The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I: Egypt, Gallipoli, Lemnos Island, Sinai PeninsulaCollett, Herbert Brayley
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The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I: Egypt, Gallipoli, Lemnos Island, Sinai Peninsula
Collett, Herbert Brayley
Australia. Australian Army. Battalion, 28th; World War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories -- Australia
The Pyramids are three in number, but vary in size. The largest is that
of Cheops, the second that of Chephren, and the smallest that of
Menkaura. The tomb of Cheops attracts all visitors and, once having been
"done," any curiosity in regard to the remainder is, as a rule, entirely
lacking. There are two ways of "doing" it. One is to climb up the
exterior to the summit, and the other to go inside and visit the King's
and Queen's chambers. No ordinary individual has the strength to achieve
both in the one day. The visit to the top gives the better result in a
magnificent view of Cairo, the Nile, and the surrounding desert, but
gaining this involves a climb to a height of 451 feet by means of the
several courses of stone, each course being about three feet high; nor
is the descent very much easier. To inspect the interior it is necessary
to first ascend about 30 feet to the entrance. Here, on the occasion of
the Western Australians' visit, were met the guides or caretakers
attached to the place. Bedlam instantly broke out. All wanted a job or
"bakshish." Some grabbed the soldiers' sticks, others their boots and
leggings. After much remonstrance, and an occasional hard knock or kick
to some too enthusiastic native, the party, in its stockinged feet,
eventually passed within the entrance. The passage was narrow, low,
steep, and extremely slippery. With an Arab to each hand--as a
precaution against a nasty fall--the soldier, breathing a muggy
atmosphere, sweating at every pore, and filled with repulsion at the
close proximity of his yelling conductors, made a crab-like and painful
progress through darkness over the 220 feet of distance to the King's
Chamber. This apartment, viewed by candlelight or a flare now and then
from a piece of magnesium wire, does not present, beyond some carvings
on the walls, anything of great interest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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