w tourists from Europe. At the house of an Egyptian grandee, an European
gentleman, on receiving the sherbet after pipes and coffee, which was
handed to him first as a stranger, "looked at it for a moment, and then at
the gaily-embroidered napkin hung over the arm of the slave who presented
it; and following the impulse given, I conclude, by his preconceptions of
Eastern habits of cleanliness, dipped his fingers in the sweet beverage,
and wiped them on the napkin!" A less pardonable breach of etiquette, as
it proceeded not from ignorance but want of good-breeding, was committed
by two Franks, who, arranged in a motley mixture of European and Oriental
costume, made their way into the Pasha's palace at Shubra, and, after
rambling from room to room without meeting any one, at length entered the
bedroom of the Pasha, who was nearly undressed! "Though taken by surprise,
his Turkish coolness did not forsake him; calling for his dragoman, he
said, 'Ask those gentlemen where they bought their tarbooshes?' 'At
Constantinople.' 'And _there_,' rejoined the Pasha, 'I suppose they
learned their manners. Tell them so.' Judging from this retort that their
presence was not agreeable, the Franks saluted the viceroy, and withdrew."

As we profess to deal with Mrs Poole solely in her own peculiar province,
as a delineator of female manners and female society in Egypt, we shall
pass with brief notice her visit to the Pyramids, the account of which
contains much valuable information, supplied (as she avows,) from the
notes of her brother. The excursion, though at a short distance from
Cairo, is not altogether unattended with danger, especially to ladies,
from the attacks of the Bedawees; as appears from the remarks of some
young men, the sons of a Bedawee sheykh at some distance, who had ridden
over, as they admitted, in the hope of seeing the faces of the ladies of
the party, and were much disappointed at finding them veiled. They had
been much struck by the charms of a beautiful American whom they had seen
a few weeks before; and one of then exclaimed, in speaking of her--"But
the sword! the sword! if we dared to use it, we would kill that man,"
alluding to the lady's companion, whether her husband or brother, "and
take her for ourselves."--"'Tis well for pretty women travelling in the
East, that these lawless Arabs are kept under a degree of subjection by
the present government," says Mrs Poole; and the anecdote affords an
indication that,