Thus the miles glide away, and by and by we approach Turra--a large, new-looking mud village, and the first of any extent that we have yet seen. Some of the houses are whitewashed; a few have glass windows, and many seem to be unfinished. A space of white, stony, glaring plain separates the village from the quarried mountains beyond, the flanks of which show all gashed and hewn away. One great cliff seems to have been cut sheer off for a distance of perhaps half a mile. Where the cuttings are fresh the limestone comes out dazzling white and the long slopes of débris heaped against the foot of the cliffs glisten like snow-drifts in the sun. Yet the outer surface of the mountains is orange-tawny, like the pyramids. As for the piles of rough hewn blocks that lie ranged along the bank ready for transport, they look like salt rather than stone. Here lies moored a whole fleet of cargo boats, laden and lading; and along the tramway that extends from the river side to the quarries we see long trains of mule-carts coming and going. For all the new buildings in Cairo, the khedive’s palaces, the public offices, the smart modern villas, the glaring new streets, the theaters and foot pavements and cafés, all come from these mountains--just as the pyramids did more than six thousand years ago. There are hieroglyphed tablets and sculptured grottoes to be seen in the most ancient part of the quarries, if one were inclined to stop for them at this early stage of the journey; and Champollion tells of two magnificent outlines done in red ink upon the living rock by some master hand of Pharaonic times, the cutting of which was never even begun. A substantial new barrack and an esplanade planted with sycamore figs bring the straggling village to an end. And now, as the afternoon wanes, we draw near to a dense, wide-spreading forest of stately date-palms on the western bank, knowing that beyond them, though unseen, lie the mounds of Memphis and all the wonders of Sakkârah. Then the sun goes down behind the Libyan hills; and the palms stand out black and bronzed against a golden sky; and the pyramids, left far behind, look gray and ghostly in the distance. Presently, when it is quite dusk and the stars are out, we moor for the night at Bedreshayn, which is the nearest point for visiting Sakkârah. There is a railway station here, and also a considerable village, both lying back about half a mile from the river; and the distance from Cairo, which is reckoned at fifteen miles by the line, is probably about eighteen by water. Such was our first day on the Nile. And perhaps, before going farther on our way, I ought to describe the Philæ and introduce Reïs Hassan and his crew.