You asked me to write to you while you were away, and tell you the
news, and what I thought about things. But I'm thinking so much and so
fast that I can't sort out my thoughts. I suppose it must be so with
every one who comes to Egypt for the first time. Everything fascinates
and absorbs me, even more than I had hoped it would--almost too much, I
feel sometimes. Your Antoun Effendi is a very good guide, and I am not
sorry that we have him--except once in a while. And now and then I'm
glad. We're proud of his looks when we go about, for every one stares
at him and envies us for having him to take us about, instead of being
condemned to a mere dragoman. Oh, talking of dragomen (you see I _will_
call them that!), we still have Bedr, though I know you thought we
ought to give him up, and I don't see how we are ever to discharge him
now, for he has attached himself to Rachel G. in the most wonderful
way. It is _pathetic_. It began with a talk they had the day you left,
about his having been in America, and about _religion_. She found him
half inclined to be converted, and of course, her goodness and
unselfishness made her long to snatch him like a brand from the
burning. He thinks no one ever talked so wonderfully about religion as
she does, which she, dear thing, attributes to the fact that she taught
Sunday-school in Salem. She says, if she can have him to work upon even
for a few weeks, she is sure to make him a convert.

We haven't wasted a minute since you went away, but have seen sights
from morning till night, so as not to have missed anything when we
leave Cairo on the _Enchantress Isis_. I hope you'll be pleased that
I've given up my dream of having a private dahabeah, and that we shall
be with you on Sir Marcus Lark's boat. She is really a beauty. Antoun
took us over her, and on board we met Sir Marcus, who was showing some
friends round. Antoun introduced him to us. I think Sir M. asked him to
do it. We had great fun, for Sir Marcus seemed to take the most violent