pages telling you about the clothes
the people wear, although I must say that I have seen some whose clothes
could be all told about in one sentence, and not a very long sentence
at that. But you see all kinds of clothes, uniforms, and everyday things
such as we wear, and robes and fezzes and turbans and I don't know what.
You know what a fez is, of course. It's shaped like a brown-bread tin
and they wear it little end up with a tassel hanging down. And turbans!
To me, when I used to see pictures of people wearing turbans, they were
just pictures, that's all. It didn't seem as if any one actually tied up
the top of their head in a white sheet and went parading around looking
like a stick with a snowball stuck on the end of it. But they do, and
most of them look as dignified as can be, in spite of the snowball. And
I have seen camels, quantities of them, and donkeys, and, oh, yes, about
a million dogs, not one of them worth anything and perfectly contented
to be that way. And dirt! Oh, Lulie, I didn't believe there was as much
dirt in all creation as there is in just one of the back streets over
here. Galusha asked me the other day if I didn't wish I could go into
one of the houses and see how the people lived; he meant the poor
people. I told him no, not if he ever expected me to get anywhere else.
If the inside of one of those houses was like the outside, I was sure
and certain that I should send for a case of soap and a hundred barrels
of hot water and stay there scrubbing the rest of my life. And, oh, yes,
I have seen the Pyramids.

Of course, you want to know how I got along on the long voyage over. I
wrote you a few lines from Gibraltar telling you a little about that. I
wasn't seasick a single bit. I think it must be in our blood, this being
able to keep well and happy on salt water. Our family has always been to
sea, as far back as my great-great-grandfather, at least, and I suppose
that explains why, as soon as I stepped aboard the steamer, I felt as
if I was where I belonged. And Galusha, of course, has traveled so much
that he is a good sailor, too. So, no matter whether it was calm or
blowy, he and I walked decks or sat in the lee somewhere and talked of
all that had happened and of what was going to happen. And, Lulie, I
realized over and over, as I have been realizing ever since I agreed
to marry him, what a wonderful man he is and what a happy and grateful
woman I ought to be--and am, you may be sure of tha