The “carpet” is a black velvet embroidered solidly in silver and gold.  It is shaped like an old-fashioned Methodist church, only there are minarets at the four corners.  It looks like a pall.  Every year they send a new one to Mecca, and then the old one is cut into tiny bits and distributed among the faithful, who wear it next their hearts.

This carpet was about six feet long, and was railed in so that no one could touch it.  A man stood by and sprayed attar of roses on you as you passed, but I do not know what he did it for, unless it was to turn sensitive women faint with the heaviness of the perfume.

But the next morning the procession formed, and amid the wildest enthusiasm, the bowing and salaaming of the men, and the shouting and running of the children, and the singing of the Arabs who bore the carpet, it was placed upon the most magnificent camel I ever saw, which was covered from head to foot with cloth of gold, and whose very gait seemed more majestic because of his sacred burden, and thus, led by scores of enthusiastic Arabs, he moved slowly down the street, following the covering for the tomb, and in turn being followed by one scarcely less magnificent destined to cover the sacred carpet in its camel journey to Mecca.  That was absolutely all there was to it, yet the Khedive was there with a fine military escort, and all Cairo turned out at the unearthly hour of eight o’clock in the morning to see it.

As we drove back we saw the streets for blocks around a certain house hung with colored-glass lanterns, and thousands upon thousands of small Turkey-red banners with white Arabic letters on them strung on wires on each side of the street.  These we knew were the decorations for the famous wedding which was to occur that night, and to which we had fortunately been bidden.  It was in very smart society.  The son of a pasha was to marry the daughter of a pasha, and the presents were said to be superb.

We wore our best clothes.  We had ordered our bouquets beforehand, for one always presents the bride with a bouquet, and they were really very beautiful.  It was a warm night, with no wind, and the heavens were twinkling with millions of stars.  Such big stars as they have in Egypt!

When we arrived we were taken in charge by a eunuch so black that I had to feel my way up-stairs.  There were, perhaps, fifty other eunuchs standing guard in the ante-chamber, and our dragoman took the men who brought us around to another door, where all the men had to wait while we women visited the bride.

A motley throng of women were in the outer room—­fat black women with waists two yards around, canary-colored women laced into low-cut European evening dresses, brown women in native dress; a babel of voices, chattering in curious French, Arabic, Turkish, and Greek.  All the women were terribly out of shape from every point of view, and not a pretty one among them.  One attendant snatched my bouquet without even a “Thank