain alive +upon the ground, unless he at once accepted their offers made at +their own prices.</p> +<p>“Get away, will you?” said he. “I +don’t want any of you, and I won’t have you! If +you take hold of me I’ll shoot you!” This was +said to one specially energetic Arab, who, in his efforts to +secure his prey, had caught hold of Mr. Damer by the leg.</p> +<p>“Yes, yes, I say! Englishmen always take +me;—me—me, and then no break him leg. +Yes—yes—yes;—I go. Master, say yes. +Only one leetle ten shillings!”</p> +<p>“Abdallah!” shouted Mr. Damer, “why +don’t you take this man away? Why don’t you +make him understand that if all the Pyramids depended on it, I +would not give him sixpence!”</p> +<p>And then Abdallah, thus invoked, came up, and explained to the +man in Arabic that he would gain his object more surely if he +would behave himself a little more quietly; a hint which the man +took for one minute, and for one minute only.</p> +<p>And then poor Mrs. Damer replied to an application for +backsheish by the gift of a sixpence. Unfortunate +woman! The word backsheish means, I believe, a gift; but it +has come in Egypt to signify money, and is eternally dinned into +the ears of strangers by Arab suppliants. Mrs. Damer ought +to have known better, as, during the last six weeks she had never +shown her face out of Shepheard’s Hotel without being +pestered for backsheish; but she was tired and weak, and +foolishly thought to rid herself of the man who was annoying +her.</p> +<p>No sooner had the coin dropped from her hand into that of the +Arab, than she was surrounded by a cluster of beggars, who loudly +made their petitions as though they would, each of them, +individually be injured if treated with less liberality than that +first comer. They took hold of her donkey, her bridle, her +saddle, her legs, and at last her arms and hands, screaming for +backsheish in voices that were neither sweet nor mild.</p> +<p>In her dismay she did give away sundry small coins—all, +probably, that she had about her; but this only made the matter +worse. Money was going, and each man, by sufficient energy, +might hope to get some of it. They were very energetic, and +so frightened the poor lady that she would certainly have fallen, +had she not been kept on her seat by the pressure around her.</p> +<p>“Oh, dear! oh, dear! get away,” she cried. +“I haven’t got any more; indeed I +haven’t. Go away, I tell you! Mr. Damer! oh, +Mr. Damer!” and then, in the excess of her agony, she +uttered one loud, long, and continuous shriek.</p> +<p>Up came Mr. Damer; up came Abdallah; up came M. Delabordeau; +up came Mr. Ingram, and at last she was rescued. “You +shouldn’t go away and leave me to the mercy of these nasty +people. As to that Abdallah, he is of no use to +anybody.”</p> +<p>“Why you bodder de good lady, you dem blackguard?” +said Abdallah, raising his stick, as though he were going to lay +them all low with a blow. “Now you get noting, you +tief!”</p> +<p>The Arabs for a moment retired to a little distance, like +flies driven from a sugar-bowl; but it was easy to see that, like +the flies, they would return at the first vacant moment.</p> +<p>And now they had reached the very foot of the Pyramids and +proceeded to dismount from their donkeys. Their intention +was first to ascend to the top, then to come down to their +banquet, and after that to penetrate into the interior. And +all this would seem to be easy of performance. The Pyramid +is undoubtedly high, but it is so constructed as to admit of +climbing without difficulty. A lady mounting it would +undoubtedly need some assistance, but any man possessed of +moderate activity would require no aid at all.</p> +<p>But our friends were at once imbued with the tremendous nature +of the task before them. A sheikh of the Arabs came forth, +who communicated with them through Abdallah. The work could +be done, no doubt, he said; but a great many men would be wanted +to assist. Each lady must have four Arabs, and each +gentlemen three; and then, seeing that the work would be +peculiarly severe on this special day, each of these numerous +Arabs must be remunerated by some very large number of +piastres.</p> +<p>Mr. Damer, who was by no means a close man in his money +dealings, opened his eyes with surprise, and mildly expostulated; +M. Delabordeau, who was rather a close man in his reckonings, +immediately buttoned up his breeches pocket and declared that he +should decline to mount the Pyramid at all at that price; and +then Mr. Ingram descended to the combat.</p> +<p>The protestations of the men were fearful. They +declared, with loud voices, eager actions, and manifold English +oaths, that an attempt was being made to rob them. They had +a right to demand the sums which they were charging, and it was a +shame that English gentlemen should come and take the bread out +of their mouths. And so they screeched, gesticulated, and +swore, and frightened poor Mrs. Damer almost into fits.</p> +<p>But at last it was settled and away they started, the sheikh +declaring that the bargain had been made at so low a rate as to +leave him not one piastre for himself. Each man had an Arab +on each side of him, and Miss Dawkins and Miss Damer had each, in +addition, one behind. Mrs. Damer was so frightened as +altogether to have lost all ambition to ascend. She sat +below on a fragment of stone, with the three dragomans standing +around her as guards; but even with the three dragomans the +attacks on her were so frequent, and as she declared afterwards +she was so bewildered, that she never had time to remember that +she had come there from England to see the Pyramids, and that she +was now immediately under them.</p> +<p>The boys, utterly ignoring their guides, scrambled up quicker +than the Arabs could follow them. Mr. Damer started off at +a pace which soon brought him to the end of his tether, and from +that point was dragged up by the sheer strength of his +assistants; thereby accomplishing the wishes of the men, who +induce their victims to start as rapidly as possible, in order +that they may soon find themselves helpless from want of +wind. Mr. Ingram endeavoured to attach himself to Fanny, +and she would have been nothing loth to have him at her right +hand instead of the hideous brown, shrieking, one-eyed Arab who +took hold of her. But it was soon found that any such +arrangement was impossible. Each guide felt that if he lost +his own peculiar hold he would lose his prey, and held on, +therefore, with invincible tenacity. Miss Dawkins looked, +too, as though she had thought to be attended to by some +Christian cavalier, but no Christian cavalier was +forthcoming. M. Delabordeau was the wisest, for he took the +matter quietly, did as he was bid, and allowed the guides nearly +to carry him to the top of the edifice.</p> +<p>“Ha! so this is the top of the Pyramid, is it?” +said Mr. Damer, bringing out his words one by one, being terribly +out of breath. “Very wonderful, very wonderful, +indeed!”</p> +<p>“It is wonderful,” said Miss Dawkins, whose breath +had not failed her in the least, “very wonderful, +indeed! Only think, Mr. Damer, you might travel on for days +and days, till days became months, through those interminable +sands, and yet you would never come to the end of them. Is +it not quite stupendous?”</p> +<p>“Ah, yes, quite,—puff, puff”—said Mr. +Damer striving to regain his breath.</p> +<p>Mr. Damer was now at her disposal; weak and worn with toil and +travel, out of breath, and with half his manhood gone; if ever +she might prevail over him so as to procure from his mouth an +assent to that Nile proposition, it would be now. And after +all, that Nile proposition was the best one now before her. +She did not quite like the idea of starting off across the Great +Desert without any lady, and was not sure that she was prepared +to be fallen in love with by M. Delabordeau, even if there should +ultimately be any readiness on the part of that gentleman to +perform the rôle of lover. With Mr. Ingram the matter +was different, nor was she so diffident of her own charms as to +think it altogether impossible that she might succeed, in the +teeth of that little chit, Fanny Damer. That Mr. Ingram +would join the party up the Nile she had very little doubt; and +then there would be one place left for her. She would thus, +at any rate, become commingled with a most respectable family, +who might be of material service to her.</p> +<p>Thus actuated she commenced an earnest attack upon Mr. +Damer.</p> +<p>“Stupendous!” she said again, for she was fond of +repeating favourite words. “What a wondrous race must +have been those Egyptian kings of old!”</p> +<p>“I dare say they were,” said Mr. Damer, wiping his +brow as he sat upon a large loose stone, a fragment lying on the +flat top of the Pyramid, one of those stones with which the +complete apex was once made, or was once about to be made.</p> +<p>“A magnificent race! so gigantic in their +conceptions! Their ideas altogether overwhelm us poor, +insignificant, latter-day mortals. They built these vast +Pyramids; but for us, it is task enough to climb to their +top.”</p> +<p>“Quite enough,” ejaculated Mr. Damer.</p> +<p>But Mr. Damer would not always remain weak and out of breath, +and it was absolutely necessary for Miss Dawkins to hurry away +from Cheops and his tomb, to Thebes and Karnac.</p> +<p>“After seeing this it is impossible for any one with a +spark of imagination to leave Egypt without going farther +a-field.”</p> +<p>Mr. Damer merely wiped his brow and grunted. This Miss +Dawkins took as a signal of weakness, and went on with her task +perseveringly.</p> +<p>“For myself, I have resolved to go up, at any rate, as +far as Asouan and the first cataract. I had thought of +acceding to the wishes of a party who are going across the Great +Desert by Mount Sinai to Jerusalem; but the kindness of yourself +and Mrs. Damer is so great, and the prospect of joining in your +boat is so pleasurable, that I have made up my mind to accept +your very kind offer.”</p> +<p>This, it will be acknowledged, was bold on the part of Miss +Dawkins; but what will not audacity effect? To use the +slang of modern language, cheek carries everything +nowadays. And whatever may have been Miss Dawkins’s +deficiencies, in this virtue she was not deficient.</p> +<p>“I have made up my mind to accept your very kind +offer,” she said, shining on Mr. Damer with her blandest +smile.</p> +<p>What was a stout, breathless, perspiring, middle-aged +gentleman to do under such circumstances? Mr. Damer was a +man who, in most matters, had his own way. That his wife +should have given such an invitation without consulting him, was, +he knew, quite impossible. She would as soon have thought +of asking all those Arab guides to accompany them. Nor was +it to be thought of that he should allow himself to be kidnapped +into such an arrangement by the impudence of any Miss +Dawkins. But there was, he felt, a difficulty in answering +such a proposition from a young lady with a direct negative, +especially while he was so scant of breath. So he wiped his +brow again, and looked at her.</p> +<p>“But I can only agree to this on one +understanding,” continued Miss Dawkins, “and that is, +that I am allowed to defray my own full share of the expense of +the journey.”</p> +<p>Upon hearing this Mr. Damer thought that he saw his way out of +the wood. “Wherever I go, Miss Dawkins, I am always +the paymaster myself,” and this he contrived to say with +some sternness, palpitating though he still was; and the +sternness which was deficient in his voice he endeavoured to put +into his countenance.</p> +<p>But he did not know Miss Dawkins. “Oh, Mr. +Damer,” she said, and as she spoke her smile became almost +blander than it was before; “oh, Mr. Damer, I could not +think of suffering you to be so liberal; I could not, +indeed. But I shall be quite content that you should pay +everything, and let me settle with you in one sum +afterwards.”</p> +<p>Mr. Damer’s breath was now rather more under his own +command. “I am afraid, Miss Dawkins,” he said, +“that Mrs. Damer’s weak state of health will not +admit of such an arrangement.”</p> +<p>“What, about the paying?”</p> +<p>“Not only as to that, but we are a family party, Miss +Dawkins; and great as would be the benefit of your society to all +of us, in Mrs. Damer’s present state of health, I am +afraid—in short, you would not find it agreeable.—And +therefore—” this he added, seeing that she was still +about to persevere—“I fear that we must forego the +advantage you offer.”</p> +<p>And then, looking into his face, Miss Dawkins did perceive +that even her audacity would not prevail.</p> +<p>“Oh, very well,” she said, and moving from the +stone on which she had been sitting, she walked off, carrying her +head very high, to a corner of the Pyramid from which she could +look forth alone towards the sands of Libya.</p> +<p>In the mean time another little overture was being made on the +top of the same Pyramid,—an overture which was not received +quite in the same spirit. While Mr. Damer was recovering +his breath for the sake of answering Miss Dawkins, Miss Damer had +walked to the further corner of the square platform on which they +were placed, and there sat herself down with her face turned +towards Cairo. Perhaps it was not singular that Mr. Ingram +should have followed her.</p> +<p>This would have been very well if a dozen Arabs had not also +followed them. But as this was the case, Mr. Ingram had to +play his game under some difficulty. He had no sooner +seated himself beside her than they came and stood directly in +front of the seat, shutting out the view, and by no means +improving the fragrance of the air around them.</p> +<p>“And this, then, Miss Damer, will be our last excursion +together,” he said, in his tenderest, softest tone.</p> +<p>“De good Englishman will gib de poor Arab one little +backsheish,” said an Arab, putting out his hand and shaking +Mr. Ingram’s shoulder.</p> +<p>“Yes, yes, yes; him gib backsheish,” said +another.</p> +<p>“Him berry good man,” said a third, putting up his +filthy hand, and touching Mr. Ingram’s face.</p> +<p>“And young lady berry good, too; she give backsheish to +poor Arab.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said a fourth, preparing to take a similar +liberty with Miss Damer.</p> +<p>This was too much for Mr. Ingram. He had already used +very positive language in his endeavour to assure his tormentors +that they would not get a piastre from him. But this only +changed their soft persuasions into threats. Upon hearing +which, and upon seeing what the man attempted to do in his +endeavour to get money from Miss Damer, he raised his stick, and +struck first one and then the other as violently as he could upon +their heads.</p> +<p>Any ordinary civilised men would have been stunned by such +blows, for they fell on the bare foreheads of the Arabs; but the +objects of the American’s wrath merely skulked away; and +the others, convinced by the only arguments which they +understood, followed in pursuit of victims who might be less +pugnacious.</p> +<p>It is hard for a man to be at once tender and +pugnacious—to be sentimental, while he is putting forth his +physical strength with all the violence in his power. It is +difficult, also, for him to be gentle instantly after having been +in a rage. So he changed his tactics at the moment, and +came to the point at once in a manner befitting his present state +of mind.</p> +<p>“Those vile wretches have put me in such a heat,” +he said, “that I hardly know what I am saying. But +the fact is this, Miss Damer, I cannot leave Cairo without +knowing—. You understand what I mean, Miss +Damer.”</p> +<p>“Indeed I do not, Mr. Ingram; except that I am afraid +you mean nonsense.”</p> +<p>“Yes, you do; you know that I love you. I am sure +you must know it. At any rate you know it now.”</p> +<p>“Mr. Ingram, you should not talk in such a +way.”</p> +<p>“Why should I not? But the truth is, Fanny, I can +talk in no other way. I do love you dearly. Can you +love me well enough to go and be my wife in a country far away +from your own?”</p> +<p>Before she left the top of the Pyramid Fanny Damer had said +that she would try.</p> +<p>Mr. Ingram was now a proud and happy man, and seemed to think +the steps of the Pyramid too small for his elastic energy. +But Fanny feared that her troubles were to come. There was +papa—that terrible bugbear on all such occasions. +What would papa say? She was sure her papa would not allow +her to marry and go so far away from her own family and +country. For herself, she liked the Americans—always +had liked them; so she said;—would desire nothing better +than to live among them. But papa! And Fanny sighed +as she felt that all the recognised miseries of a young lady in +love were about to fall upon her.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, at her lover’s instance, she promised, and +declared, in twenty different loving phrases, that nothing on +earth should ever make her false to her love or to her lover.</p> +<p>“Fanny, where are you? Why are you not ready to +come down?” shouted Mr. Damer, not in the best of +tempers. He felt that he had almost been unkind to an +unprotected female, and his heart misgave him. And yet it +would have misgiven him more had he allowed himself to be +entrapped by Miss Dawkins.</p> +<p>“I am quite ready, papa,” said Fanny, running up +to him—for it may be understood that there is quite room +enough for a young lady to run on the top of the Pyramid.</p> +<p>“I am sure I don’t know where you have been all +the time,” said Mr. Damer; “and where are those two +boys?”</p> +<p>Fanny pointed to the top of the other Pyramid, and there they +were, conspicuous with their red caps.</p> +<p>“And M. Delabordeau?”</p> +<p>“Oh! he has gone down, I think;—no, he is there +with Miss Dawkins.” And in truth Miss Dawkins was +leaning on his arm most affectionately, as she stooped over and +looked down upon the ruins below her.</p> +<p>“And where is that fellow, Ingram?” said Mr. +Damer, looking about him. “He is always out of the +way when he’s wanted.”</p> +<p>To this Fanny said nothing. Why should she? She +was not Mr. Ingram’s keeper.</p> +<p>And then they all descended, each again with his proper number +of Arabs to hurry and embarrass him; and they found Mr. Damer at +the bottom, like a piece of sugar covered with flies. She +was heard to declare afterwards that she would not go to the +Pyramids again, not if they were to be given to her for herself, +as ornaments for her garden.</p> +<p>The picnic lunch among the big stones at the foot of the +Pyramid was not a very gay affair. Miss Dawkins talked more +than any one else, being determined to show that she bore her +defeat gallantly. Her conversation, however, was chiefly +addressed to M. Delabordeau, and he seemed to think more of his +cold chicken and ham than he did of her wit and attention.</p> +<p>Fanny hardly spoke a word. There was her father before +her and she could not eat, much less talk, as she thought of all +that she would have to go through. What would he say to the +idea of having an American for a son-in-law?</p> +<p>Nor was Mr. Ingram very lively. A young man when he has +been just accepted, never is so. His happiness under the +present circumstances was, no doubt, intense, but it was of a +silent nature.</p> +<p>And then the interior of the building had to be visited. +To tell the truth none of the party would have cared to perform +this feat had it not been for the honour of the thing. To +have come from Paris, New York, or London, to the Pyramids, and +then not to have visited the very tomb of Cheops, would have +shown on the part of all of them an indifference to subjects of +interest which would have been altogether fatal to their +character as travellers. And so a party for the interior +was made up.</p> +<p>Miss Damer when she saw the aperture through which it was +expected that she should descend, at once declared for staying +with her mother. Miss Dawkins, however, was enthusiastic +for the journey. “Persons with so very little command +over their nerves might really as well stay at home,” she +said to Mr. Ingram, who glowered at her dreadfully for expressing +such an opinion about his Fanny.</p> +<p>This entrance into the Pyramids is a terrible task, which +should be undertaken by no lady. Those who perform it have +to creep down, and then to be dragged up, through infinite dirt, +foul smells, and bad air; and when they have done it, they see +nothing. But they do earn the gratification of saying that +they have been inside a Pyramid.</p> +<p>“Well, I’ve done that once,” said Mr. Damer, +coming out, “and I do not think that any one will catch me +doing it again. I never was in such a filthy place in my +life.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Fanny! I am so glad you did not go; I am sure it is +not fit for ladies,” said poor Mrs. Damer, forgetful of her +friend Miss Dawkins.</p> +<p>“I should have been ashamed of myself,” said Miss +Dawkins, bristling up, and throwing back her head as she stood, +“if I had allowed any consideration to have prevented my +visiting such a spot. If it be not improper for men to go +there, how can it be improper for women?”</p> +<p>“I did not say improper, my dear,” said Mrs. +Damer, apologetically.</p> +<p>“And as for the fatigue, what can a woman be worth who +is afraid to encounter as much as I have now gone through for the +sake of visiting the last resting-place of such a king as +Cheops?” And Miss Dawkins, as she pronounced the last +words, looked round her with disdain upon poor Fanny Damer.</p> +<p>“But I meant the dirt,” said Mrs. Damer.</p> +<p>“Dirt!” ejaculated Miss Dawkins, and then walked +away. Why should she now submit her high tone of feeling to +the Damers, or why care longer for their good opinion? +Therefore she scattered contempt around her as she ejaculated the +last word, “dirt.”</p> +<p>And then the return home! “I know I shall never +get there,” said Mrs. Damer, looking piteously up into her +husband’s face.</p> +<p>“Nonsense, my dear; nonsense; you must get +there.” Mrs. Damer groaned, and acknowledged in her +heart that she must,—either dead or alive.</p> +<p>“And, Jefferson,” said Fanny, whispering—for +there had been a moment since their descent in which she had been +instructed to call him by his Christian name—“never +mind talking to me going home. I will ride by mamma. +Do you go with papa and put him in good humour; and it he says +anything about the lords and the bishops, don’t you +contradict him, you know.”</p> +<p>What will not a man do for love? Mr. Ingram +promised.</p> +<p>And in this way they started; the two boys led the van; then +came Mr. Damer and Mr. Ingram, unusually and unpatriotically +acquiescent as to England’s aristocratic propensities; then +Miss Dawkins riding, alas! alone; after her, M. Delabordeau, also +alone,—the ungallant Frenchman! And the rear was +brought up by Mrs. Damer and her daughter, flanked on each side +by a dragoman, with a third dragoman behind them.</p> +<p>And in this order they went back to Cairo, riding their +donkeys, and crossing the ferry solemnly, and, for the most part, +silently. Mr. Ingram did talk, as he had an important +object in view,—that of putting Mr. Damer into a good +humour.</p> +<p>In this he succeeded so well that by the time they had +remounted, after crossing the Nile, Mr. Damer opened his heart to +his companion on the subject that was troubling him, and told him +all about Miss Dawkins.</p> +<p>“I don’t see why we should have a companion that +we don’t like for eight or ten weeks, merely because it +seems rude to refuse a lady.”</p> +<p>“Indeed, I agree with you,” said Mr. Ingram; +“I should call it weak-minded to give way in such a +case.”</p> +<p>“My daughter does not like her at all,” continued +Mr. Damer.</p> +<p>“Nor would she be a nice companion for Miss Damer; not +according to my way of thinking,” said Mr. Ingram.</p> +<p>“And as to my having asked her, or Mrs. Damer having +asked her! Why, God bless my soul, it is pure invention on +the woman’s part!”</p> +<p>“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Mr. Ingram; “I must +say she plays her game well; but then she is an old soldier, and +has the benefit of experience.” What would Miss +Dawkins have said had she known that Mr. Ingram called her an old +soldier?</p> +<p>“I don’t like the kind of thing at all,” +said Mr. Damer, who was very serious upon the subject. +“You see the position in which I am placed. I am +forced to be very rude, or—”</p> +<p>“I don’t call it rude at all.”</p> +<p>“Disobliging, then; or else I must have all my comfort +invaded and pleasure destroyed by, by, by—” And +Mr. Damer paused, being at a loss for an appropriate name for +Miss Dawkins.</p> +<p>“By an unprotected female,” suggested Mr. +Ingram.</p> +<p>“Yes, just so. I am as fond of pleasant company as +anybody; but then I like to choose it myself.”</p> +<p>“So do I,” said Mr. Ingram, thinking of his own +choice.</p> +<p>“Now, Ingram, if you would join us, we should be +delighted.”</p> +<p>“Upon my word, sir, the offer is too flattering,” +said Ingram, hesitatingly; for he felt that he could not +undertake such a journey until Mr. Damer knew on what terms he +stood with Fanny.</p> +<p>“You are a terrible democrat,” said Mr. Damer, +laughing; “but then, on that matter, you know, we could +agree to differ.”</p> +<p>“Exactly so,” said Mr. Ingram, who had not +collected his thoughts or made up his mind as to what he had +better say and do, on the spur of the moment.</p> +<p>“Well, what do you say to it?” said Mr. Damer, +encouragingly. But Ingram paused before he answered.</p> +<p>“For Heaven’s sake, my dear fellow, don’t +have the slightest hesitation in refusing, if you don’t +like the plan.”</p> +<p>“The fact is, Mr. Damer, I should like it too +well.”</p> +<p>“Like it too well?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir, and I may as well tell you now as +later. I had intended this evening to have asked for your +permission to address your daughter.”</p> +<p>“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Damer, looking as +though a totally new idea had now been opened to him.</p> +<p>“And under these circumstances, I will now wait and see +whether or no you will renew your offer.”</p> +<p>“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Damer, again. +It often does strike an old gentleman as very odd that any man +should fall in love with his daughter, whom he has not ceased to +look upon as a child. The case is generally quite different +with mothers. They seem to think that every young man must +fall in love with their girls.</p> +<p>“And have you said anything to Fanny about this?” +asked Mr. Damer.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir, I have her permission to speak to +you.”</p> +<p>“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Damer; and by this +time they had arrived at Shepheard’s Hotel.</p> +<p>“Oh, mamma,” said Fanny, as soon as she found +herself alone with her mother that evening, “I have +something that I must tell you.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Fanny, don’t tell me anything to-night, for I +am a great deal too tired to listen.”</p> +<p>“But oh, mamma, pray;—you must listen to this; +indeed you must.” And Fanny knelt down at her +mother’s knee, and looked beseechingly up into her +face.</p> +<p>“What is it, Fanny? You know that all my bones are +sore, and I am so tired that I am almost dead.”</p> +<p>“Mamma, Mr. Ingram has—”</p> +<p>“Has what, my dear? has he done anything +wrong?”</p> +<p>“No, mamma: but he has;—he has proposed to +me.” And Fanny, bursting into tears, hid her face in +her mother’s lap.</p> +<p>And thus the story was told on both sides of the house. +On the next day, as a matter of course, all the difficulties and +dangers of such a marriage as that which was now projected were +insisted on by both father and mother. It was improper; it +would cause a severing of the family not to be thought of; it +would be an alliance of a dangerous nature, and not at all +calculated to insure happiness; and, in short, it was +impossible. On that day, therefore, they all went to bed +very unhappy. But on the next day, as was also a matter of +course, seeing that there were no pecuniary difficulties, the +mother and father were talked over, and Mr. Ingram was accepted +as a son-in-law. It need hardly be said that the offer of a +place in Mr. Damer’s boat was again made, and that on this +occasion it was accepted without hesitation.</p> +<p>There was an American Protestant clergyman resident in Cairo, +with whom, among other persons, Miss Dawkins had become +acquainted. Upon this gentleman or upon his wife Miss +Dawkins called a few days after the journey to the Pyramid, and +finding him in his study, thus performed her duty to her +neighbour,—</p> +<p>“You know your countryman Mr. Ingram, I think?” +said she.</p> +<p>“Oh, yes; very intimately.”</p> +<p>“If you have any regard for him, Mr. Burton,” such +was the gentleman’s name, “I think you should put him +on his guard.”</p> +<p>“On his guard against what?” said Mr. Burton with +a serious air, for there was something serious in the threat of +impending misfortune as conveyed by Miss Dawkins.</p> +<p>“Why,” said she, “those Damers, I fear, are +dangerous people.”</p> +<p>“Do you mean that they will borrow money of +him?”</p> +<p>“Oh, no; not that, exactly; but they are clearly setting +their cap at him.”</p> +<p>“Setting their cap at him?”</p> +<p>“Yes; there is a daughter, you know; a little chit of a +thing; and I fear Mr. Ingram may be caught before he knows where +he is. It would be such a pity, you know. He is going +up the river with them, I hear. That, in his place, is very +foolish. They asked me, but I positively +refused.”</p> +<p>Mr. Burton remarked that “In such a matter as that Mr. +Ingram would be perfectly able to take care of +himself.”</p> +<p>“Well, perhaps so; but seeing what was going on, I +thought it my duty to tell you.” And so Miss Dawkins +took her leave.</p> +<p>Mr. Ingram did go up the Nile with the Damers, as did an old +friend of the Damers who arrived from England. And a very +pleasant trip they had of it. And, as far as the present +historian knows, the two lovers were shortly afterwards married +in England.</p> +<p>Poor Miss Dawkins was left in Cairo for some time on her beam +ends. But she was one of those who are not easily +vanquished. After an interval of ten days she made +acquaintance with an Irish family—having utterly failed in +moving the hard heart of M. Delabordeau—and with these she +proceeded to Constantinople. They consisted of two brothers +and a sister, and were, therefore, very convenient for +matrimonial purposes. But nevertheless, when I last heard +of Miss Dawkins, she was still an unprotected female.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN UNPROTECTED FEMALE AT THE +PYRAMIDS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 3710-h.htm or 3710-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/1/3710 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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It was probably taken +from the "Arabian Nights," and the picture produced was one of strange, +fantastic, luxurious houses; of women who were either very young and +very beautiful, or else very old and very cunning; but in either state +exercising much more influence in life than women in the East do now; +of good-natured, capricious, though sometimes tyrannical monarchs; and +of life full of quaint mysteries, quite unintelligible in every phasis, +and on that account the more picturesque. + +And perhaps Grand Cairo has thus filled us with more wonder even than +Bagdad. We have been in a certain manner at home at Bagdad, but have +only visited Grand Cairo occasionally. I know no place which was to +me, in early years, so delightfully mysterious as Grand Cairo. + +But the route to India and Australia has changed all this. Men from +all countries going to the East, now pass through Cairo, and its +streets and costumes are no longer strange to us. It has become also a +resort for invalids, or rather for those who fear that they may become +invalids if they remain in a cold climate during the winter months. +And thus at Cairo there is always to be found a considerable population +of French, Americans, and of English. Oriental life is brought home to +us, dreadfully diluted by western customs, and the delights of the +"Arabian Nights" are shorn of half their value. When we have seen a +thing it is never so magnificent to us as when it was half unknown. + +It is not much that we deign to learn from these Orientals,--we who +glory in our civilisation. We do not copy their silence or their +abstemiousness, nor that invariable mindfulness of his own personal +dignity which always adheres to a Turk or to an Arab. We chatter as +much at Cairo as elsewhere, and eat as much and drink as much, and +dress ourselves generally in the same old ugly costume. But we do +usually take upon ourselves to wear red caps, and we do ride on +donkeys. + +Nor are the visitors from the West to Cairo by any means confined to +the male sex. Ladies are to be seen in the streets quite regardless of +the Mahommedan custom which presumes a veil to be necessary for an +appearance in public; and, to tell the truth, the Mahommedans in +general do not appear to be much shocked by their effrontery. + +A quarter of the town has in this way become inhabited by men wearing +coats and waistcoats, and by women who are without veils; but the +English tongue in Egypt finds its centre at Shepheard's Hotel. It is +here that people congregate who are looking out for parties to visit +with them the Upper Nile, and who are generally all smiles and +courtesy; and here also are to be found they who have just returned +from this journey, and who are often in a frame of mind towards their +companions that is much less amiable. From hence, during the winter, a +cortege proceeds almost daily to the pyramids, or to Memphis, or to the +petrified forest, or to the City of the Sun. And then, again, four or +five times a month the house is filled with young aspirants going out +to India, male and female, full of valour and bloom; or with others +coming home, no longer young, no longer aspiring, but laden with +children and grievances. + +The party with whom we are at present concerned is not about to proceed +further than the Pyramids, and we shall be able to go with them and +return in one and the same day. + +It consisted chiefly of an English family, Mr. and Mrs. Damer, their +daughter, and two young sons;--of these chiefly, because they were the +nucleus to which the others had attached themselves as adherents; they +had originated the journey, and in the whole management of it Mr. Damer +retarded himself as the master. + +The adherents were, firstly, M. Delabordeau, a Frenchman, now resident +in Cairo, who had given out that he was in some way concerned in the +canal about to be made between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. In +discussion on this subject he had become acquainted with Mr. Damer; and +although the latter gentleman, true to English interests, perpetually +declared that the canal would never be made, and thus irritated M. +Delabordeau not a little--nevertheless, some measure of friendship had +grown up between them. + +There was also an American gentleman, Mr. Jefferson Ingram, who was +comprising all countries and all nations in one grand tour, as American +gentlemen so often do. He was young and good-looking, and had made +himself especially agreeable to Mr. Damer, who had declared, more than +once, that Mr. Ingram was by far the most rational American he had ever +met. Mr. Ingram would listen to Mr. Damer by the half-hour as to the +virtue of the British Constitution, and had even sat by almost with +patience when Mr. Damer had expressed a doubt as to the good working of +the United States' scheme of policy,--which, in an American, was most +wonderful. But some of the sojourners at Shepheard's had observed that +Mr. Ingram was in the habit of talking with Miss Damer almost as much +as with her father, and argued from that, that fond as the young man +was of politics, he did sometimes turn his mind to other things also. + +And then there was Miss Dawkins. Now Miss Dawkins was an important +person, both as to herself and as to her line of life, and she must be +described. She was, in the first place, an unprotected female of about +thirty years of age. As this is becoming an established profession, +setting itself up as it were in opposition to the old world idea that +women, like green peas, cannot come to perfection without supporting- +sticks, it will be understood at once what were Miss Dawkins's +sentiments. She considered--or at any rate so expressed herself--that +peas could grow very well without sticks, and could not only grow thus +unsupported, but could also make their way about the world without any +incumbrance of sticks whatsoever. She did not intend, she said, to +rival Ida Pfeiffer, seeing that she was attached in a moderate way to +bed and board, and was attached to society in a manner almost more than +moderate; but she had no idea of being prevented from seeing anything +she wished to see because she had neither father, nor husband, nor +brother available for the purpose of escort. She was a human creature, +with arms and legs, she said; and she intended to use them. And this +was all very well; but nevertheless she had a strong inclination to use +the arms and legs of other people when she could make them serviceable. + +In person Miss Dawkins was not without attraction. I should exaggerate +if I were to say that she was beautiful and elegant; but she was good +looking, and not usually ill mannered. She was tall, and gifted with +features rather sharp and with eyes very bright. Her hair was of the +darkest shade of brown, and was always worn in bandeaux, very neatly. +She appeared generally in black, though other circumstances did not +lead one to suppose that she was in mourning; and then, no other +travelling costume is so convenient! She always wore a dark broad- +brimmed straw hat, as to the ribbons on which she was rather +particular. She was very neat about her gloves and boots; and though +it cannot be said that her dress was got up without reference to +expense, there can be no doubt that it was not effected without +considerable outlay,--and more considerable thought. + +Miss Dawkins--Sabrina Dawkins was her name, but she seldom had friends +about her intimate enough to use the word Sabrina--was certainly a +clever young woman. She could talk on most subjects, if not well, at +least well enough to amuse. If she had not read much, she never showed +any lamentable deficiency; she was good-humoured, as a rule, and could +on occasions be very soft and winning. People who had known her long +would sometimes say that she was selfish; but with new acquaintance she +was forbearing and self-denying. + +With what income Miss Dawkins was blessed no one seemed to know. She +lived like a gentlewoman, as far as outward appearance went, and never +seemed to be in want; but some people would say that she knew very well +how many sides there were to a shilling, and some enemy had once +declared that she was an "old soldier." Such was Miss Dawkins. + +She also, as well as Mr. Ingram and M. Delabordeau, had laid herself +out to find the weak side of Mr. Damer. Mr. Damer, with all his +family, was going up the Nile, and it was known that he had room for +two in his boat over and above his own family. Miss Dawkins had told +him that she had not quite made up her mind to undergo so great a +fatigue, but that, nevertheless, she had a longing of the soul to see +something of Nubia. To this Mr. Damer had answered nothing but "Oh!" +which Miss Dawkins had not found to be encouraging. + +But she had not on that account despaired. To a married man there are +always two sides, and in this instance there was Mrs. Damer as well as +Mr. Damer. When Mr. Damer said "Oh!" Miss Dawkins sighed, and said, +"Yes, indeed!" then smiled, and betook herself to Mrs. Damer. + +Now Mrs. Damer was soft-hearted, and also somewhat old-fashioned. She +did not conceive any violent affection for Miss Dawkins, but she told +her daughter that "the single lady by herself was a very nice young +woman, and that it was a thousand pities she should have to go about so +much alone like." + +Miss Damer had turned up her pretty nose, thinking, perhaps, how small +was the chance that it ever should be her own lot to be an unprotected +female. But Miss Dawkins carried her point at any rate as regarded the +expedition to the Pyramids. + +Miss Damer, I have said, had a pretty nose. I may also say that she +had pretty eyes, mouth, and chin, with other necessary appendages, all +pretty. As to the two Master Damers, who were respectively of the ages +of fifteen and sixteen, it may be sufficient to say that they were +conspicuous for red caps and for the constancy with which they raced +their donkeys. + +And now the donkeys, and the donkey boys, and the dragomans were all +standing at the steps of Shepheard's Hotel. To each donkey there was a +donkey-boy, and to each gentleman there was a dragoman, so that a +goodly cortege was assembled, and a goodly noise was made. It may here +be remarked, perhaps with some little pride, that not half the noise is +given in Egypt to persons speaking any other language that is bestowed +on those whose vocabulary is English. + +This lasted for half an hour. Had the party been French the donkeys +would have arrived only fifteen minutes before the appointed time. And +then out came Damer pere and Damer mere, Damer fille, and Damer fils. +Damer mere was leaning on her husband, as was her wont. She was not an +unprotected female, and had no desire to make any attempts in that +line. Damer fille was attended sedulously by Mr. Ingram, for whose +demolishment, however, Mr. Damer still brought up, in a loud voice, the +fag ends of certain political arguments which he would fain have poured +direct into the ears of his opponent, had not his wife been so +persistent in claiming her privileges. M. Delabordeau should have +followed with Miss Dawkins, but his French politeness, or else his fear +of the unprotected female, taught him to walk on the other side of the +mistress of the party. + +Miss Dawkins left the house with an eager young Damer yelling on each +side of her; but nevertheless, though thus neglected by the gentlemen +of the party, she was all smiles and prettiness, and looked so sweetly +on Mr. Ingram when that gentleman stayed a moment to help her on to her +donkey, that his heart almost misgave him for leaving her as soon as +she was in her seat. + +And then they were off. In going from the hotel to the Pyramids our +party had not to pass through any of the queer old narrow streets of +the true Cairo--Cairo the Oriental. They all lay behind them as they +went down by the back of the hotel, by the barracks of the Pasha and +the College of the Dervishes, to the village of old Cairo and the banks +of the Nile. + +Here they were kept half an hour while their dragomans made a bargain +with the ferryman, a stately reis, or captain of a boat, who declared +with much dignity that he could not carry them over for a sum less than +six times the amount to which he was justly entitled; while the +dragomans, with great energy on behalf of their masters, offered him +only five times that sum. + +As far as the reis was concerned, the contest might soon have been at +an end, for the man was not without a conscience; and would have been +content with five times and a half; but then the three dragomans +quarrelled among themselves as to which should have the paying of the +money, and the affair became very tedious. + +"What horrid, odious men!" said Miss Dawkins, appealing to Mr. Damer. +"Do you think they will let us go over at all?" + +"Well, I suppose they will; people do get over generally, I believe. +Abdallah! Abdallah! why don't you pay the man? That fellow is always +striving to save half a piastre for me." + +"I wish he wasn't quite so particular," said Mrs. Damer, who was +already becoming rather tired; "but I'm sure he's a very honest man in +trying to protect us from being robbed." + +"That he is," said Miss Dawkins. "What a delightful trait of national +character it is to see these men so faithful to their employers." And +then at last they got over the ferry, Mr. Ingram having descended among +the combatants, and settled the matter in dispute by threats and +shouts, and an uplifted stick. + +They crossed the broad Nile exactly at the spot where the nilometer, or +river guage, measures from day to day, and from year to year, the +increasing or decreasing treasures of the stream, and landed at a +village where thousands of eggs are made into chickens by the process +of artificial incubation. + +Mrs. Damer thought that it was very hard upon the maternal hens--the +hens which should have been maternal--that they should be thus robbed +of the delights of motherhood. + +"So unnatural, you know," said Miss Dawkins; "so opposed to the +fostering principles of creation. Don't you think so, Mr. Ingram?" + +Mr. Ingram said he didn't know. He was again seating Miss Damer on her +donkey, and it must be presumed that he performed this feat clumsily; +for Fanny Damer could jump on and off the animal with hardly a finger +to help her, when her brother or her father was her escort; but now, +under the hands of Mr. Ingram, this work of mounting was one which +required considerable time and care. All which Miss Dawkins observed +with precision. + +"It's all very well talking," said Mr. Damer, bringing up his donkey +nearly alongside that of Mr. Ingram, and ignoring his daughter's +presence, just as he would have done that of his dog; "but you must +admit that political power is more equally distributed in England than +it is in America." + +"Perhaps it is," said Mr. Ingram; "equally distributed among, we will +say, three dozen families," and he made a feint as though to hold in +his impetuous donkey, using the spur, however, at the same time on the +side that was unseen by Mr. Damer. As he did so, Fanny's donkey became +equally impetuous, and the two cantered on in advance of the whole +party. It was quite in vain that Mr. Damer, at the top of his voice, +shouted out something about "three dozen corruptible demagogues." Mr. +Ingram found it quite impossible to restrain his donkey so as to listen +to the sarcasm. + +"I do believe papa would talk politics," said Fanny, "if he were at the +top of Mont Blanc, or under the Falls of Niagara. I do hate politics, +Mr. Ingram." + +"I am sorry for that, very," said Mr. Ingram, almost sadly. + +"Sorry, why? You don't want me to talk politics, do you?" + +"In America we are all politicians, more or less; and, therefore, I +suppose you will hate us all." + +"Well, I rather think I should," said Fanny; "you would be such bores." +But there was something in her eye, as she spoke, which atoned for the +harshness of her words. + +"A very nice young man is Mr. Ingram; don't you think so?" said Miss +Dawkins to Mrs. Damer. Mrs. Damer was going along upon her donkey, not +altogether comfortably. She much wished to have her lord and +legitimate protector by her side, but he had left her to the care of a +dragoman whose English was not intelligible to her, and she was rather +cross. + +"Indeed, Miss Dawkins, I don't know who are nice and who are not. This +nasty donkey stumbles at ever step. There! I know I shall be down +directly." + +"You need not be at all afraid of that; they are perfectly safe, I +believe, always," said Miss Dawkins, rising in her stirrup, and +handling her reins quite triumphantly. "A very little practice will +make you quite at home." + +"I don't know what you mean by a very little practice. I have been +here six weeks. Why did you put me on such a bad donkey as this?" and +she turned to Abdallah, the dragoman. + +"Him berry good donkey, my lady; berry good,--best of all. Call him +Jack in Cairo. Him go to Pyramid and back, and mind noting." + +"What does he say, Miss Dawkins?" + +"He says that that donkey is one called Jack. If so I've had him +myself many times, and Jack is a very good donkey." + +"I wish you had him now with all my heart," said Mrs. Damer. Upon +which Miss Dawkins offered to change; but those perils of mounting and +dismounting were to Mrs. Damer a great deal too severe to admit of +this. + +"Seven miles of canal to be carried out into the sea, at a minimum +depth of twenty-three feet, and the stone to be fetched from Heaven +knows where! All the money in France wouldn't do it." This was +addressed by Mr. Damer to M. Delabordeau, whom he had caught after the +abrupt flight of Mr. Ingram. + +"Den we will borrow a leetle from England," said M. Delabordeau. + +"Precious little, I can tell you. Such stock would not hold its price +in our markets for twenty-four hours. If it were made, the freights +would be too heavy to allow of merchandise passing through. The heavy +goods would all go round; and as for passengers and mails, you don't +expect to get them, I suppose, while there is a railroad ready made to +their hand?" + +"Ye vill carry all your ships through vidout any transportation. Think +of that, my friend." + +"Pshaw! You are worse than Ingram. Of all the plans I ever heard of +it is the most monstrous, the most impracticable, the most--" But here +he was interrupted by the entreaties of his wife, who had, in absolute +deed and fact, slipped from her donkey, and was now calling lustily for +her husband's aid. Whereupon Miss Dawkins allied herself to the +Frenchman, and listened with an air of strong conviction to those +arguments which were so weak in the ears of Mr. Damer. M. Delabordeau +was about to ride across the Great Desert to Jerusalem, and it might +perhaps be quite as well to do that with him, as to go up the Nile as +far as the second cataract with the Damers. + +"And so, M. Delabordeau, you intend really to start for Mount Sinai?" + +"Yes, mees; ve intend to make one start on Monday week." + +"And so on to Jerusalem. You are quite right. It would be a thousand +pities to be in these countries, and to return without going over such +ground as that. I shall certainly go to Jerusalem myself by that +route." + +"Vot, mees! you? Would you not find it too much fatigante?" + +"I care nothing for fatigue, if I like the party I am with,--nothing at +all, literally. You will hardly understand me, perhaps, M. +Delabordeau; but I do not see any reason why I, as a young woman, +should not make any journey that is practicable for a young man." + +"Ah! dat is great resolution for you, mees." + +"I mean as far as fatigue is concerned. You are a Frenchman, and +belong to the nation that is at the head of all human civilisation--" + +M. Delabordeau took off his hat and bowed low, to the peak of his +donkey saddle. He dearly loved to hear his country praised, as Miss +Dawkins was aware. + +"And I am sure you must agree with me," continued Miss Dawkins, "that +the time is gone by for women to consider themselves helpless animals, +or to be so considered by others." + +"Mees Dawkins vould never be considered, not in any times at all, to be +one helpless animal," said M. Delabordeau civilly. + +"I do not, at any rate, intend to be so regarded," said she. "It suits +me to travel alone; not that I am averse to society; quite the +contrary; if I meet pleasant people I am always ready to join them. +But it suits me to travel without any permanent party, and I do not see +why false shame should prevent my seeing the world as thoroughly as +though I belonged to the other sex. Why should it, M. Delabordeau?" + +M. Delabordeau declared that he did not see any reason why it should. + +"I am passionately anxious to stand upon Mount Sinai," continued Miss +Dawkins; "to press with my feet the earliest spot in sacred history, of +the identity of which we are certain; to feel within me the awe- +inspiring thrill of that thrice sacred hour!" + +The Frenchman looked as though he did not quite understand her, but he +said that it would be magnifique. + +"You have already made up your party I suppose, M. Delabordeau?" + +M. Delabordeau gave the names of two Frenchmen and one Englishman who +were going with him. + +"Upon my word it is a great temptation to join you," said Miss Dawkins, +"only for that horrid Englishman." + +"Vat, Mr. Stanley?" + +"Oh, I don't mean any disrespect to Mr. Stanley. The horridness I +speak of does not attach to him personally, but to his stiff, +respectable, ungainly, well-behaved, irrational, and uncivilised +country. You see I am not very patriotic." + +"Not quite so much as my friend, Mr. Damer." + +"Ha! ha! ha! an excellent creature, isn't he? And so they all are, +dear creatures. But then they are so backward. They are most anxious +that I should join them up the Nile, but--," and then Miss Dawkins +shrugged her shoulders gracefully, and, as she flattered herself, like +a Frenchwoman. After that they rode on in silence for a few moments. + +"Yes, I must see Mount Sinai," said Miss Dawkins, and then sighed +deeply. M. Delabordeau, notwithstanding that his country does stand at +the head of all human civilisation, was not courteous enough to declare +that if Miss Dawkins would join his party across the desert, nothing +would be wanting to make his beatitude in this world perfect. + +Their road from the village of the chicken-batching ovens lay up along +the left bank of the Nile, through an immense grove of lofty palm- +trees, looking out from among which our visitors could ever and anon +see the heads of the two great Pyramids;--that is, such of them could +see it as felt any solicitude in the matter. + +It is astonishing how such things lose their great charm as men find +themselves in their close neighbourhood. To one living in New York or +London, how ecstatic is the interest inspired by these huge structures. +One feels that no price would be too high to pay for seeing them as +long as time and distance, and the world's inexorable task-work, forbid +such a visit. How intense would be the delight of climbing over the +wondrous handiwork of those wondrous architects so long since dead; how +thrilling the awe with which one would penetrate down into their +interior caves--those caves in which lay buried the bones of ancient +kings, whose very names seem to have come to us almost from another +world! + +But all these feelings become strangely dim, their acute edges +wonderfully worn, as the subjects which inspired them are brought near +to us. "Ah! so those are the Pyramids, are they?" says the traveller, +when the first glimpse of them is shown to him from the window of a +railway carriage. "Dear me; they don't look so very high, do they? +For Heaven's sake put the blind down, or we shall be destroyed by the +dust." And then the ecstasy and keen delight of the Pyramids has +vanished for ever. + +Our friends, therefore, who for weeks past had seen from a distance, +though they had not yet visited them, did not seem to have any strong +feeling on the subject as they trotted through the grove of palm-trees. +Mr. Damer had not yet escaped from his wife, who was still fretful from +the result of her little accident. + +"It was all the chattering of that Miss Dawkins," said Mrs. Damer. +"She would not let me attend to what I was doing." + +"Miss Dawkins is an ass," said her husband. + +"It is a pity she has no one to look after her," said Mrs. Damer. M. +Delabordeau was still listening to Miss Dawkins's raptures about Mount +Sinai. "I wonder whether she has got any money," said M. Delabordeau +to himself. "It can't be much," he went on thinking, "or she would not +be left in this way by herself." And the result of his thoughts was +that Miss Dawkins, if undertaken, might probably become more plague +than profit. As to Miss Dawkins herself, though she was ecstatic about +Mount Sinai--which was not present--she seemed to have forgotten the +poor Pyramids, which were then before her nose. + +The two lads were riding races along the dusty path, much to the +disgust of their donkey-boys. Their time for enjoyment was to come. +There were hampers to be opened; and then the absolute climbing of the +Pyramids would actually be a delight to them. + +As for Miss Damer and Mr. Ingram, it was clear that they had forgotten +palm-trees, Pyramids, the Nile, and all Egypt. They had escaped to a +much fairer paradise. + +"Could I bear to live among Republicans?" said Fanny, repeating the +last words of her American lover, and looking down from her donkey to +the ground as she did so. "I hardly know what Republicans are, Mr. +Ingram." + +"Let me teach you," said he. + +"You do talk such nonsense. I declare there is that Miss Dawkins +looking at us as though she had twenty eyes. Could you not teach her, +Mr. Ingram?" + +And so they emerged from the palm-tree grove, through a village crowded +with dirty, straggling Arab children, on to the cultivated plain, +beyond which the Pyramids stood, now full before them; the two large +Pyramids, a smaller one, and the huge sphynx's head all in a group +together. + +"Fanny," said Bob Damer, riding up to her, "mamma wants you; so toddle +back." + +"Mamma wants me! What can she want me for now?" said Fanny, with a +look of anything but filial duty in her face. + +"To protect her from Miss Dawkins, I think. She wants you to ride at +her side, so that Dawkins mayn't get at her. Now, Mr. Ingram, I'll bet +you half-a-crown I'm at the top of the big Pyramid before you." + +Poor Fanny! She obeyed, however; doubtless feeling that it would not +do as yet to show too plainly that she preferred Mr. Ingram to her +mother. She arrested her donkey, therefore, till Mrs. Damer overtook +her; and Mr. Ingram, as he paused for a moment with her while she did +so, fell into the hands of Miss Dawkins. + +"I cannot think, Fanny, how you get on so quick," said Mrs. Damer. +"I'm always last; but then my donkey is such a very nasty one. Look +there, now; he's always trying to get me off." + +"We shall soon be at the Pyramids now, mamma." + +"How on earth I am ever to get back again I cannot think. I am so +tired now that I can hardly sit." + +"You'll be better, mamma, when you get your luncheon and a glass of +wine." + +"How on earth we are to eat and drink with those nasty Arab people +around us, I can't conceive. They tell me we shall be eaten up by +them. But, Fanny, what has Mr. Ingram been saying to you all the day?" + +"What has he been saying, mamma? Oh! I don't know;--a hundred things, +I dare say. But he has not been talking to me all the time." + +"I think he has, Fanny, nearly, since we crossed the river. Oh, dear! +oh, dear! this animal does hurt me so! Every time he moves he flings +his head about, and that gives me such a bump." And then Fanny +commiserated her mother's sufferings, and in her commiseration +contrived to elude any further questionings as to Mr. Ingram's +conversation. + +"Majestic piles, are they not?" said Miss Dawkins, who, having changed +her companion, allowed her mind to revert from Mount Sinai to the +Pyramids. They were now riding through cultivated ground, with the +vast extent of the sands of Libya before them. The two Pyramids were +standing on the margin of the sand, with the head of the recumbent +sphynx plainly visible between them. But no idea can be formed of the +size of this immense figure till it is visited much more closely. The +body is covered with sand, and the head and neck alone stand above the +surface of the ground. They were still two miles distant, and the +sphynx as yet was but an obscure mount between the two vast Pyramids. + +"Immense piles!" said Miss Dawkins, repeating her own words. + +"Yes, they are large," said Mr. Ingram, who did not choose to indulge +in enthusiasm in the presence of Miss Dawkins. + +"Enormous! What a grand idea!--eh, Mr. Ingram? The human race does +not create such things as those nowadays!" + +"No, indeed," he answered; "but perhaps we create better things." + +"Better! You do not mean to say, Mr. Ingram, that you are an +utilitarian. I do, in truth, hope better things of you than that. +Yes! steam mills are better, no doubt, and mechanics' institutes and +penny newspapers. But is nothing to be valued but what is useful?" +And Miss Dawkins, in the height of her enthusiasm, switched her donkey +severely over the shoulder. + +"I might, perhaps, have said also that we create more beautiful +things," said Mr. Ingram. + +"But we cannot create older things." + +"No, certainly; we cannot do that." + +"Nor can we imbue what we do create with the grand associations which +environ those piles with so intense an interest. Think of the mighty +dead, Mr. Ingram, and of their great homes when living. Think of the +hands which it took to raise those huge blocks--" + +"And of the lives which it cost." + +"Doubtless. The tyranny and invincible power of the royal architects +add to the grandeur of the idea. One would not wish to have back the +kings of Egypt." + +"Well, no; they would be neither useful nor beautiful." + +"Perhaps not; and I do not wish to be picturesque at the expense of my +fellow-creatures." + +"I doubt, even, whether they would be picturesque." + +"You know what I mean, Mr. Ingram. But the associations of such names, +and the presence of the stupendous works with which they are connected, +fill the soul with awe. Such, at least, is the effect with mine." + +"I fear that my tendencies, Miss Dawkins, are more realistic than your +own." + +"You belong to a young country, Mr. Ingram, and are naturally prone to +think of material life. The necessity of living looms large before +you." + +"Very large, indeed, Miss Dawkins." + +"Whereas with us, with some of us at least, the material aspect has +given place to one in which poetry and enthusiasm prevail. To such +among us the associations of past times are very dear. Cheops, to me, +is more than Napoleon Bonaparte." + +"That is more than most of your countrymen can say, at any rate, just +at present." + +"I am a woman," continued Miss Dawkins. + +Mr. Ingram took off his hat in acknowledgment both of the announcement +and of the fact. + +"And to us it is not given--not given as yet--to share in the great +deeds of the present. The envy of your sex has driven us from the +paths which lead to honour. But the deeds of the past are as much ours +as yours." + +"Oh, quite as much." + +"'Tis to your country that we look for enfranchisement from this +thraldom. Yes, Mr. Ingram, the women of America have that strength of +mind which has been wanting to those of Europe. In the United States +woman will at last learn to exercise her proper mission." + +Mr. Ingram expressed a sincere wish that such might be the case; and +then wondering at the ingenuity with which Miss Dawkins had travelled +round from Cheops and his Pyramid to the rights of women in America, he +contrived to fall back, under the pretence of asking after the ailments +of Mrs. Damer. + +And now at last they were on the sand, in the absolute desert, making +their way up to the very foot of the most northern of the two Pyramids. +They were by this time surrounded by a crowd of Arab guides, or Arabs +professing to be guides, who had already ascertained that Mr. Damer was +the chief of the party, and were accordingly driving him almost to +madness by the offers of their services, and their assurance that he +could not possibly see the outside or the inside of either structure, +or even remain alive upon the ground, unless he at once accepted their +offers made at their own prices. + +"Get away, will you?" said he. "I don't want any of you, and I won't +have you! If you take hold of me I'll shoot you!" This was said to +one specially energetic Arab, who, in his efforts to secure his prey, +had caught hold of Mr. Damer by the leg. + +"Yes, yes, I say! Englishmen always take me;--me--me, and then no +break him leg. Yes--yes--yes;--I go. Master, say yes. Only one +leetle ten shillings!" + +"Abdallah!" shouted Mr. Damer, "why don't you take this man away? Why +don't you make him understand that if all the Pyramids depended on it, +I would not give him sixpence!" + +And then Abdallah, thus invoked, came up, and explained to the man in +Arabic that he would gain his object more surely if he would behave +himself a little more quietly; a hint which the man took for one +minute, and for one minute only. + +And then poor Mrs. Damer replied to an application for backsheish by +the gift of a sixpence. Unfortunate woman! The word backsheish means, +I believe, a gift; but it has come in Egypt to signify money, and is +eternally dinned into the ears of strangers by Arab suppliants. Mrs. +Damer ought to have known better, as, during the last six weeks she had +never shown her face out of Shepheard's Hotel without being pestered +for backsheish; but she was tired and weak, and foolishly thought to +rid herself of the man who was annoying her. + +No sooner had the coin dropped from her hand into that of the Arab, +than she was surrounded by a cluster of beggars, who loudly made their +petitions as though they would, each of them, individually be injured +if treated with less liberality than that first comer. They took hold +of her donkey, her bridle, her saddle, her legs, and at last her arms +and hands, screaming for backsheish in voices that were neither sweet +nor mild. + +In her dismay she did give away sundry small coins--all, probably, that +she had about her; but this only made the matter worse. Money was +going, and each man, by sufficient energy, might hope to get some of +it. They were very energetic, and so frightened the poor lady that she +would certainly have fallen, had she not been kept on her seat by the +pressure around her. + +"Oh, dear! oh, dear! get away," she cried. "I haven't got any more; +indeed I haven't. Go away, I tell you! Mr. Damer! oh, Mr. Damer!" and +then, in the excess of her agony, she uttered one loud, long, and +continuous shriek. + +Up came Mr. Damer; up came Abdallah; up came M. Delabordeau; up came +Mr. Ingram, and at last she was rescued. "You shouldn't go away and +leave me to the mercy of these nasty people. As to that Abdallah, he +is of no use to anybody." + +"Why you bodder de good lady, you dem blackguard?" said Abdallah, +raising his stick, as though he were going to lay them all low with a +blow. "Now you get noting, you tief!" + +The Arabs for a moment retired to a little distance, like flies driven +from a sugar-bowl; but it was easy to see that, like the flies, they +would return at the first vacant moment. + +And now they had reached the very foot of the Pyramids and proceeded to +dismount from their donkeys. Their intention was first to ascend to +the top, then to come down to their banquet, and after that to +penetrate into the interior. And all this would seem to be easy of +performance. The Pyramid is undoubtedly high, but it is so constructed +as to admit of climbing without difficulty. A lady mounting it would +undoubtedly need some assistance, but any man possessed of moderate +activity would require no aid at all. + +But our friends were at once imbued with the tremendous nature of the +task before them. A sheikh of the Arabs came forth, who communicated +with them through Abdallah. The work could be done, no doubt, he said; +but a great many men would be wanted to assist. Each lady must have +four Arabs, and each gentlemen three; and then, seeing that the work +would be peculiarly severe on this special day, each of these numerous +Arabs must be remunerated by some very large number of piastres. + +Mr. Damer, who was by no means a close man in his money dealings, +opened his eyes with surprise, and mildly expostulated; M. Delabordeau, +who was rather a close man in his reckonings, immediately buttoned up +his breeches pocket and declared that he should decline to mount the +Pyramid at all at that price; and then Mr. Ingram descended to the +combat. + +The protestations of the men were fearful. They declared, with loud +voices, eager actions, and manifold English oaths, that an attempt was +being made to rob them. They had a right to demand the sums which they +were charging, and it was a shame that English gentlemen should come +and take the bread out of their mouths. And so they screeched, +gesticulated, and swore, and frightened poor Mrs. Damer almost into +fits. + +But at last it was settled and away they started, the sheikh declaring +that the bargain had been made at so low a rate as to leave him not one +piastre for himself. Each man had an Arab on each side of him, and +Miss Dawkins and Miss Damer had each, in addition, one behind. Mrs. +Damer was so frightened as altogether to have lost all ambition to +ascend. She sat below on a fragment of stone, with the three dragomans +standing around her as guards; but even with the three dragomans the +attacks on her were so frequent, and as she declared afterwards she was +so bewildered, that she never had time to remember that she had come +there from England to see the Pyramids, and that she was now +immediately under them. + +The boys, utterly ignoring their guides, scrambled up quicker than the +Arabs could follow them. Mr. Damer started off at a pace which soon +brought him to the end of his tether, and from that point was dragged +up by the sheer strength of his assistants; thereby accomplishing the +wishes of the men, who induce their victims to start as rapidly as +possible, in order that they may soon find themselves helpless from +want of wind. Mr. Ingram endeavoured to attach himself to Fanny, and +she would have been nothing loth to have him at her right hand instead +of the hideous brown, shrieking, one-eyed Arab who took hold of her. +But it was soon found that any such arrangement was impossible. Each +guide felt that if he lost his own peculiar hold he would lose his +prey, and held on, therefore, with invincible tenacity. Miss Dawkins +looked, too, as though she had thought to be attended to by some +Christian cavalier, but no Christian cavalier was forthcoming. M. +Delabordeau was the wisest, for he took the matter quietly, did as he +was bid, and allowed the guides nearly to carry him to the top of the +edifice. + +"Ha! so this is the top of the Pyramid, is it?" said Mr. Damer, +bringing out his words one by one, being terribly out of breath. "Very +wonderful, very wonderful, indeed!" + +"It is wonderful," said Miss Dawkins, whose breath had not failed her +in the least, "very wonderful, indeed! Only think, Mr. Damer, you +might travel on for days and days, till days became months, through +those interminable sands, and yet you would never come to the end of +them. Is it not quite stupendous?" + +"Ah, yes, quite,--puff, puff"--said Mr. Damer striving to regain his +breath. + +Mr. Damer was now at her disposal; weak and worn with toil and travel, +out of breath, and with half his manhood gone; if ever she might +prevail over him so as to procure from his mouth an assent to that Nile +proposition, it would be now. And after all, that Nile proposition was +the best one now before her. She did not quite like the idea of +starting off across the Great Desert without any lady, and was not sure +that she was prepared to be fallen in love with by M. Delabordeau, even +if there should ultimately be any readiness on the part of that +gentleman to perform the role of lover. With Mr. Ingram the matter was +different, nor was she so diffident of her own charms as to think it +altogether impossible that she might succeed, in the teeth of that +little chit, Fanny Damer. That Mr. Ingram would join the party up the +Nile she had very little doubt; and then there would be one place left +for her. She would thus, at any rate, become commingled with a most +respectable family, who might be of material service to her. + +Thus actuated she commenced an earnest attack upon Mr. Damer. + +"Stupendous!" she said again, for she was fond of repeating favourite +words. "What a wondrous race must have been those Egyptian kings of +old!" + +"I dare say they were," said Mr. Damer, wiping his brow as he sat upon +a large loose stone, a fragment lying on the flat top of the Pyramid, +one of those stones with which the complete apex was once made, or was +once about to be made. + +"A magnificent race! so gigantic in their conceptions! Their ideas +altogether overwhelm us poor, insignificant, latter-day mortals. They +built these vast Pyramids; but for us, it is task enough to climb to +their top." + +"Quite enough," ejaculated Mr. Damer. + +But Mr. Damer would not always remain weak and out of breath, and it +was absolutely necessary for Miss Dawkins to hurry away from Cheops and +his tomb, to Thebes and Karnac. + +"After seeing this it is impossible for any one with a spark of +imagination to leave Egypt without going farther a-field." + +Mr. Damer merely wiped his brow and grunted. This Miss Dawkins took as +a signal of weakness, and went on with her task perseveringly. + +"For myself, I have resolved to go up, at any rate, as far as Asouan +and the first cataract. I had thought of acceding to the wishes of a +party who are going across the Great Desert by Mount Sinai to +Jerusalem; but the kindness of yourself and Mrs. Damer is so great, and +the prospect of joining in your boat is so pleasurable, that I have +made up my mind to accept your very kind offer." + +This, it will be acknowledged, was bold on the part of Miss Dawkins; +but what will not audacity effect? To use the slang of modern +language, cheek carries everything nowadays. And whatever may have +been Miss Dawkins's deficiencies, in this virtue she was not deficient. + +"I have made up my mind to accept your very kind offer," she said, +shining on Mr. Damer with her blandest smile. + +What was a stout, breathless, perspiring, middle-aged gentleman to do +under such circumstances? Mr. Damer was a man who, in most matters, +had his own way. That his wife should have given such an invitation +without consulting him, was, he knew, quite impossible. She would as +soon have thought of asking all those Arab guides to accompany them. +Nor was it to be thought of that he should allow himself to be +kidnapped into such an arrangement by the impudence of any Miss +Dawkins. But there was, he felt, a difficulty in answering such a +proposition from a young lady with a direct negative, especially while +he was so scant of breath. So he wiped his brow again, and looked at +her. + +"But I can only agree to this on one understanding," continued Miss +Dawkins, "and that is, that I am allowed to defray my own full share of +the expense of the journey." + +Upon hearing this Mr. Damer thought that he saw his way out of the +wood. "Wherever I go, Miss Dawkins, I am always the paymaster myself," +and this he contrived to say with some sternness, palpitating though he +still was; and the sternness which was deficient in his voice he +endeavoured to put into his countenance. + +But he did not know Miss Dawkins. "Oh, Mr. Damer," she said, and as +she spoke her smile became almost blander than it was before; "oh, Mr. +Damer, I could not think of suffering you to be so liberal; I could +not, indeed. But I shall be quite content that you should pay +everything, and let me settle with you in one sum afterwards." + +Mr. Damer's breath was now rather more under his own command. "I am +afraid, Miss Dawkins," he said, "that Mrs. Damer's weak state of health +will not admit of such an arrangement." + +"What, about the paying?" + +"Not only as to that, but we are a family party, Miss Dawkins; and +great as would be the benefit of your society to all of us, in Mrs. +Damer's present state of health, I am afraid--in short, you would not +find it agreeable.--And therefore--" this he added, seeing that she was +still about to persevere--"I fear that we must forego the advantage you +offer." + +And then, looking into his face, Miss Dawkins did perceive that even +her audacity would not prevail. + +"Oh, very well," she said, and moving from the stone on which she had +been sitting, she walked off, carrying her head very high, to a corner +of the Pyramid from which she could look forth alone towards the sands +of Libya. + +In the mean time another little overture was being made on the top of +the same Pyramid,--an overture which was not received quite in the same +spirit. While Mr. Damer was recovering his breath for the sake of +answering Miss Dawkins, Miss Damer had walked to the further corner of +the square platform on which they were placed, and there sat herself +down with her face turned towards Cairo. Perhaps it was not singular +that Mr. Ingram should have followed her. + +This would have been very well if a dozen Arabs had not also followed +them. But as this was the case, Mr. Ingram had to play his game under +some difficulty. He had no sooner seated himself beside her than they +came and stood directly in front of the seat, shutting out the view, +and by no means improving the fragrance of the air around them. + +"And this, then, Miss Damer, will be our last excursion together," he +said, in his tenderest, softest tone. + +"De good Englishman will gib de poor Arab one little backsheish," said +an Arab, putting out his hand and shaking Mr. Ingram's shoulder. + +"Yes, yes, yes; him gib backsheish," said another. + +"Him berry good man," said a third, putting up his filthy hand, and +touching Mr. Ingram's face. + +"And young lady berry good, too; she give backsheish to poor Arab." + +"Yes," said a fourth, preparing to take a similar liberty with Miss +Damer. + +This was too much for Mr. Ingram. He had already used very positive +language in his endeavour to assure his tormentors that they would not +get a piastre from him. But this only changed their soft persuasions +into threats. Upon hearing which, and upon seeing what the man +attempted to do in his endeavour to get money from Miss Damer, he +raised his stick, and struck first one and then the other as violently +as he could upon their heads. + +Any ordinary civilised men would have been stunned by such blows, for +they fell on the bare foreheads of the Arabs; but the objects of the +American's wrath merely skulked away; and the others, convinced by the +only arguments which they understood, followed in pursuit of victims +who might be less pugnacious. + +It is hard for a man to be at once tender and pugnacious--to be +sentimental, while he is putting forth his physical strength with all +the violence in his power. It is difficult, also, for him to be gentle +instantly after having been in a rage. So he changed his tactics at +the moment, and came to the point at once in a manner befitting his +present state of mind. + +"Those vile wretches have put me in such a heat," he said, "that I +hardly know what I am saying. But the fact is this, Miss Damer, I +cannot leave Cairo without knowing--. You understand what I mean, Miss +Damer." + +"Indeed I do not, Mr. Ingram; except that I am afraid you mean +nonsense." + +"Yes, you do; you know that I love you. I am sure you must know it. +At any rate you know it now." + +"Mr. Ingram, you should not talk in such a way." + +"Why should I not? But the truth is, Fanny, I can talk in no other +way. I do love you dearly. Can you love me well enough to go and be +my wife in a country far away from your own?" + +Before she left the top of the Pyramid Fanny Damer had said that she +would try. + +Mr. Ingram was now a proud and happy man, and seemed to think the steps +of the Pyramid too small for his elastic energy. But Fanny feared that +her troubles were to come. There was papa--that terrible bugbear on +all such occasions. What would papa say? She was sure her papa would +not allow her to marry and go so far away from her own family and +country. For herself, she liked the Americans--always had liked them; +so she said;--would desire nothing better than to live among them. But +papa! And Fanny sighed as she felt that all the recognised miseries of +a young lady in love were about to fall upon her. + +Nevertheless, at her lover's instance, she promised, and declared, in +twenty different loving phrases, that nothing on earth should ever make +her false to her love or to her lover. + +"Fanny, where are you? Why are you not ready to come down?" shouted +Mr. Damer, not in the best of tempers. He felt that he had almost been +unkind to an unprotected female, and his heart misgave him. And yet it +would have misgiven him more had he allowed himself to be entrapped by +Miss Dawkins. + +"I am quite ready, papa," said Fanny, running up to him--for it may be +understood that there is quite room enough for a young lady to run on +the top of the Pyramid. + +"I am sure I don't know where you have been all the time," said Mr. +Damer; "and where are those two boys?" + +Fanny pointed to the top of the other Pyramid, and there they were, +conspicuous with their red caps. + +"And M. Delabordeau?" + +"Oh! he has gone down, I think;--no, he is there with Miss Dawkins." +And in truth Miss Dawkins was leaning on his arm most affectionately, +as she stooped over and looked down upon the ruins below her. + +"And where is that fellow, Ingram?" said Mr. Damer, looking about him. +"He is always out of the way when he's wanted." + +To this Fanny said nothing. Why should she? She was not Mr. Ingram's +keeper. + +And then they all descended, each again with his proper number of Arabs +to hurry and embarrass him; and they found Mr. Damer at the bottom, +like a piece of sugar covered with flies. She was heard to declare +afterwards that she would not go to the Pyramids again, not if they +were to be given to her for herself, as ornaments for her garden. + +The picnic lunch among the big stones at the foot of the Pyramid was +not a very gay affair. Miss Dawkins talked more than any one else, +being determined to show that she bore her defeat gallantly. Her +conversation, however, was chiefly addressed to M. Delabordeau, and he +seemed to think more of his cold chicken and ham than he did of her wit +and attention. + +Fanny hardly spoke a word. There was her father before her and she +could not eat, much less talk, as she thought of all that she would +have to go through. What would he say to the idea of having an +American for a son-in-law? + +Nor was Mr. Ingram very lively. A young man when he has been just +accepted, never is so. His happiness under the present circumstances +was, no doubt, intense, but it was of a silent nature. + +And then the interior of the building had to be visited. To tell the +truth none of the party would have cared to perform this feat had it +not been for the honour of the thing. To have come from Paris, New +York, or London, to the Pyramids, and then not to have visited the very +tomb of Cheops, would have shown on the part of all of them an +indifference to subjects of interest which would have been altogether +fatal to their character as travellers. And so a party for the +interior was made up. + +Miss Damer when she saw the aperture through which it was expected that +she should descend, at once declared for staying with her mother. Miss +Dawkins, however, was enthusiastic for the journey. "Persons with so +very little command over their nerves might really as well stay at +home," she said to Mr. Ingram, who glowered at her dreadfully for +expressing such an opinion about his Fanny. + +This entrance into the Pyramids is a terrible task, which should be +undertaken by no lady. Those who perform it have to creep down, and +then to be dragged up, through infinite dirt, foul smells, and bad air; +and when they have done it, they see nothing. But they do earn the +gratification of saying that they have been inside a Pyramid. + +"Well, I've done that once," said Mr. Damer, coming out, "and I do not +think that any one will catch me doing it again. I never was in such a +filthy place in my life." + +"Oh, Fanny! I am so glad you did not go; I am sure it is not fit for +ladies," said poor Mrs. Damer, forgetful of her friend Miss Dawkins. + +"I should have been ashamed of myself," said Miss Dawkins, bristling +up, and throwing back her head as she stood, "if I had allowed any +consideration to have prevented my visiting such a spot. If it be not +improper for men to go there, how can it be improper for women?" + +"I did not say improper, my dear," said Mrs. Damer, apologetically. + +"And as for the fatigue, what can a woman be worth who is afraid to +encounter as much as I have now gone through for the sake of visiting +the last resting-place of such a king as Cheops?" And Miss Dawkins, as +she pronounced the last words, looked round her with disdain upon poor +Fanny Damer. + +"But I meant the dirt," said Mrs. Damer. + +"Dirt!" ejaculated Miss Dawkins, and then walked away. Why should she +now submit her high tone of feeling to the Damers, or why care longer +for their good opinion? Therefore she scattered contempt around her as +she ejaculated the last word, "dirt." + +And then the return home! "I know I shall never get there," said Mrs. +Damer, looking piteously up into her husband's face. + +"Nonsense, my dear; nonsense; you must get there." Mrs. Damer groaned, +and acknowledged in her heart that she must,--either dead or alive. + +"And, Jefferson," said Fanny, whispering--for there had been a moment +since their descent in which she had been instructed to call him by his +Christian name--"never mind talking to me going home. I will ride by +mamma. Do you go with papa and put him in good humour; and it he says +anything about the lords and the bishops, don't you contradict him, you +know." + +What will not a man do for love? Mr. Ingram promised. + +And in this way they started; the two boys led the van; then came Mr. +Damer and Mr. Ingram, unusually and unpatriotically acquiescent as to +England's aristocratic propensities; then Miss Dawkins riding, alas! +alone; after her, M. Delabordeau, also alone,--the ungallant Frenchman! +And the rear was brought up by Mrs. Damer and her daughter, flanked on +each side by a dragoman, with a third dragoman behind them. + +And in this order they went back to Cairo, riding their donkeys, and +crossing the ferry solemnly, and, for the most part, silently. Mr. +Ingram did talk, as he had an important object in view,--that of +putting Mr. Damer into a good humour. + +In this he succeeded so well that by the time they had remounted, after +crossing the Nile, Mr. Damer opened his heart to his companion on the +subject that was troubling him, and told him all about Miss Dawkins. + +"I don't see why we should have a companion that we don't like for +eight or ten weeks, merely because it seems rude to refuse a lady." + +"Indeed, I agree with you," said Mr. Ingram; "I should call it weak- +minded to give way in such a case." + +"My daughter does not like her at all," continued Mr. Damer. + +"Nor would she be a nice companion for Miss Damer; not according to my +way of thinking," said Mr. Ingram. + +"And as to my having asked her, or Mrs. Damer having asked her! Why, +God bless my soul, it is pure invention on the woman's part!" + +"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Ingram; "I must say she plays her game well; +but then she is an old soldier, and has the benefit of experience." +What would Miss Dawkins have said had she known that Mr. Ingram called +her an old soldier? + +"I don't like the kind of thing at all," said Mr. Damer, who was very +serious upon the subject. "You see the position in which I am placed. +I am forced to be very rude, or--" + +"I don't call it rude at all." + +"Disobliging, then; or else I must have all my comfort invaded and +pleasure destroyed by, by, by--" And Mr. Damer paused, being at a loss +for an appropriate name for Miss Dawkins. + +"By an unprotected female," suggested Mr. Ingram. + +"Yes, just so. I am as fond of pleasant company as anybody; but then I +like to choose it myself." + +"So do I," said Mr. Ingram, thinking of his own choice. + +"Now, Ingram, if you would join us, we should be delighted." + +"Upon my word, sir, the offer is too flattering," said Ingram, +hesitatingly; for he felt that he could not undertake such a journey +until Mr. Damer knew on what terms he stood with Fanny. + +"You are a terrible democrat," said Mr. Damer, laughing; "but then, on +that matter, you know, we could agree to differ." + +"Exactly so," said Mr. Ingram, who had not collected his thoughts or +made up his mind as to what he had better say and do, on the spur of +the moment. + +"Well, what do you say to it?" said Mr. Damer, encouragingly. But +Ingram paused before he answered. + +"For Heaven's sake, my dear fellow, don't have the slightest hesitation +in refusing, if you don't like the plan." + +"The fact is, Mr. Damer, I should like it too well." + +"Like it too well?" + +"Yes, sir, and I may as well tell you now as later. I had intended +this evening to have asked for your permission to address your +daughter." + +"God bless my soul!" said Mr. Damer, looking as though a totally new +idea had now been opened to him. + +"And under these circumstances, I will now wait and see whether or no +you will renew your offer." + +"God bless my soul!" said Mr. Damer, again. It often does strike an +old gentleman as very odd that any man should fall in love with his +daughter, whom he has not ceased to look upon as a child. The case is +generally quite different with mothers. They seem to think that every +young man must fall in love with their girls. + +"And have you said anything to Fanny about this?" asked Mr. Damer. + +"Yes, sir, I have her permission to speak to you." + +"God bless my soul!" said Mr. Damer; and by this time they had arrived +at Shepheard's Hotel. + +"Oh, mamma," said Fanny, as soon as she found herself alone with her +mother that evening, "I have something that I must tell you." + +"Oh, Fanny, don't tell me anything to-night, for I am a great deal too +tired to listen." + +"But oh, mamma, pray;--you must listen to this; indeed you must." And +Fanny knelt down at her mother's knee, and looked beseechingly up into +her face. + +"What is it, Fanny? You know that all my bones are sore, and I am so +tired that I am almost dead." + +"Mamma, Mr. Ingram has--" + +"Has what, my dear? has he done anything wrong?" + +"No, mamma: but he has;--he has proposed to me." And Fanny, bursting +into tears, hid her face in her mother's lap. + +And thus the story was told on both sides of the house. On the next +day, as a matter of course, all the difficulties and dangers of such a +marriage as that which was now projected were insisted on by both +father and mother. It was improper; it would cause a severing of the +family not to be thought of; it would be an alliance of a dangerous +nature, and not at all calculated to insure happiness; and, in short, +it was impossible. On that day, therefore, they all went to bed very +unhappy. But on the next day, as was also a matter of course, seeing +that there were no pecuniary difficulties, the mother and father were +talked over, and Mr. Ingram was accepted as a son-in-law. It need +hardly be said that the offer of a place in Mr. Damer's boat was again +made, and that on this occasion it was accepted without hesitation. + +There was an American Protestant clergyman resident in Cairo, with +whom, among other persons, Miss Dawkins had become acquainted. Upon +this gentleman or upon his wife Miss Dawkins called a few days after +the journey to the Pyramid, and finding him in his study, thus +performed her duty to her neighbour, - + +"You know your countryman Mr. Ingram, I think?" said she. + +"Oh, yes; very intimately." + +"If you have any regard for him, Mr. Burton," such was the gentleman's +name, "I think you should put him on his guard." + +"On his guard against what?" said Mr. Burton with a serious air, for +there was something serious in the threat of impending misfortune as +conveyed by Miss Dawkins. + +"Why," said she, "those Damers, I fear, are dangerous people." + +"Do you mean that they will borrow money of him?" + +"Oh, no; not that, exactly; but they are clearly setting their cap at +him." + +"Setting their cap at him?" + +"Yes; there is a daughter, you know; a little chit of a thing; and I +fear Mr. Ingram may be caught before he knows where he is. It would be +such a pity, you know. He is going up the river with them, I hear. +That, in his place, is very foolish. They asked me, but I positively +refused." + +Mr. Burton remarked that "In such a matter as that Mr. Ingram would be +perfectly able to take care of himself." + +"Well, perhaps so; but seeing what was going on, I thought it my duty +to tell you." And so Miss Dawkins took her leave. + +Mr. Ingram did go up the Nile with the Damers, as did an old friend of +the Damers who arrived from England. And a very pleasant trip they had +of it. And, as far as the present historian knows, the two lovers were +shortly afterwards married in England. + +Poor Miss Dawkins was left in Cairo for some time on her beam ends. +But she was one of those who are not easily vanquished. After an +interval of ten days she made acquaintance with an Irish family--having +utterly failed in moving the hard heart of M. Delabordeau--and with +these she proceeded to Constantinople. They consisted of two brothers +and a sister, and were, therefore, very convenient for matrimonial +purposes. But nevertheless, when I last heard of Miss Dawkins, she was +still an unprotected female. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of An Unprotected Female, by Trollope + diff --git a/old/unpfm10.zip b/old/unpfm10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac1b346 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/unpfm10.zip |