In a week I shall be in Nubia. Some year we must all make this voyage;
you would revel in it. Kiss my darlings for me.



February 11, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon


_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
THEBES,
_February_ 11, 1863.

Dearest Alick,

On arriving here last night I found one letter from you, dated December
10, and have received nothing else. Pray write again forthwith to Cairo
where I hope to stay some weeks. A clever old dragoman I met at Philae
offers to lend me furniture for a lodging or a tent for the desert, and
when I hesitated he said he was very well off and it was not his business
to sell things, but only to be paid for his services by rich people, and
that if I did not accept it as he meant it he should be quite hurt. This
is what I have met with from everything Arab--nothing but kindness and
politeness. I shall say farewell to Egypt with real feeling; among other
things, it will be quite a pang to part with Omar who has been my shadow
all this time and for whom I have quite an affection, he is so thoroughly
good and amiable.

I am really much better I hope and believe, though only within the last
week or two. We have had the coldest winter ever known in Nubia, such
bitter north-east winds, but when the wind by great favour did not blow,