_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
THEBES,
_December_ 20, 1862.

Dear Alick,

I have had a long, dawdling voyage up here, but enjoyed it much, and have
seen and heard many curious things. I only stop here for letters and
shall go on at once to Wady Halfeh, as the weather is very cold still,
and I shall be better able to enjoy the ruins when I return about a month
hence, and shall certainly prefer the tropics now. I can't describe the
kindness of the Copts. The men I met at a party in Cairo wrote to all
their friends and relations to be civil to me. Wassef's attentions
consisted first in lending me his superb donkey and accompanying me about
all day. Next morning arrived a procession headed by his clerk, a
gentlemanly young Copt, and consisting of five black memlooks carrying a
live sheep, a huge basket of the most delicious bread, a pile of cricket-
balls of creamy butter, a large copper caldron of milk and a cage of
poultry. I was confounded, and tried to give a good baksheesh to the
clerk, but he utterly declined. At Girgeh one Mishrehgi was waiting for
me, and was in despair because he had only time to get a few hundred
eggs, two turkeys, a heap of butter and a can of milk. At Keneh one Issa
(Jesus) also lent a donkey, and sent me three boxes of delicious Mecca
dates, which Omar thought stingy. Such attentions are agreeable here
where good food is not to be had except as a gift. They all made me
promise to see them again on my return and dine at their houses, and
Wassef wanted to make a fantasia and have dancing girls. How you would
love the Arab women in the country villages. I wandered off the other
day alone, while the men were mending the rudder, and fell in with a