At Cairo I engaged a guide whom I paid three dollars for accompanying me as many hours, and bargained with him that he must furnish the mules, (or donkeys I should have said), and pay all the contingent expenses.  We visited the Mosk of Mohamet Ali in the Citadel, the Mosk of Hassen and others.  Attendants at the doors provided us with slippers, for no one is allowed to tread the fine carpet (or matting?) of these holy temples with his shoes.  Hats must be kept on, however.  A large mosque generally consists of porticoes surrounded a square open court, containing a fountain or tank in the center.  Here every Mussulman washes his hands and feet before he goes to prayers.  They sometimes would here bathe their whole bodies in former times!  It is not at all surprising that washing of feet should have become a part of the religious ceremonies in countries like Egypt, where washing is quite as necessary to existence, as eating and drinking, even.  I wish they had pure water enough to wash themselves a dozen times a day.  They would certainly be, what we consider very dirty, more than half the time, even then.  As it is, they must take their untanned goat-skin bags and collect the luke-warm water which they find in dirty pools, and take it home for drinking purposes!  It is impossible for the poor Egyptians to keep themselves clean.  It rains only about three days in a year, and the wind takes so much dust into the air that one can often neither see or breath for a few seconds.  This dust collected in such a thick layer upon my body, the first day, that I could in the evening plow furrows with my fingers upon any portion of my skin.  I protected my eyes, by hiding my face in my shawl, during the most dangerous busts; but being ignorant of the necessity of putting cotton into my ears, I lost the hearing of one of them, which I only recovered quite lately.  Hundreds of people in Cairo are blind, and certainly the majority of them have but poor sight or have very sore eyes!  What wretched houses they live in!  Many of the huts in their villages consist of but a single apartment, large enough for a person to lie down lengthwise in it, but not more than 5 feet wide.  The walls and roof are all mud, and so low that a man cannot stand erect in some of them!  These mud-huts have no doors even!  The men as well as the women wear long flowing garments, like those represented in our picture Bibles.  Many of the poor women have but a single garment to cover their bodies with.  This consists of a hood-like covering for the head, and a loose flowing robe, all in one piece; having neither shoes nor the other garments to make themselves presentable in any decent or refined society.  Many present pictures of indescribable wretchedness.  I saw a woman nurse her child in the cars, who, when presented with an apple for her babe, returned her thanks without a smile, even, to the giver!  These people are in too great misery to know what it is to feel happy!  I saw men and women speak by the hour