Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

6. & a kind of "mines bigger than yours" mentality. I wonder if these things are known, in my case, the results are very much finer than what is generally produced today. Which, I suppose, provides the answer in comparison to today, anyhow. I wouldhave liked to have stayed much longer, but we had a schedule to work to - & Frank & Rex were beginning to fidget a bit. We thenwent to Sakhara - which was in the desert & not so very far away. We were set on by a horde of natives, wanting to sell us post cards, & scarabs & God knows what, & take us to the tombs on donkeys - but we ignored all these. There were two tombs to see. The first was queer & interesting, but not really worth seeing. Apparently, when a famous man died in those days - they also buried, in addition to the famous man - sacred bulls, & the number varied according to the wealth & fame of the man. These sacred bulls were killed in some sacred manner - & then popped into sarcophogi, made of solid granite slabs about nine inches thick. So the resulting sarcophogus was a farily weighty affair. This was then moved, by various means - probably by the other sacred bulls who had had the luck of the draw - up to & into the tomb. and that is all there was to see. Down in the ground, rows & rows of large granite sarcohpogi, some with the lids on & some with the lids off, & nothing inside them. So it was quite interesting & that was all. When we emerged, we were ferociously set upon again by the native vendors - They must be furious about this war, which keeps away the tourists. We then went a little way, & then down into the earth again - but this time not very far down, as they had

7. cut away parts of the ground, & there was plenty of light from above. This one was very much worth while. It was the tomb of somebody named Ti - & the walls were covered with almost endless relief carving - sandstone again, I think. I'm sure you would have loved to have had the opportunity of seeing this. It was all pictorial & depicted all the activities of that time - farming, metal working, shipbuilding, worship, & many others. It was beautifully done & very, very interesting.

The figures & everything about them were full of life & vital & expressive. At this time there must have been a few extremely industrious people - or else there were a great number of people who achieved considerable skill in what must be a most specialised for of art. But I simply do not understand enough about this to be able to tell you more. But really, the amount of life obtained was incredible considering the shallowness of the carving. After this, we had lunc at Mena, which is within half a mile of the Pyramids of Gizeh & the Sphynx - & then went to have a look at these. There is really nothing of interest I can tell you about these. I wanted to climb a pyramid, but either it takes longer than I thought it would, or else the dragoman did not want to. They are enormous & massive & impressive & God knows how they managed it - & there you have them. The Sphynx is more interesting & has more point. It is mainly carved out of the mass of stone, & probably was entirely at one time - but now it is restored about the feet & other parts. The face is badly damaged - but this was caused by vandalism on Napoleons' part. It seems he would have broken it up entirely, just on account of a bad tempered whim, but he was persuaded to do something else equally childish, but not so Philistinian. There is much

8. interesting mythology about them - but you probably know this. There are also a number of tombs to see - & these I enjoyed most. Enormous blocks of granite & alabaster & cut in the most wonderful way, to form doorays & arches & corners. It was here that we had our fortunes told, as I told you about in another letter. And I am still pinning my faith on this man.

We then drove back to Cairo, & through the old town, to the Blue Mosque. This was a complete disappointment. We went through all the business of taking our shoes off, putting ^^on some sloppy & dirty looking slippers. But the inside consisted of some perfectly plain walls, a pair of peaky looking minarets & no roof. The piece de resistance was a large expanse of wall covered with the patterned enamel tiles. Abdul said these were all hand done, & he was excessively proud of them. But really they made an otherwise harmless looking place, appear like a big & rather gaudy bathroom. He began to think there was something amiss with us. After this we were taken to the bazaar, to a famous shop selling Egyptian scents. We followed obediently in, & sat down where we were told to - & then the head man produced an array of bottles, & began smearing some out of each onto our bare forearms, inviting us all to smell & give our opinion. He also gave us some literature to read, expounding the property of each scent, or 'arfum'. One would make me more desirable - another would me you more desirable (as if that were even within the bounds of possibility) - another would make

9. you or me more passionate - & another us both more passionate. I longed for the chance to put such things to the test between us my darling - but otherwise we all felt rather embarrassed. We began to fidget even more when the man began to produce nice presentation leather cases containing a variety of selections to suit the most complex companionships - announcing various prices from £6 upwards. Eventually I could not bear it any longer & rushed out of the place, roaring at the man that we had no intention of buying, & at Abdul to ask why the hell he had taken us there. We stank to high heaven, & lost no time at all in having a bath, when we made the hotel again. Phew! That was the end of our day, & it had been a marvellous day. The whole thing cost £3 for the three of us, which I thought was very reasonable - as it paid the taximan his taxi, & Abdul & both their lunches, & the various odd entrance fees & tippings which Abdul looked after. The next time I get any leave & am near enough. I want to go down to Luxor.

Monday. Dec 30th It became too late to finish this last night, but I Will today - & send it off today.

Yesterday was 12 weeks from leaving you. Its tragic, darling, isn't it? It has seemed such an age, & yet it is only such a short time. Today's post has just came in, there is still nothing for me. It would make things so much more bearable if I could rely on letters from you, even every two weeks or so. You really would have thought that this could be arranged.

10. On the Sunday evening in Cairo, we went to an Egyptian restaurant - & had a very good & very cheap meal - but one or two of the things were a bit funny, peculiar. On the Monday morning - we did final bits of shopping & posting - & went vainly to the cable office & the A.P.O. We then went to an English club - the Turf Club, for lunch. There we met the man Genttes, & he told us he had phoned the C.O here & obtained extension of leave until Wednesday, & we phoned & did the same. The only other thing of note which we did, was to make a visit to the Zoo, & this we did on Tuesday. We spent the whole day & had a lovely day. The animals & creatures are all very much the same as Regents Park. And the manner of housing them very much the same, except that at R.O they have rather more room. But the grounds & layout were magnificent - & worth going to see for themselves. On the Monday, Tuesday evenings & Wednesday morning, we did nothing exciting. And we came back here on Wednesday afternoon. There is very little to say about Cairo itself - & I forget whether I said it or not in the other letter. The modern part is very modern & fine & well planned - but - literally, in this case, nothing to write home about. We saw practically nothing of the old part, as it is all out of bounds. It seemd very ramshackle & delapidated, but I'm sure would be very interesting to explore.

There is very little to tell you about what I have been doing here since I last wrote. I am still here, & so far show no further sign of moving, after the scare of two weeks ago - or perhaps