Hundreds of years after I am dead the Sphinx would be probably as it is now—silent, grave, crouching there under the scorching sun, its eyes of stone gazing beyond the world of men, and seeming for ever to be smiling ironically on the folly of human vanities and aspirations. I looked at the wonderful beast that lay gazing westward, with mocking, calm and fathomless eyes of everlasting mystery, and was conscious of a sudden sense of smallness. If it hadn’t been so hot I should have meditated on the fragility of human greatness. A legend says that Mary, Joseph, and the Holy Child halted here on their long journey, when they fled to the land of Egypt to escape the fury of King Herod, and that the Virgin laid the tired Christ between the paws of the Sphinx to sleep. We had brought a small kodak with us, and Mahmoud immortalised me installed on the back of my peaceable courser, and my husband perched on his high quadruped, both of us surrounded by a multitude of dusky sons of the Sahara. When we got to our carriage we amply recompensed the services of our Bedouin followers, who continued to run after our carriage demanding more tips and shouting “Baksheesh, Sahib, baksheesh!” Mahmoud put out of himself by their effrontery, rose in his seat looking remarkably ferocious, and began to throw stones at them, at which the whole crowd took to their heels. We had to return full speed to Cairo, before the drawbridge was raised for the ships to pass; we tore through the bridge which is a mile long, scattering the foot-passengers who happened to be in our way to right and left.