Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 142
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[Page 142]
just looking comfortable. Jerrom the heaviest of all rode a small donkey. I did not think that the little beast could carry the weight but he did, & came home quite friskily. The guide & one of the girls, sometimes two of the girls rode the camels. We went past the great pyramids, posing for a group photograph alongside the Sphynx. Should it come out well you will receive a copy.
The donkeys heads were turned eastward along the line where the sands of the Libyian [Lybian] dessert, (just beneath the plateau of the same dessert), and the fertile lands meet; at times we got on to the lucern patches. Several grave yards were between us and the plateu. Sand to the right of us green feilds to the left of us for every foot of the eight miles. Date palm trees dotted the space between us and the Nile singly and in groves, with villages as brown patches in the landscape, the river marked by more palms, Cairo beyond it, and the commencing plateau of the Arabian dessert in the farthest distance, made up a picture discernible at every point owing to the perfect clearness of the atmosphere.
The sun air and earth were in such jointly satisfactory relationship that all agreed in the opinion that no finer day could have been chosen for the outing. After a time the donkey, Telegraph, taught me that he knew more about the sands and the journey, then, resigned to my fate, he walked or cantered as was his will. But one of his clan kept ahead of him, "Whiskey and Soda" ridden by a girl with long gaiters and no covering for her legs, her steed was challenged many times for the lead but, the gaiters & the donkey would not be supplanted. If you had but seen us. You would have laughed. No one takes notice here. One becomes resigned to both classes of carrying animal, though when he comes first he thinks that nobody will ever see him on a donkey.
The pyramids of Abusir were passed on our way. A pyramid is always begun on the plateau. All near here rise from the eastern end of the plateau of the Lybian dessert.
About 2 p.m. we arrived at our destination. Before lunching were taken into the Tomb of Thi. He a minister of one of the kings about the end of the Vth dynasty. It is a sepulchre fitting for a great man; in the anterooms