In the back-blocks of the Nile city of Aswan is an ancient granite quarry. Its most notable feature is an immense in situ unfinished obelisk, a huge carved monument that was abandoned, aborted because a crack appeared in its bulk. I felt the agony of the workers who toiled in vain with hand tools for innumerable hours and wondered of their fate.

It was somewhat humbling to acknowledge the dedication, the patience and persistence of the men who attacked this very hard rock with mere hand tools. The monuments of Egypt are awesome, but the ingenuity and energy of the men who built them are incomprehensible. 

The enormity of this experience was brought to abrupt ending when I moved up to the quarry’s viewing platform.  A beautiful young dog, closely resembling my own pet, was lying next to the platform and, as I came closer, it struggled to its feet and hobbled towards me, dragging a lame back leg. The dog was clean, and looked well enough nourished, but its subservient manner won my sympathy. The dog looked longingly at the bag in which I was carrying food. My instinct to provide a morsel was compounded by my youngest daughter’s appeal on behalf of the dog. I compromised and gave the dog a quarter of a meat sandwich. My daughter blinked and missed the transaction so I had to repeat the exercise for her to see. The dog’s voracious response then provoked her into insisting that the dog was starving. The upshot was that the dog saved us the trouble of eating our lunches because it consumed all three of our sandwiches, a boiled egg, a tub of yogurt, but refused a banana.

I have often wondered whether the dog was a confidence trickster, playing on rheumy eyes and a well-rehearsed gammy leg. Whatever the case, my daughter and I are dog-lovers and enjoyed a little bit of home by pandering to, and pampering our beloved pet’s distant cousin.