In the dampest and gloomiest days of the British winter, the golfer’s fancy often flies to Riviera and Egyptian courses; and a while later the golfer follows his fancy, so that he may have a dry game in the sunshine again. Golf in Egypt is a thing to itself. “Through the green” it is mere sandy desert, for bunkers there are chiefly mud walls, and the putting “greens,” which vary a little on the different courses, are generally made of rolled mud. Yet this golf is eagerly participated in and most thoroughly enjoyed by the large British population. They would not be without it for a thousand Pyramids. They have their competitions and they have a championship of their own. Egyptian golf has a curious history. It is nineteen years since the game was first played in the Land of Pyramids--that is to say, since two players drove from a tee and holed out on what they called a “green”; but some time before that a ball was hit by a golfer. The circumstances are remarkable and are worthy of the baptism of an ancient country like Egypt to a Royal and Ancient game. Rameses II. and Cleopatra would have approved. This is the true story. A full-blooded Scottish golfer, imbued with all the best traditions, and all the better for being a clergyman, none other than the well-known Rev. J. H. Tait of Aberlady, went for a holiday to Egypt, and duly climbed to the top of the Great Pyramid. Arrived there he rested, and to do so the more effectually he put his hands into his pockets, when, curiously enough, he felt a golf ball in one of them. In a moment the golfer was ablaze in the parson, and he determined that right there on the summit of the Great Pyramid of Cheops he would play the game for the first time in Egypt. So he teed up the ball and addressed it most elaborately and conscientiously with his umbrella, for, of course, he had no clubs with him. There were none in Egypt. Then he made a bonny St. Andrews swing: the ball went spinning away through the fine desert atmosphere and was never seen again--by the man who hit it, at all events. There were some great jokes about this shot afterwards. They said that in future days some old antiquary would find this ball in the desert sand, and would try to make out the hieroglyphics (the name of the maker, Tom Morris) upon it. As they would then be indistinct it would be suggested that they stood for Moses, and the inference would be that the lawgiver of Israel was a golfer.