At the foot of the pyramid I met an Arabian chief, a gesture from whom showed me that he belonged to the mystic brotherhood of Free Masons, which gave rise to warm handshaking, and an interesting conversation through the aid of my interpreter. In pressing the hand of this son of the desert sighing under despotism, and reading the feelings of his heart through the wrinkles of his face, while he talked of the great country in the West, whence I came, and whose free institutions, granting equal rights to all, were to him a heavenly light pointing forward and upward, I felt more deeply than ever before what a blessing it is to be a citizen of a commonwealth where a man is measured, not by his birth or his wealth, but by his own personal merits. [Illustration: THE PYRAMIDS AND THE SPHINX.] Returning to Cairo the remainder of the day was spent in the Boulak museum, among the most wonderful antiquities of the world. Shortly before there had been discovered in the Nubian hills, beneath the temple Dayr-el-Baheree, a burial place containing the bodies of the old Egyptian kings. These had been brought to Cairo, where a separate wing of the museum had been opened for their keeping, and there they lay in their coffins in a fine state of preservation, owing to the Egyptian method of embalming. There were the very men who built the pyramids; there was Amases I., the founder of the new empire, Thotmes III., the great Sethi I., and his famous son Ramses II., and that Pharaoh who is supposed to have brought up Moses; there was also his daughter Mirrhis, who afterward became his queen, the same who found Moses as an infant floating in the Nile. [Illustration: RAMSES II., WHEN YOUNG.] Their bodies--yes, even their features--were well preserved. They lie in coffins of wood, which show skilled workmanship, the corners being carefully dovetailed together. Even their shrouds and ornaments of flowers and herbs show plainly that the style of dressing the dead among the Egyptians four thousand years ago was very much the same as it is now with us. [Illustration: RAMSES II.] When I stood among the ruins of Pompeii or of the tower Sarnath, the home of Buddha, I thought nothing could be more wonderful and awe-inspiring than those hoary monuments; but here lay before my eyes the very man who for many years was a friend and protector of Moses, with his wonderful, commanding features and eagle nose, his long dark hair, which lay in thick folds under his neck. The arms, rings, jewels and other ornaments worn by those kings and their queens, formed part of this wonderful collection, and, by their skillful workmanship, showed the high degree of civilization of the ancient Egyptians.