who are
there for the season make as great a display of fine clothes as we see
in our own drawing rooms at home; in fact, the display of jewels is
regal. But of this the traveler wearies, as our days are so busy; we
willingly retire early to restore nature's wasted powers. One old lady
from Wales sat with her gouty feet on a cushion, to which you were
oblivious, for she was so bejewelled. She was an Egyptologist, she told
me. I found her an agreeable woman, but fond of display. I apologized
for my Quaker-like garb, explaining to her why I did not feel at ease in
such a crowd in my quiet silk gown; that I had only a steamer trunk with
me, and while its contents might ordinarily have passed muster, the
piling on top of them--a lot of "Benares brass"--had crushed what little
stiffness my balloon sleeves had once maintained. She scanned me closely
and, with a confidential air, whispered: "You are a good
conversationalist, anyhow, so never mind." I really began to feel a
sense of inflation, and looked to see my sleeves puff up.

The poor villages of Egypt, a collection of dilapidated houses built of
clay, baked by the burning sun and roofed with dry sorghum leaves, were
scattered here and there. Here are seen cafes built of loam and straw
and rickety planks upon which exhausted beggars sleep in sordid rags,
where poor peasants devour a doura cake and drink a cup of coffee; women
in long, blue gowns, carrying water in heavy clay pitchers; camels
loaded with sugar-cane; asses bending beneath bulky bags of rice; heron,
plover and white pigeons; Pharaoh's chickens hover overhead, watching
with piercing eyes their prey; pelicans amid the Papyrus, a blue lotus,
a plant dear to the Pharaohs, which one finds everywhere engraved on the
walls of their temples; dusky girls with long, slender hands and
tapering fingers, the nails reddened with Henna, holding a corner of
their garment between their teeth to hide their faces and pushing flocks
of turkeys before them. They walk slowly, gazing frankly, while the
copper bangles clank gently on their delicately moulded ankles.

The population of Cairo in 1895 was about 350,000. The Khedive lives
with his wife and family at the Palace of Ismalia, near the Nile bridge.
He is a strict monogamist, loyal in his married life and detests slavery
as much as polygamy. All his attendants are paid wages. He is said to
rise at 4:00 or 5:00 a. m., eats no breakfast, exercises two hours, and
between seve