Egypt, the Egypt of antiquity, at a later time, exercised a mysterious fascination over me.

I recognized a picture of it immediately, without hesitation and astonishment, in an illustrated magazine.

I saluted as old acquaintances two gods with hawk heads that were cut in profile upon a stone and placed at each end of a strangely depicted Zodiac, and although I saw the picture for the first time upon an overcast day, there came to me, and of that I am sure, a sudden impression of great heat given out by a pitiless sun..