ng neither shoes nor the other
garments to make themselves presentable in any decent or refined society.
Many present pictures of indescribable wretchedness. I saw a woman nurse
her child in the cars, who, when presented with an apple for her babe,
returned her thanks _without a smile,_ even, to the giver! These people
are in too great misery to know what it is to feel happy! I saw men and
women speak by the hour in the train without once turning into any
pleasant mood. How my pity might have turned into joy, could I only have
seen them indulge in a hearty laugh occasionally! Some of their girls and
women of all ages will still ride the donkey, after the oriental style.
The middle and poorer classes of Egyptians will eat little snails and fish
fried with the heads, scales and all the appurtenances of their internal
structures! In the East they churn the butter in bags made of untanned
goat-skins, having the hair inside. Moreover, they bring the butter upon
the table without doing so much as to comb it, even!

When I had seen these things, and was informed that on account of the
cholera which was still raging in Syria, the surrounding nations had
interposed a quarantine, so that if I would venture to go on to Joppa
(which I could have reached in a few hours), I would become a prisoner, I
soon decided that I would rather not see a people (the Syrians) that is
more miserable than the Egyptians, even, than be in danger of being
obliged to partake of food that could scarcely have failed to make me
sick. Crossing the desert by rail, meeting large caravans of camels, and
seeing the palm-trees, the minarets, the mosks, the pyramids, the muddy
waters of the Nile, and above all the curious styles of the oriental
costume, are interesting enough to one that comes to Egypt with ordinary
expectations and correct information in regard to the country; but I did
not expect to find the Egyptians a black inferior race, that would fight
with each other on the pavements in the largest cities in broad daylight,
violently tear my property out of my hands in sight of the finest square
in Alexandria, carry naked children upon their shoulders in their large
towns, and seat themselves around large dishes of rice and gravy mixing
the same with their fingers and conveying it to their mouths in the palms
of their hands! Numbers of them will dine without the use of either
knives, forks or spoons, and when dinner is over, there is but one dish to
be wa