and five children off to Australia. Elsewhere I should not have
cared to come across him, but I was positively glad to be slapped on
the back by anybody on that landing-place in front of Shepheard's
Hotel at Cairo.

I soon learned that Robinson with his wife and children, and indeed
with all the rest of the Australian cargo, were to be passed on to
Suez that afternoon, and after a while I agreed to accompany their
party. I had made up my mind, on coming out from England, that I
would see all the wonders of Egypt, and hitherto I had seen nothing.
I did ride on one day some fifteen miles on a donkey to see the
petrified forest; but the guide, who called himself a dragoman, took
me wrong or cheated me in some way. We rode half the day over a
stony, sandy plain, seeing nothing, with a terrible wind that filled
my mouth with grit, and at last the dragoman got off. "Dere," said
he, picking up a small bit of stone, "Dis is de forest made of
stone. Carry that home." Then we turned round and rode back to
Cairo. My chief observation as to the country was this--that
whichever way we went, the wind blew into our teeth. The day's work
cost me five-and-twenty shillings, and since that I had not as yet
made any other expedition. I was therefore glad of an opportunity
of going to Suez, and of making the journey in company with an
acquaintance.

At that time the railway was open, as far as I remember, nearly half
the way from Cairo to Suez. It did not run four or five times a
day, as railways do in other countries, but four or five times a
month. In fact, it only carried passengers on the arrival of these
flocks passing between England and her Eastern possessions. There
were trains passing backwards and forwards constantly, as I