yramid
measured. The remaining members of all the parties, too, whose hunger
and thirst were now fully satisfied, were ready to proceed to the
Sphinx, which only Mrs. Peterkin and Elizabeth Eliza had visited.

Side by side on their donkeys, Mrs. Peterkin attempted to learn
something from Mr. Peterkin about the other little boys. But his donkey
proved restive: now it bore him on in swift flight from Mrs. Peterkin;
now it would linger behind. His words were jerked out only at intervals.
All that could be said was that they were separated; the little boys
wanted to go to Vesuvius, but Mr. Peterkin felt they must hurry to
Brindisi. At a station where the two trains parted--one for Naples, the
other for Brindisi--he found suddenly, too late, that they were not with
him; they must have gone on to Naples. But where were they now?

VIII.

THE LAST OF THE PETERKINS.

The expedition up the Nile had taken place successfully. The Peterkin
family had reached Cairo again,--at least, its scattered remnant was
there, and they were now to consider what next.

Mrs. Peterkin would like to spend her life in the dahabieh,[1] though
she could not pronounce its name, and she still felt the strangeness
of the scenes about her. However, she had only to look out upon the
mud villages on the bank to see that she was in the veritable "Africa"
she had seen pictured in the geography of her childhood. If further
corroboration were required, had she not, only the day before, when
accompanied by no one but a little donkey-boy, shuddered to meet a
strange Nubian, attired principally in hair that stood out from his
savage face in frizzes at least half a yard long?

[Footnote 1: A boat used for transportation on the Nile.]

But oh the comforts of no trouble in housekeeping on board the dahabieh!
Never to know what they were to have for dinner, nor to be asked what
they would like, and yet always to have a dinner you could ask chance
friends to, knowing all would be perfectly served! Some of the party
with whom they had engaged their dahabieh had even brought canned baked
beans from New England, which seemed to make their happiness complete.

"Though we see beans here," said Mrs. Peterkin, "they are not 'Boston
beans'!"

She had fancied she would have to live on stuffed ostrich (ostrich
stuffed with iron filings, that the books tell of), or fried
hippopotamus, or boiled rhinoceros. But she met with none of these, and
day after day was re