he cooking to cease. We were told
afterward that it was the etiquette of a grand repast among wealthy
people of this class that the courses should continue to appear until
the guests asked the host's mercy or gave other decided evidence of
repletion. Our consul-general, knowing this, had been willing to let us
see how far the thing could go.

When we had risen from table and taken seats upon the divan, the wife
and daughter of our host (Syrian Christians) served us with basins of
perfumed water and fine fringed towels, after which they raised the
hands of the principal members of the party to their lips and foreheads
and thanked them for the great honor they had done them.

The sun was by this time low, and the time for our train had quite
arrived. So we left the house of our entertainer to walk the short
distance to the station. On the way we met the horses of one of the
viceroy's squadrons going to water. Beautiful animals they were--all
dark bay or chestnut, splendidly groomed, and marching to the sound of
the trumpet as steadily as if each carried a rider. The men in charge of
them were well-set-up, soldier-like fellows, who, barring their white
uniforms and dark faces, might have just ridden out of Knightsbridge
Barracks or the gate of Saumur.

At the station we found our car just being attached to the evening-train
from Cairo; which train, by the by, had been waiting for us for some
time, to the very apparent disgust of the English-speaking and other
European passengers. The native passengers seemed to take the delay
calmly and as a matter of course, some of them spreading their
prayer-carpets upon the platform to recite the evening prayer, to which
the muezzins were calling from the minarets as we left the town: "La
Illah illa Allah! Mohammed du russul Ala-a-h!"

We were soon off, passing through most monotonous scenery, with
constantly recurring groups of Fellahs and their animals returning from
their long day of labor, and filing along the causeways and embankments
toward the mud villages and towns, over which the pigeons were whirling
their last flight before betaking themselves to their cotes for the
night. The air became cooler and the moon rose as we rolled along the
embankment of Lake Mareotis, and the whole scene was so calm and
peaceful and conducive to reverie that it seemed a rude awakening when
we dashed into the station at Alexandria and the touts and donkey-boys
began their tiresome yells and sh