I should like
to go with the gentlemen from Darfor, as you may suppose. See what
strange combinations of people float on old Nile. Two Englishwomen, one
French (Mme. Mounier), one Frenchman, Turks, Arabs, Negroes, Circassians,
and men from Darfor, all in one party; perhaps the third boat contains
some other strange element. The Turks are from Constantinople and can't
speak Arabic, and make faces at the muddy river water, which, indeed, I
would rather have filtered.

I hope to have letters from home to-morrow morning. Hassan, my faithful
donkey-boy, will go to the post as soon as it is open and bring them down
to Boulak. Darling Rainie sent me a card with a cock robin for
Christmas; how terribly I miss her dear little face and talk! I am
pretty well now; I only feel rather weaker than before and more easily
tired. I send you a kind letter of Mme. Tastu's, who got her son to lend
me the house at Thebes.

January 3, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

ON BOARD THE STEAMER, NEAR SIOUT,
_Sunday_, _January_ 3, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

We left Cairo last Sunday morning, and a wonderfully queer company we
were. I had been promised all the steamer to myself, but owing to Ismail
Pasha's caprices our little steamer had to do the work of three--_i.e._,
to carry passengers, to tow M. Mounier's dahabieh, and to tow the oldest,
dirtiest, queerest Nubian boat, in which the young son of the Sultan of
Darfoor and the Sultan's envoy, a handsome black of Dongola (not a
negro), had visited Ismail Pasha. The best cabin was taken by a sulky
old one-eyed Turkish Pasha, so I had the fore-cabin, luckily a large one,
where I slept with Sally on one divan and I on the other, and Omar at my
feet. He tried sleeping on deck, but the Pasha's Arnouts were too bad
company, and the captain begged me to 'cover my face' and let my servant
sleep at my feet. Besides, there was a poor old asthmatic Turkish
Effendi going to collect the taxes, and a lot of women in the
engine-room, and children also. It would have been insupportable but for
the hearty politeness of the Arab captain, a regular 'old salt,' and
owing to his attention and care it was only very amusing.

At Benisouef, the first town above Cairo (seventy miles), we found no
coals: the Pasha had been up and taken them all. So we kicked our h