nissary and our own servant upon those who were guilty of such
wanton brutality showed the feeling which it elicited; and when upon
one occasion Miss E. and myself interposed, declaring that we would
not allow any person in our service to be beaten, they told us not to
be alarmed, for that the rais (captain of the boat), who was an Arab,
would not put up with ill-treatment, but had threatened to go on shore
at the next village with all his men.

An English gentleman, long resident in Cairo, had done me the honour
to call upon me on the day after my arrival, and had invited me to
come to his house, to see some mummies and other curiosities he had
collected. Accompanied by two of my female friends, and escorted by a
gentleman who was well acquainted with the topography of the city,
we set out on foot, traversing blind alleys and dark lanes, and thus
obtaining a better idea of the intricacies of the place than we could
possibly have gained by any other means. Sometimes we passed under
covered ways perfectly dark, which I trod, not without fear of
arousing some noxious animal; then we came to narrow avenues, between
the backs of high stone houses, occasionally emerging into small
quadrangles, having a single tree in one corner. We passed a house
inhabited by one of the superior description of Frank residents,
and we knew that it must be tenanted by a European by the handsome
curtains and other furniture displayed through its open windows.
Turning into a street, for the very narrow lanes led chiefly along
the backs of houses, we looked into the lower apartments, the doors of
which were usually unclosed, and here we saw the men at their
ordinary occupations, and were made acquainted with their domestic
arrangements. At length we arrived at a court, which displayed a door
and a flight of steps at the corner. Upon knocking, we were admitted
by an Egyptian servant, who showed us up stairs into a room, where we
found the master of the house seated upon one of the low stools which
serve as the support of the dinner-trays in Egypt, the only other
furniture that the room contained being a table, and the customary
divan, which extended all round. Coffee was brought in, served in
small China cups; but all the coffee made in Egypt was too like the
Nile mud for me to taste, and warm and fatigued with a walk through
places from which the fresh air was excluded, I felt myself unequal
to make the trial now.

Our friend's collection of an