those who have been exiled for many years from their western homes and
are at last returning, exclaim, drawing a long breath, "Now I feel I
really am in sight of home."

We are actually in Africa, that mysterious land which still contains the
greater part of the unexplored territory of the world, and which for
long was described as "The Unknown Continent," though it can hardly be
called that now. Of all the countries which make up Africa, Egypt is the
strangest, indeed, she is the strangest country in all the world--a
weird and mysterious land whose ways are not as the ways of any other
country on earth.

Imagine a land much longer than it is broad, in the shape of an ordinary
hearth-rug, and then lay down lengthwise along this a mighty river which
divides it into two parts. Have you seen the Eiffel Tower? If not, you
have at all events seen pictures of it, well, imagine an Eiffel Tower
lying prostrate along the hearth-rug and you will have a pretty fair
idea of Egypt and its river. The legs of the Eiffel Tower are very near
the bottom and stick out sharply; from the point where they meet the
long body stretches upwards straight as an arrow.

The Nile is like that. Not so far above where it runs into the
Mediterranean Sea it is split up into many channels like the legs of the
tower. It is at the foot of one of these legs we have just landed, and
presently we are going to pass on up to the junction of the many
channels at Cairo, which is the capital town of Egypt. Of course the
Nile is not perfectly straight and rigid like the man-made tower; it
winds and turns, as all rivers do, but, taking it as a whole, the
comparison is a good one.

We have to wait for our baggage to be brought across from the ship so
that we can see it through the custom-house, and here it comes at last;
it is carried by a boy about your age who is simply lost to sight
beneath it. They begin young! He stands grinning, well pleased with
himself. He certainly deserves a good tip, for he is no shirker. We have
just got some Egyptian money from Cook's, so can give it him in his own
coinage, though he would not in the least mind taking English money.

Egyptian money is not very difficult to understand: the principal coin
is a piastre, which is equal to twopence-halfpenny; and half a piastre,
which looks like a silver sixpence, but isn't silver at all, serves the
purposes of a penny, though it is really equal to a penny-farthing.
There are no copper