meat, fish,
vegetables, and fruit, all close together. The crowd was amusing, as
all the European householders had negroes or Arabs following them,
laden with their purchases. We found some lovely flowers in a street
near the market, and then we went on to the big gold and silver
bazaar, and to the Turkish and Syrian bazaars, where we saw all the
specialities of Constantinople, and Broussa, Damascus, and Jerusalem
laid out before us. After breakfast, the antics of two enormous apes,
who came round on a donkey, accompanied by a showman and a boy, amused
the children much. They were hideously ugly, but the cleverest monkeys
I ever saw. They went through a regular little play, quarrelled with
one another; the man and the boy rode the ape, and made him kick; at
last the ape was hurt, and lay fainting in the man's arms, limp and
languid, just able to sip a little water; then he died, and dropped
down stiff, with his eyes shut. His tail was pulled, his lips and
eyelids were forced open, but he never winked an eyelid or moved a
hair of his whiskers. He was thrown about from side to side, remaining
perfectly motionless till, at a sign from his master, he jumped up as
well as ever, shouldered his gun, and mounted his ass to take his
departure. He was promptly ordered to dismount and ask for backshish,
which he did, cap in hand. Some of the crowd round about not
contributing to his master's satisfaction, the ape took a nasty
venomous-looking little snake out of a bag which he carried over his
shoulder, and threw it among the bystanders, to their great
consternation.

At two o'clock we went to lunch with the Consul, and what a pleasant
lunch it was, prepared by a French cook, and eaten in a cool, airy,
and shady room free from flies, which were kept out by fine wire
gauze placed in front of each well-shaded door and window! The table
was one mass of the roses for which Alexandria is so famous. Everybody
had wandered about the world more or less, everybody was in good
spirits, and we laughed and chatted and talked sense or nonsense as
the fancy took us, till it was time to go on board the yacht _en
masse_, and receive some visitors at tea. A few had arrived before us,
but the children and some others of the party were on board and had
been doing the honours and showing them round. About 5.30 p.m. our
last guests departed, and all was ready for a start; but, alas! we had
to wait for an absent steward, who had gone in search of the