It is worth going to Nubia to see the girls.  Up to twelve or thirteen they are neatly dressed in a bead necklace and a leather fringe 4 inches wide round the loins, and anything so absolutely perfect as their shapes or so sweetly innocent as their look can’t be conceived.  My pilot’s little girl came in the dress mentioned before carrying a present of cooked fish on her head and some fresh eggs; she was four years old and so klug.  I gave her a captain’s biscuit and some figs, and the little pet sat with her little legs tucked under her, and ate it so manierlich and was so long over it, and wrapped up some more white biscuit to take home in a little rag of a veil so carefully.  I longed to steal her, she was such a darling.  Two beautiful young Nubian women visited me in my boat, with hair in little plaits finished off with lumps of yellow clay burnished like golden tags, soft, deep bronze skins, and lips and eyes fit for Isis and Hathor.  Their very dress and ornaments were the same as those represented in the tombs, and I felt inclined to ask them how many thousand years old they were.  In their house I sat on an ancient Egyptian couch with the semicircular head-rest, and drank out of crockery which looked antique, and they brought a present of dates in a basket such as you may see in the British Museum.  They are dressed in drapery like Greek statues, and are as perfect, but have hard, bold faces, and, though far handsomer, lack the charm of the Arab women; and the men, except at Kalabshee and those from far up the country, are not such gentlemen as the Arabs.

Everyone is cursing the French here.  Forty thousand men always at work at the Suez Canal at starvation-point, does not endear them to the Arabs.  There is great excitement as to what the new Pasha will do.  If he ceases to give forced labour, the Canal, I suppose, must be given up.  Well, I must leave off and send my letter to Mustapha Aga to forward.  I shall stay here ten days or so, and then return slowly to Cairo on March 10, the last day of Ramadan.  I will stay a short time at Cairo, and then take a small boat and drop down to Alexandria and see Janet.  How I did wish for my darling Rainie to play with Achmet in the boat and see the pretty Nubian boys and girls.  I have seen and heard so much, that like M. de Conti je voudrais etre leve pour l’aller dire.  I long to bore you with traveller’s tales.  Pray write soon.

Omar wanted to hear all that ‘the gentleman’ said about ‘weled and bint’ (boy and girl), and was quite delighted to hear of Maurice’s good report at school, he thinks that the ‘Abou el welad’ (father of the children—­you, to wit) will send a sheep to the ‘fikee’ who teaches him.  I have learned a new code of propriety altogether—­cela a du bon et du mauvais, like ours.  When I said ‘my husband’ Omar blushed and gently corrected me; when my donkey fell in the streets he cried with vexation, and on my mentioning the fall to Hekekian Bey he was