Page 28 - To Dragma November 1924

TO DRAG MA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 23

The T a j Mahal of Agra is of purest white marble iniaid with
precious stones of jade, cornelian, quartz, topaz, and its back-
ground is the blue, blue sky. Across the river f r o m the T a j
are the old castles of India's show-loving rulers. One of
the most fascinating days 1 have ever spent in my life was
the one when I roamed through those old palaces, walls, floors,
ceilings of purest marble inlaid with precious and semi-precious
stones, banquet halls, reception halls, throne rooms, jewel rooms,
mosques, sleeping chambers, and baths—everything of yellow or
white marble and precious stones. From this palace five under-
ground passages led to various towns, one being to Delhi, 125
miles away. As one walked through these marble halls one could
faintly visualize the glances of ancient India.

Back to Bombay and then on to Suez where we took the train
for Cairo. Cairo w i t h its white sand, white stone round-domed
mosques and slender minarets, with its gaily robed men and veiled
women. Driving out of Cairo about twelve miles along a well
paved road lined with great flowering trees and passing, along
our route, many camel trains, we came to the Pyramids and the
Sphinx. On the edge of the yellow desert they rise, great monu-
ments to ancient Egypt's power.

From Cairo we went down to Luxor where we visited the
ruins of Luxor and Kamac. The ruins of mammoth temples
erected, no one knows how. Here reigned Rameses I I , Cleopatra,
and the Queen of Sheba. There still remains one of Cleopatra's
needles. I t is 99 feet high and is cut f r o m one solid piece of
granite. I n all these ruins there were dozens of great stone
statues of Rameses I I , some of them 20 and even 40 feet high
and around at the side of each statue against his right leg was a
tiny statue, 2 or 3 feet high, of his queen. Women weren't very
prominent in those days.

We took a tiny sailboat across the Nile and of course were
held up f o r "Bachshees" halfway across. On the other side
donkeys and donkey men were waiting for us for the trip to the
Valley of the Kings, a twelve mile donkey trip over white sand
in the white heat. The Valley of the Kings is just a pocket i n
the sand. Not a green thing anywhere, not even one blade of
grass, just whiteness, sky, air and earth. W e saw the outside
of King Tut's Tomb; it was rocked up and guards were stationed
at the closed entrance. W e went into Rameses H'nds tomb and