But I must tell you of my dining yesterday with Mrs. R., to meet Mr. Buckle, the author of the History of Civilization, who has just returned from his two or three months’ voyage upon the Nile, in which he pushed as far as Nubia.  He is now staying for a little while in Cairo, or rather in his dahabieh, or boat, (which he says is more comfortable than any hotel,) moored in the river at Boolak, the port of the town.  Mrs. R., the daughter of Lady Duff Gordon, and granddaughter of Mrs. Austin, is a most attractive and accomplished young lady; her husband is the manager in Egypt of the great banking-house of Briggs and Company, in which he is a partner.  Their usual residence is at Alexandria; but at this season “all the world” of Egypt comes to Cairo, to enjoy the beautiful weather here, while it is raining incessantly in Alexandria, only a hundred and thirty miles distant.  Mrs. R. in asking Mr. Thayer, our Consul-General, to meet Mr. Buckle, with very great kindness included me in the invitation.  The only other lady present was Miss P., a niece of the late Countess of Blessington, herself the author of several pleasant stories, and of a poem which gained a prize in competition with one by Mrs. Browning and another by Owen Meredith:  she is spending the winter with Mrs. R. There were also present C., who conducts the house of Briggs and Company in Cairo; O., another banker; and Hekekyan Bey, an Armenian, a well-read and intelligent man, formerly Minister of Public Instruction under Mehemet Ali, and still, I believe, in receipt of a pension from the Viceroy’s government, in consideration of his public services, which have been valuable.

The dinner was at an hotel called the Restaurant d’Auric.  We assembled in Mrs. R.’s drawing-room, an apartment in the banking-house at a little distance, and walked to the hotel.  The company fell into two groups, each lighted by a swarthy boab or lackey carrying a mushal or lantern; and I happened to walk with Mr. Buckle, so that I had a brief talk with him in the street, before the general conversation began at the table.  He remarked upon the extraordinary devotion exhibited by Delane of the London Times to the interests and politics of Lord Palmerston.  Becoming interested in our conversation, we strayed away from the rest, and were walking about a quarter of a mile down the bazaar, when (are you surprised to hear?) Mr. Buckle was missed, the two boabs came running after us, and we were cited to the dinner-table.

Buckle, of course, was the card.  He talked with a velocity and fulness of facts that was wonderful.  The rest of us could do little but listen and ask questions.  And yet he did not seem to be lecturing us; the stream of his conversation flowed along easily and naturally.  Nor was it didactic; Buckle’s range of reading has covered everything in elegant literature, as well as the ponderous works whose titles make so formidable a list at the beginning of his History, and, as he remembers everything he has read, he can produce his stores upon the moment for the illustration of whatever subject happens to come up.