ed to have piloted rafts of big
men up and down the Nile, and was not to be frowned down by anybody.
He was a gorgeous, oriental dresser, and had a wardrobe as big and
grand as Berry Wall's; so the "Corks" were fortunate indeed in securing
the great man. He was known descriptively as the "Snowball of the
Nile."

The Luxor Temple was near by, and we started right into business.
Gooley gathered us together and gave us a lecture. He said:

"Laydies en genteelmen, ef you plaze: I shall be your guide for a week
and I want you to pay attention to me. I want no disputing of what I
say. I am an honest man; I speak the truth, and I know my beeziness.
You can't expect less; you should not hope for more."

After this explicit statement, Gooley put a roll in his cuffs, cocked
his turban at the correct angle, hitched up his sash, cleared his
throat, and began the business of the day. He uncorked a new bottle of
adjectives in florid description of each wonder as he reached the
ever-lasting wilderness of courts, pillars and obelisks, of
hieroglyphics, bas-reliefs, pylons, hypostyles, colonnades, giant rows
of columns--till he got out of breath and our brains seemed muddled
into a grand pot-pourri done in granite, marble and limestone--but
alas! without salt or pepper! Gooley told us what King Bubastis said,
what Setee I. did--he of the Armchair Dynasty; how Amenophis III. was
no better than he should have been; and that the ladies of those days,
including Cleopatra, painted and wore false hair just as they do now.

Gooley had a vein of sarcastic wit about him. He said:

"You Americans think you invent everything, but you don't: there's the
cake-walk cut on that stone four thousand years ago. The girls do it
in the latest fashion; and over there you will see Queen Hat-shep-set
spanking her child, the young king, in the usual manner"--(and in the
usual place).

"Lots of men would leave their footprints
Time's eternal sands to grace,
Had they gotten mother's slipper
At the proper time and place."

The temples were very hot in the middle of the day, about ninety-five
in the shade, and there was but little air moving, so we sat down for a
rest, and it came to pass that Gooley considered this a good time to
spring his scarabs on us, with the unvarying formula with which he
constantly opened every description:

"Laydies en genteelmen, ef you plaze: you have no doubt heard in Cairo
of the fraudulent imitations