shall take her up in my boat. Two and a half hours to sit grilling at
noonday on the banks, and two miles to walk carrying one's own baggage is
hard lines for a fat old woman. Everything is almost double in price
owing to the cattle murrain and the high Nile. Such an inundation as
this year was never known before. Does the blue God resent Speke's
intrusion on his privacy? It will be a glorious sight, but the damage to
crops, and even to the last year's stacks of grain and beans, is
frightful. One sails among the palm-trees and over the submerged cotton-
fields. Ismail Pasha has been very active, but, alas! his 'eye is bad,'
and there have been as many calamities as under Pharaoh in his short
reign. The cattle murrain is fearful, and is now beginning in Cairo and
Upper Egypt. Ross reckons the loss at twelve millions sterling in
cattle. The gazelles in the desert have it too, but not horses, asses or
goats.



October 26, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon


_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
ALEXANDRIA,
_October_ 26, 1863.

Dearest Alick,

I went to two hareems the other day with a little boy of Mustapha Aga's,
and was much pleased. A very pleasant Turkish lady put out all her
splendid bedding and dresses for me, and was most amiable. At another a
superb Arab with most _grande dame_ manners, dressed in white cotton and