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[Page 84]
real thing to see mobs of sheep and goats together and donkeys and camels feeding on the stubble with their sheppards watching them to keep them off the potatoes & lucerne. There are no fences anywhere. In one paddock, or rather patch; you cant call 'em paddocks I thought the sheaves looked awfully regular and then I saw a reaper & binder standing in the middle of it. By jove it was funny but it did not look so out of place because I am sure it was made about Moses's time and left out in the weather ever since. I'd love to see them working it. I'll bet they have a camel and a buffalo with a donkey in the lead and a man to drive each one.
They have a curious way of threshing here – They stick all their hay round in a big ring on some hard ground and then drive round on the inside edge of the circle with an affair like a one way disc, only they are plain rings, not discs, with two buffalos in it.
This threshes it all out and there is a man working behind with a broom sweeping it all into the middle into a heap and then at the finish they have it in a heap ready for winnowing – but I have not seen them doing that yet.
Soon after leaving Cairo you can see the Pyramids on ahead and you feel quite disappointed because they look quite small and only about a mile away, but you go on and on in the car, and it is really over 10 miles and the Pyramids get bigger & bigger until you get up to them and they are a terrible size. We arrived at Mena House which is the foot of the rise the Pyramids are on. Here we got out of the car, had cool drinks and then go donkeys and camels and rode up the hill.
Sister got a donkey with a side saddle and myself & another chap got a camel as they hold two. The donkeys were 3 Pt and the Camels 5 Pts each but I was frightened a donkey would let my legs drag. Before going up a nigger made me buy a coin from him which he said was an old Roman one found in the excivations; it was old and battered looking and a good fake so I thought it was worth the ½ Piastre. I'll send it home when I get a chance.
Well we rode up past the big Pyramid and down to the Sphinx where we all got off and went into the Temple of the Sphinx, which is a few yards over to the right of the Sphinx and is not really the Temple of the Sphinx as they have found a temple in the Sphinx itself but it is always known as the Temple