The Tour by Louis Couperus

The golden noonday sky paled; the blinding topaz of the heavens melted away into amber honey; and the sands of the desert stretched out wide, far and endless to the last glittering streak of the horizon, on which the sun had set. Behind the group formed by the travellers -- four camels surrounded by drivers and guards, Arabs and Libyans -- between the darkening palm-trees the gigantic city of Memphis sank into shadow like some vast extinct monster; and the crumbling palaces of the kings sloped down the hill, as it were tumbling into the Nile, and mirrored their ruins in the clear sapphire of the stream, where the pools lay pink and gold among the tall reeds and the lotuses closing on the face of the water. The last fallen pillars lay, round and immense, in the luxuriant grass, amid a riot of scarlet and crimson poppies. Mysteriously carved with hieroglyphics, they were as felled Titans of rose-red granite; and they pressed heavily on the ground wherein they were sinking. They were of a melancholy majesty, those huge overthrown pillars which had supported the golden roofs above the might of the Pharaohs.

Caleb rode his camel with a swagger, as though he were bestriding his Sabaean mare. He dug his heel into the camel's side; and the startled brute took great strides, snorting and grunting; Caleb roared with delight. The Libyans, big-limbed and powerful, went silently; the Arab drivers yelled and shouted.