just come down from Cairo. Omar is gone to try to get a dahabieh to go
up the river, as I hear that the half-railway, half-steamer journey is
dreadfully inconvenient and fatiguing, and the sight of the overflowing
Nile is said to be magnificent, it is all over the land and eight miles
of the railway gone. Omar kisses your hand and is charmed with the
knife, but far more that my family should know his name and be satisfied
with my servant.

I cannot live in Thayer's house because the march of civilization has led
a party of French and Wallachian women into the ground-floor thereof to
instruct the ignorant Arabs in drinking, card-playing, and other vices.
So I will consult Hajjee Hannah to-day; she may know of an empty house
and would make divan cushions for me. Zeyneb is much grown and very
active and intelligent, but a little louder and bolder than she was owing
to the maids here wanting to christianize her, and taking her out
unveiled, and letting her be among the men. However, she is as
affectionate as ever, and delighted at the prospect of going with me. I
have replaced the veil, and Sally has checked her tongue and scolded her
sister Ellen for want of decorum, to the amazement of the latter. Janet
has a darling Nubian boy. Oh dear! what an elegant person Omar seemed
after the French 'gentleman,' and how noble was old Hamees's (Janet's
doorkeeper) paternal but reverential blessing! It is a real comfort to
live in a nation of truly well-bred people and to encounter kindness
after the savage incivility of France.

_Tuesday_, _October_ 20.

Omar has got a boat for 13 pounds, which is not more than the railway
would cost now that half must be done by steamer and a bit on donkeys or
on foot. Poor Hajjee Hannah was quite knocked up by the journey down; I