and have him to our house in the holidays. I can't describe how
anxiously kind these people were to me. One gets such a wonderful amount
of sympathy and real hearty kindness here. A curious instance of the
affinity of the British mind for prejudice is the way in which every
Englishman I have seen scorns the Eastern Christians, and droll enough
that sinners like Kinglake and I should be the only people to feel the
tie of the 'common faith' (_vide_ 'Eothen'). A very pious Scotch
gentleman wondered that I could think of entering a Copt's house, adding
that they were the publicans (tax-gatherers) of this country, which is
partly true. I felt inclined to mention that better company than he or I
had dined with publicans, and even sinners.

The Copts are evidently the ancient Egyptians. The slightly aquiline
nose and long eye are the very same as the profiles of the tombs and
temples, and also like the very earliest Byzantine pictures; _du reste_,
the face is handsome, but generally sallow and rather inclined to
puffiness, and the figure wants the grace of the Arabs. Nor has any Copt
the thoroughbred, _distingue_ look of the meanest man or woman of good
Arab blood. Their feet are the long-toed, flattish foot of the Egyptian
statue, while the Arab foot is classically perfect and you could put your
hand under the instep. The beauty of the Ababdeh, black, naked, and
shaggy-haired, is quite marvellous. I never saw such delicate limbs and
features, or such eyes and teeth.

CAIRO,
_March_ 19.

After leaving Siout I caught cold. The worst of going up the Nile is
that one must come down again and find horrid fogs, and cold nights with
sultry days. So I did not attempt Sakhara and the Pyramids, but came a