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The same variety of arrangement prevails in the groups of Abûsîr, and in one part of the Sakkarah group. The great pyramid of Sakkarah is not oriented with exactness. The north face is turned 4° 21' E. of the true north. It is not a perfect square, but is elongated from east to west, the sides being 395 and 351 feet. It is built entirely of limestone, quarried from the neighbouring hills.
He called to Hassan, who was riding his swaying mount like a veteran. "What pyramids are those, Hassan?" "Sakkarah," the dragoman replied. "We come back long way around." To the east, then the south, Rick thought. He was by no means sure of what would be waiting, but at least he knew where he was. Sakkarah, a "must" for tourists, Bartouki had said.
Well, he was getting there, even though he had taken the hard way. On the road near Sakkarah a car was waiting, and in it was Kemel Moustafa. The cameleer made the mounts kneel. Rick and Hassan got off, and the man with the camels hurried away without a word. The two walked up to the car. "Thank you for rescuing us," Rick said politely. Moustafa had not spoken.
After these, what can be said for the thousands of statuettes of Osiris, of Isis, of Nephthys, of Horus, of Nefertûm, which have been found in the sands and ruins of Sakkarah, Bubastis, and other cities of the Delta?
The Nile was hung with mist, a trailing cloud unwound from the breast of the Nile-mother. At last the sun touched the minarets of the splendid mosque with shafts of light, and over at Ghizeh and Sakkarah the great pyramids, lifting their heads from the wall of rolling blue mist below, took the morning's crimson radiance with the dignity of four thousand years.
At Sakkarah, under the Fifth Dynasty, and at Abû Simbel, under the Nineteenth Dynasty, we find men with skins as yellow as those of the women; while in the tombs of Thebes and Abydos, about the time of Thothmes IV. and Horemheb, there occur figures with flesh-tints of rose- colour. It must not, however, be supposed that the effect produced by this artificial system was grating or discordant.
Apart from isolated specimens which are picked up everywhere, the Gizeh collection contains a set of fifteen from Sakkarah, forty-one from Tanis, and a dozen from Thebes and Medinet Habû. They were intended partly for the study of bas-reliefs, partly for the study of sculpture proper; and they reveal the method in use for both.
Bartouki described Cairo and promised that he would present them with guidebooks to be read on the way over. He told them about things to do in the ancient city, and listed places that were "musts" for tourists. They included the step pyramid at Sakkarah, the Egyptian Museum, the mosque of Sultan Hassan, and the mosque and college of El Azhar, founded in the ninth century.
His journey so far as Memphis he made in a boat, which sailed on the river of the Tuat. At Memphis he left the boat on the river, and entered a magical boat formed of a serpent's body, and so passed under the mountainous district round about Sakkārah. At or near Saīs he returned to his river boat, and sailing over the great marine lakes of the Delta reached Heliopolis.
The Nile was hung with mist, a trailing cloud unwound from the breast of the Nile-mother. At last the sun touched the minarets of the splendid mosque with shafts of light, and over at Ghizeh and Sakkarah the great pyramids, lifting their heads from the wall of rolling blue mist below, took the morning's crimson radiance with the dignity of four thousand years.
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