Reminiscences; the story of an emigrant (1892) (14580286520)

Identifier: reminiscencessto01matt (find matches)
Title: Reminiscences; the story of an emigrant
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Mattson, Hans, 1832-1893
Subjects: Swedish Americans
Publisher: Saint Paul, D.D. Merrill company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation



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e Nights. In company with afriendfrom America I visited the principal mosques, bazars, parksand other places of interest, and the next day we drove outto the great Cheops pyramid, which is located about eightmiles from the city. Here I again met with a monument ofantiquity which filled me with wonder and admiration. Thepyramid of Cheops was built before the birth of Moses,—yes,before Jacob came down with his sons to Egypt,—and it ispossible that Joseph pointed out the same to his aged fatheras a proof of the greatness of the country and its resources. According to Herodotus one hundred and twenty thou-sand men were occupied twenty yearsinbuildingit. Its basecovers about eleven acres, and its height is about four hun-dred and eighty feet. One can get an approximate idea ofthe enormous mass of material in it, w^hen it is calculatedthat it contains stone enough to build a wall one and a-halff_et thick and ten feet high around all England,—a distance ofnearly nine hundred miles. 276
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278 Story of an Emigrant. The renowned Sphinx is hewn out of the solid rock. It isin a reclining position, and, although partly buried by sand,I could easily trace its back for a distance of thirty paces. At the foot of the pyramid I met an Arabian chief, a gest-ure from whom showed me that he belonged to the mysticbrotherhood of Free Masons, which gave rise to warm hand-shaking, and an interesting conversation through the aid oimy interpreter. In pressing the hand of this son of the desertsighing under despotism, and reading the feelings of hisheart through the wrinkles of his face, while he talked of thegreat country in the West, whence I came, and whose freeinstitutions, granting equal rights to all, were to him a