In 1856, as she was in ill health, it was recommended that she should spend the winter in a warmer climate.  Egypt was chosen, and, accompanied by a friend, she landed at Alexandria and proceeded to Cairo, where she remained several months.  This was her first acquaintance with what was to be the land of her adoption.  Before returning home in the spring of 1857 she made a prolonged tour in Syria and Palestine.  She took much note of the mission work carried on in various places, and so greatly interested was she in the work among Jewesses then carried on in Jerusalem that she had some thoughts of giving it for a time her personal assistance.

III.

FIRST EFFORTS IN CAIRO.

The year 1860 was one of sorrow and bereavement to Mary Whately.  She lost first her youngest sister, then her mother.  Under the strain of nursing and sorrow her own health was seriously affected, and she was ordered by the doctors to spend the winter in a warmer climate.  Her thoughts recurred to Egypt and her former pleasant sojourn there; accordingly she selected Cairo as her residence, purposing in her heart to make an attempt to bring the Gospel within reach of the Moslem women and girls.  Egypt was then very different from what it is now.  Railways were but just beginning to make their appearance, the Suez Canal was not yet cut, European customs, now so prevalent, had scarcely begun to invade the age-long usages of the upper classes.  English residents in Cairo and tourists up the river were alike few in number.  Few outside influences had been brought to bear on the Mohammedan population to moderate their extreme bigotry and hatred of anything called Christian—­a word which they invariably associated with the picture and image worship of the members of the Greek or Roman Church with whom they had come in contact, or with the irreligious pleasure-seeking of tourists, or travellers by the overland route to India.  The Copts, or descendants of the early Egyptian Christians, were almost without exception buried in the profoundest ignorance of the Scriptures and of Christian truth, given over to superstitious beliefs and practices, and destitute of any real spiritual life.  Education for boys was of the most primitive character; for girls it was never thought of, nor had any educational effort ever been made for them during the twelve centuries which had elapsed since the rise of Mohammedanism.  Christian missionary operations were almost non-existent.  The American Presbyterians had recently commenced missionary effort, but their work was mainly, as it still is, among the Copts, and they had not yet opened a station in Cairo.  Since 1827 indeed the Church Missionary Society had maintained a missionary—­sometimes two—­in Cairo, but their work had not issued in the formation of a Protestant Christian Church.