Now, leaving the Nile, and turning directly west, we travel along a road that was constructed a few years ago by the Khedive for the use of the Prince of Wales and party. Unfortunately, I am not informed whether the Prince made this trip on a donkey or not. I know this, however, whether he walked, rode an ass, or was driven in a carriage of state, he enjoyed the Pyramids not one whit more than I do. I can not help enjoying them. They are already looming up before me, clearly outlined against the sky. At first, they seem to swim in a sea of mirage that rises up from the surrounding country—they are composed of such stuff as dreams are made of. But, as I come nearer, that airy nothingness assumes definite shape, and takes on colossal proportions. At last I stand face to face with a Miracle in Stone, the only remaining one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It is at once the most massive and mysterious, the most towering and majestic, the oldest, and yet the most enduring, of all the works of man. It bursts upon me, at once, in all the “flower of its highest perfection.” I go “back down the stream of time,” and breathe the atmosphere of five thousand years ago. I see, in my imagination, thousands and thousands of human slaves, deep down in the bowels of some far off mountain, blasting these stones. I see them piling the stones upon rough barges, and floating them a thousand miles down yonder Nile. I see them out here on the desert, clearing away a thirteen-acre base, on which to erect a hand-made mountain. On this thirteen-acre foundation, I see the Pyramid rise, block after block, course upon course, up, and still up, it goes. These blocks of rock, one of which it takes on an average two hundred men to raise the eighth of an inch from the ground, are lifted high up in the air and swung into their destined places with an exactness that varies not the fraction of an inch. Yes, here is the Pyramid, with its broad base, sloping sides, and cloud-piercing summit; but who were its builders? and where are they? Echo answers, “who? where?” “Forty centuries look down upon us from the Pyramids,” and speak to us in trumpet tones of the folly of human ambition. Think of the straining, the suffering and the sorrowing, that those foolish Pyramid-builders caused, in order to have their bodies preserved, and their memories perpetuated. Their work still stands, but long ago their very bones have been ground into powder, and even their names are unknown to man.