has paid 3.5 _per cent. a month_ besides.
Reckon the profit! Two men I know are quite ruined, and have sold all
they had. The cattle disease forced them to borrow at these ruinous
rates, and now alas, the Nile is sadly lingering in its rise, and people
are very anxious. Poor Egypt! or rather, poor Egyptians! Of course, I
need not say that there is great improvidence in those who can be fleeced
as they are fleeced. Mustapha's household is a pattern of muddling
hospitality, and Mustapha is generous and mean by turns; but what chance
have people like these, so utterly uncivilized and so isolated, against
Europeans of unscrupulous characters.

I can't write more in the wind and dust. You shall hear again from
Cairo.

October 9, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

CAIRO,
_October_ 9, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

I have not written for a long time because I have had a fever. Now I am
all right again, only weak. If you can come please bring the books in
enclosed list for an American Egyptologist at Luxor--a friend of mine.
My best love to Janet and my other chicks. I wish I could see my
Maurice. Tell Janet that Hassan donkey boy, has married a girl of
eleven, and Phillips that Hassan remembers him quite tenderly and is very
proud of having had his 'face' drawn by him, 'certainly he was of the
friends if not a brother of the Sitt, he so loved the things of the
Arabs.' I went to the Hareem _soiree_ at Hassan's before the wedding--at
that event I was ill. My good doctor was up the river, and Hekekian Bey
is in Italy, so I am very lonely here. The weather is bad, so very damp;
I stream with perspiration more than in June at Luxor, and I don't like
civilization so very much. It keeps me awake at night in the grog shops
and rings horrid bells and fights and quarrels in the street, and
disturbs my Muslim nerves till I utter such epithets as _kelb_ (dog) and
_khanseer_ (pig) against the Frangi, and wish I were in a 'beastly Arab'
quarter.

October 21, 1864: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

CAIRO,
_October_ 21, 1864.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I got your letter yesterday. I hope Alick got mi