Chapter 14

The symposium was tremendously received by the audience and the newspapers. The box that we carried everywhere in Egypt was a disguised top of the line digital camera.

It was a simple thing to set the camera to line drawing, project those drawings on a photo sensitive glass plate, follow the procedure for the plates and use Mr. Edison's electric light in a magic lantern to project the glass plate images on to a screen.

The biggest problem was choosing which plates to show.

Luxor was extremely popular. There wasn't any excavating being performed so there was the top of the sphinx and the few images of the Pyramids. Only the three ... the others wouldn't be excavated for years.

We also showed Grecian marbles and the Roman ruins. Aqueducts and viaducts, Roman roads, amphora and the supposed location of the Colossus.

Pictures of camels and Arabs, sailboats on the Nile and crocodiles sunning themselves.

There were pictures of our companions, guides and porters. Americans were so gullible. Where else could a sign This Way To The Egress fool so many?

For a penny each we dressed street girls in thin silk garments, placed them in a room with bars on the window ... a very easy thing, all windows were barred ... and called it the Harem of the Pasha. The whole series of pictures cost £2 for the girls, the silk, the cushions and the room.