house at Keneh for you, and we might have gone up in a clean passenger
boat, but I thought no English could bear it.' At Cairo, where we shall
be, Inshallaha, on the 19th, Omar will get a lodging and borrow a few
mattresses and a table and chair and, as he says, 'keep the money in our
pockets instead of giving it to the hotel.' I hope Alick got my letter
from Thebes, and that he told you that I had dined with 'the blameless
Ethiopians.' I have seen all the temples in Nubia and down as far as I
have come, and nine of the tombs at Thebes. Some are wonderfully
beautiful--Abou Simbel, Kalabshee, Room Ombo--a little temple at El Kab,
lovely--three tombs at Thebes and most of all Abydos; Edfou and Dendera
are the most perfect, Edfou quite perfect, but far less beautiful. But
the most lovely object my eyes ever saw is the island of Philae. It
gives one quite the supernatural feeling of Claude's best landscapes,
only not the least like them--_ganz anders_. The Arabs say that Ans el
Wogood, the most beautiful of men, built it for his most beautiful
beloved, and there they lived in perfect beauty and happiness all alone.
If the weather had not been so cold while I was there I should have lived
in the temple, in a chamber sculptured with the mystery of Osiris' burial
and resurrection. Omar cleaned it out and meant to move my things there
for a few days, but it was too cold to sleep in a room without a door.
The winds have been extraordinarily cold this year, and are so still. We
have had very little of the fine warm weather, and really been pinched
with cold most of the time. On the shore away from the river would be
much better for invalids.

Mustapha Aga, the consular agent at Thebes, has offered me a house of
his, up among the tombs in the finest air, if ever I want it. He was
very kind and hospitable indeed to all the English there. I went into
his hareem, and liked his wife's manners very much. It was charming to
see that she henpecked her handsome old husband completely. They had