TOM SAWYER ABROAD

hundred foot high, just a steep mountain, all built out

of hunks of stone as big as a bureau, and laid up

in perfectly regular layers, like stair-steps. Thirteen

acres, you see, for just one building; it’s a farm. If

it hadn’t been in Sunday-school, I would ‘a’ judged it

was a lie; and outside I was certain of it. And he

said there was a hole in the pyramid, and you could go

in there with candles, and go ever so far up a long

slanting tunnel, and come to a large room in the

stomach of that stone mountain, and there you would

find a big stone chest with a king in it, four thousand

years old. I said to myself, then, if that ain’t a lie I

will eat that king if they will fetch him, for even

Methusalem warn’t that old, and nobody claims it.

As we come a little nearer we see the yaller sand

come to an end in a long straight edge like a blanket,

and on to it was joined, edge to edge, a wide country

of bright green, with a snaky stripe crooking through

it, and Tom said it was the Nile. It made my heart

jump again, for the Nile was another thing that wasn’t

real to me. Now I can tell you one thing which is

dead certain: if you will fool along over three thou-

sand miles of yaller sand, all glimmering with heat so

that it makes your eyes water to look at it, and you’ve

been a considerable part of a week doing it, the green

country will look so like home and heaven to you that

it will make your eyes water AGAIN.

It was just so with me, and the same with Jim.

And when Jim got so he could believe it WAS the

land of Egypt he was looking at, he wouldn’t enter it

standing up, but got down on his knees and took off

his hat, because he said it wasn’t fitten’ for a humble

poor nigger to come any other way where such men

had been as Moses and Joseph and Pharaoh and the

other prophets. He was a Presbyterian, and had a

most deep respect for Moses which was a Presbyterian,

too, he said. He was all stirred up, and says:

“Hit’s de lan’ of Egypt, de lan’ of Egypt, en I’s

‘lowed to look at it wid my own eyes! En dah’s de

river dat was turn’ to blood, en I’s looking at de very

same groun’ whah de plagues was, en de lice, en de

frogs, en de locus’, en de hail, en whah dey marked

de door-pos’, en de angel o’ de Lord come by in de

darkness o’ de night en slew de fust-born in all de lan’

o’ Egypt. Ole Jim ain’t worthy to see dis day!”

And then he just broke down and cried, he was so

thankful. So between him and Tom there was talk

enough, Jim being excited because the land was so full

of history — Joseph and his brethren, Moses in the

bulrushers, Jacob coming down into Egypt to buy

corn, the silver cup in the sack, and all them interesting

things; and Tom just as excited too, because the land

was so full of history that was in HIS line, about

Noureddin, and Bedreddin, and such like monstrous

giants, that made Jim’s wool rise, and a raft of other

Arabian Nights folks, which the half of them never

done the things they let on they done, I don’t believe.

Then we struck a disappointment, for one of them

early morning fogs started up, and it warn’t no use to

sail over the top of it, because we would go by Egypt,

sure, so we judged it was best to set her by compass

straight for the place where the pyramids was gitting

blurred and blotted out, and then drop low and skin

along pretty close to the ground and keep a sharp

lookout. Tom took the hellum, I stood by to let go

the anchor, and Jim he straddled the bow to dig

through the fog with his eyes and watch out for danger

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