I have had a long, dawdling voyage up here, but enjoyed it much, and have seen and heard many curious things.  I only stop here for letters and shall go on at once to Wady Halfeh, as the weather is very cold still, and I shall be better able to enjoy the ruins when I return about a month hence, and shall certainly prefer the tropics now.  I can’t describe the kindness of the Copts.  The men I met at a party in Cairo wrote to all their friends and relations to be civil to me.  Wassef’s attentions consisted first in lending me his superb donkey and accompanying me about all day.  Next morning arrived a procession headed by his clerk, a gentlemanly young Copt, and consisting of five black memlooks carrying a live sheep, a huge basket of the most delicious bread, a pile of cricket-balls of creamy butter, a large copper caldron of milk and a cage of poultry.  I was confounded, and tried to give a good baksheesh to the clerk, but he utterly declined.  At Girgeh one Mishrehgi was waiting for me, and was in despair because he had only time to get a few hundred eggs, two turkeys, a heap of butter and a can of milk.  At Keneh one Issa (Jesus) also lent a donkey, and sent me three boxes of delicious Mecca dates, which Omar thought stingy.  Such attentions are agreeable here where good food is not to be had except as a gift.  They all made me promise to see them again on my return and dine at their houses, and Wassef wanted to make a fantasia and have dancing girls.  How you would love the Arab women in the country villages.  I wandered off the other day alone, while the men were mending the rudder, and fell in with a troop of them carrying water-jars—­such sweet, graceful beings, all smiles and grace.  One beautiful woman pointed to the village and made signs of eating and took my hand to lead me.  I went with her, admiring them as they walked.  Omar came running after and wondered I was not afraid.  I laughed, and said they were much too pretty and kindly-looking to frighten anyone, which amused them immensely when he told them so.  They all wanted me to go and eat in their houses, and I had a great mind to it, but the wind was fair and the boat waiting, so I bid my beautiful friends farewell.  They asked if we wanted anything—­milk or eggs—­for they would give it with pleasure, it was not their custom to sell things, they said, I offered a bit of money to a little naked child, but his mother would not let him take it.  I shall never forget the sweet, engaging creatures at that little village, or the dignified politeness of an old weaver whose loom I walked in to look at, and who also wished to ‘set a piece of bread before me.’  It is the true poetical pastoral life of the Bible in the villages where the English have not been, and happily they don’t land at the little places.  Thebes has become an English watering-place.  There are now nine boats lying here, and the great object is to do the Nile as fast as possible.  It is a race up to Wady Halfeh or Assouan.