''tis passing strange.'"

The annoyance of this spectral warfare, which continued many months, had
not prevented Mrs Poole (in spite of the _desagremens_ of flies, "black
thick-legged spiders," and handmaidens, "who scarcely ever wash themselves
except when they go to the bath, which is once in about ten days or a
fortnight") from becoming gradually at home in her Egyptian residence, and
tolerably familiarized with the language and manners of the country. She
had even adopted the native manner of eating; and had habituated herself
to wear the Turkish dress with such ease, as to witness unsuspected the
splendid procession of the _Mahmal_,[19] or emblem of royalty, which
precedes the march of the pilgrim caravan to Mekka--an occasion on which
the boys of Cairo enjoy a kind of saturnalia, and are privileged to
maltreat any Christian or Jew who may be detected near the route. Under
the guidance of an elderly Muslim friend of her brother, she had also
entered the principal mosques of Cairo, including that of the Hasaneyn
(the grandsons of the prophet, Hasan and Hoseyn) and the Zame-el-Azhar,
the two most sacred edifices of Cairo. But the Azhar (splendid mosque) is
not only the _cathedral_ mosque of the Egyptian capital, but the
principal, and perhaps in the present day the only Moslem university. In
the _riwaks_, or apartments appropriated to students from different
countries, chiefly poor scholars supported by the funds of the mosque,
"after passing successively among natives of different divisions of Egypt,
we find ourselves in the company of people of Mekkeh and El-Medeeneh; then
in the midst of Syrians; in another minute among Muslims of Central
Africa; next among Magharbeh, (or natives of Northern Africa west of
Egypt;) then with European and Asiatic Turks; and quitting these, we are
introduced to Persians, and Muslims of India; we may almost fancy
ourselves transported through their respective countries. No sight in
Cairo interested me more than the interior of the Azhar; and the many and
great obstacles which present themselves when a Christian, and more
especially a Christian lady, desires to obtain admission into this
celebrated mosque, make me proud of having enjoyed the privilege of
walking leisurely through its extensive porticoes, and observing its
heterogeneous students engaged in listening to the lectures of their
professors."

A far different _locale_ from the cloisters of the Azhar, into which Mrs
Poole wa