at each other like Roman augurs. I need not say the creatures were
toothless.

It is worth going to Nubia to see the girls. Up to twelve or thirteen
they are neatly dressed in a bead necklace and a leather fringe 4 inches
wide round the loins, and anything so absolutely perfect as their shapes
or so sweetly innocent as their look can't be conceived. My pilot's
little girl came in the dress mentioned before carrying a present of
cooked fish on her head and some fresh eggs; she was four years old and
so _klug_. I gave her a captain's biscuit and some figs, and the little
pet sat with her little legs tucked under her, and ate it so _manierlich_
and was so long over it, and wrapped up some more white biscuit to take
home in a little rag of a veil so carefully. I longed to steal her, she
was such a darling. Two beautiful young Nubian women visited me in my
boat, with hair in little plaits finished off with lumps of yellow clay
burnished like golden tags, soft, deep bronze skins, and lips and eyes
fit for Isis and Hathor. Their very dress and ornaments were the same as
those represented in the tombs, and I felt inclined to ask them how many
thousand years old they were. In their house I sat on an ancient
Egyptian couch with the semicircular head-rest, and drank out of crockery
which looked antique, and they brought a present of dates in a basket
such as you may see in the British Museum. They are dressed in drapery
like Greek statues, and are as perfect, but have hard, bold faces, and,
though far handsomer, lack the charm of the Arab women; and the men,
except at Kalabshee and those from far up the country, are not such
gentlemen as the Arabs.

Everyone is cursing the French here. Forty thousand men always at work
at the Suez Canal at starvation-point, does not endear them to the Arabs.
There is great excitement as to what the new Pasha will do. If he ceases