them, but that what one could not in the least imagine was the
expression on the face of an Oriental barber as he sits cross-legged
before his door. That is Cairo exactly. You must see her with the actual
eyes, and you must see her without haste. She does not reveal herself to
the Cook tourist nor even to Gaze's, nor to the man who is hurrying off
to Athens on a fixed day which nothing can alter.

THE NEW QUARTER

(One must begin with this, and have it over.) Cairo has a population of
four hundred thousand souls. The new part of the town, called Ismailia,
has been persistently abused by almost all writers, who describe it as
dusty, as shadeless, as dreary, as glaring, as hideous, as blankly and
broadly empty, as adorned with half-built houses which are falling into
ruin--one has read all this before arriving. But what does one find in
the year of grace 1890? Streets shaded by innumerable trees; streets
broad indeed, but which, instead of being dusty, are wet (and over-wet)
with the constant watering; well-kept, bright-faced houses, many of them
having beautiful gardens, which in January are glowing with giant
poinsettas, crimson hibiscus, and purple bougainvillea--flowers which
give place to richer blooms, to an almost over-luxuriance of color and
perfumes, as the early spring comes on. If the streets were paved, it
would be like the outlying quarters of Paris, for most of the houses are
French as regards their architecture. Shadeless? It is nothing but
shade. And the principal drives, too, beyond the town--the Ghezireh
road, the Choubra and Gizeh roads, and the long avenue which leads to
the pyramids--are deeply embowered, the great arms of the trees which
border them meeting and interlacing overhead. Consider the stony streets
of Italian cities (which no one abuses), and then talk of "shadeless
Cairo"!

THE CLIMATE

If one wishes to spend a part of each day in the house, engaged in
reading, writing, or resting; if the comfortable feeling produced by a
brightly burning little fire in the cool of the evening is necessary to
him for his health or his pleasure--then he should not attempt to spend
the entire winter in the city of the Khedive. The mean temperature there
during the cold season--that is, six weeks in January and February--is
said to be 58 deg. Fahrenheit. But this is in the open air; in the houses
the temperature is not more than 54 deg. or 52 deg., and often in the evening
lower. The absence of fire