If you wish to know yourself, travel by yourself; and, egad! you will never wish to renew the intimacy. I can't make out the Sphinx; but I suppose it must have been the first likeness taken in stone. If the Egyptians could not make better riddles than that, they were perfectly right in never trying their hands upon another. They say this place is very romantic; but, on my word, I cannot see it, and I have looked everywhere. If there be a romance, it can only be a flying volume of Sand. I recollect my eyes filling several times, and certainly I cried once till I was nearly blinded; but on the whole I prefer the Waverly Novels. If the Pyramids had been in Paris, they would have been broken long ago for barricades. We are strange creatures; we leave London because it is empty, and come to the Great Desert for a change; for myself, I like London best; there may not be a soul, but you can get a sherry-cobbler, and there is the waiter at all events to speak to. What is Society? Running away from one's self; but here you only run to meet yourself. You might as well turn hermit, or toll-man on Southwark Bridge. I have met with but one sign of civilization since I have been here, and that was an empty soda-water bottle off Cairo! I cannot see the fun of climbing up that Great Pyramid. It is immense labour, and, like an election, is attended with bribery and corruption at every step, for you have to pay those greedy Moors before they will give you a hand, or the smallest lift. I could not help shouting out, as I saw a big fat alderman-looking fellow going up, "Twopence, Moor, and up goes the donkey!" It was very vulgar, but I could not help it. It is time that those forty centuries were relieved. I know of but one man to do it, and that's Widdicombe. I am certain solitude begets contempt. If I were to stop here another day I should positively hate myself. I had the bump of travelling, but have quite lost it now, after travelling for a week on a camel. Stupid people express their astonishment at the quantity of stones collected by the Egyptians to build the Pyramids, and never bestow the smallest wonder at the immense collection of dust; and yet the one is just as wonderful as the other, and, I am sure, much more difficult to get over. Decidedly travelling in the plains of Egypt will never be comfortable till they introduce watering-carts. If you wish to ascertain how slowly the sand of human life trickles through the minute glass, go to the Great Desert. But I suppose "what must be, must;" in other words, as the Duke of Bedford would say, "Che Sahara, Sahara." But the proverb is rather musty.