While I often travel alone, I rarely feel alone. Always, some writer, some friend, has been there before—normally Mark Twain. The pyramids at Giza were no exception—Mark Twain was there and I saw them through his eyes.
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| The Pyramids at Giza |
“We suffered torture no pen can describe from the hungry appeals for bucksheesh... Why try to call up the traditions of vanished Egyptian grandeur; why try to fancy Egypt following dead Rameses to his tomb in the Pyramid, or the long multitude of Israel departing over the desert yonder? Why try to think at all? The thing was impossible. One must bring his meditations cut and dried, or else cut and dry them afterward.”
Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
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| Panorama from the desert |
Much has changed since Twain’s visit, but much remains the same. Today, instead of hauling tourists to the top of the Pyramids, the local tourist industry besets the wary and the unwary traveler with innumerable offers of camel rides, horse rides, “free” turbans, opportunities to climb a pyramid, and, of course, souvenirs. I had one guy, trying to get me to ride his camel, follow me around for an hour. And that was just one of many…
I longed to pause, to let my mind drift away to ancient Egypt, to the conquering pharaohs, the elaborate rituals, the pompous priests… to Akhetaten, Thebes, Bubastis… to Ramses II, Thutmose III, Cleopatra… Yet, it was impossible—to pause was to indicate weakness, a desire to be hectored into a camel ride, a Pepsi, a picture. So I walked. I walked around the Cheops, down to the Sphinx, up to the middle Pyramid, out into the desert, back to the pyramids, and on and on, trying to take in the beauty, the history, immensity of the place.
At first glance, the pyramids seemed less grand than I had imagined, but the longer I stayed, the greater, the more impressive they became. The sphinx likewise—once again, I defer to Mark Twain:
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| The Sphinx |
“After years of waiting, it was before me at last. The great face was so sad, so earnest, so longing, so patient. There was a dignity not of earth in its mien, and in its countenance a benignity such as never any thing human wore. It was stone, but it seemed sentient. If ever image of stone thought, it was thinking. It was looking toward the verge of the landscape, yet looking at nothing -- nothing but distance and vacancy. It was looking over and beyond every thing of the present, and far into the past. It was gazing out over the ocean of Time -- over lines of century-waves which, further and further receding, closed nearer and nearer together, and blended at last into one unbroken tide, away toward the horizon of remote antiquity. It was thinking of the wars of departed ages; of the empires it had seen created and destroyed; of the nations whose birth it had witnessed, whose progress it had watched, whose annihilation it had noted; of the joy and sorrow, the life and death, the grandeur and decay, of five thousand slow revolving years. It was the type of an attribute of man -- of a faculty of his heart and brain. It was MEMORY -- RETROSPECTION -- wrought into visible, tangible form. All who know what pathos there is in memories of days that are accomplished and faces that have vanished -- albeit only a trifling score of years gone by -- will have some appreciation of the pathos that dwells in these grave eyes that look so steadfastly back upon the things they knew before History was born -- before Tradition had being -- things that were, and forms that moved, in a vague era which even Poetry and Romance scarce know of -- and passed one by one away and left the stony dreamer solitary in the midst of a strange new age, and uncomprehended
scenes.”
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| Snagged tourists |
Since Mark Twain’s day, the city of Cairo (technically Giza) has spread up to the very foot of the Pyramids: McDonalds, KFCs, shopping malls, and busy highways compete against the serenity of the place, but despite it all, something of the long-forgotten past hangs over the area, whispering of days, passions, and peoples long gone and forgotten… that is if you're left in peace long enough to think…
Additional Pictures from the Pyramids at Giza
