How you would revel in old Masr el-Kahira, peep up at lattice windows, gape like a gasheem (green one) in the bazaar, go wild over the mosques, laugh at portly Turks and dignified Sheykhs on their white donkeys, drink sherbet in the streets, ride wildly about on a donkey, peer under black veils at beautiful eyes and feel generally intoxicated!  I am quite a good cicerone now of the glorious old city.  Omar is in raptures at the idea that the Sidi el Kebir (the Great Master) might come, and still more if he brought the ‘little master.’  He plans meeting you on the steamboat and bringing you to me, that I may kiss your hand first of all.  Mashallah!  How our hearts would be dilated!

May 21, 1863:  Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.  MASR EL-KAHIRA, CAIRO, May 21, 1863.

Dearest Mutter,

I came here on Saturday night.  To-day is Wednesday, and I am already much better.  I have attached an excellent donkey and his master, a delightful youth called Hassan, to my household for fifteen piastres (under two shillings) a day.  They live at the door, and Hassan cleans the stairs and goes errands during the heat of the day, and I ride out very early, at six or seven, and again at five.  The air is delicious now.  It is very hot for a few hours, but not stifling, and the breeze does not chill one as it does at Alexandria.  I live all day and all night with open windows, and plenty of fresh warm air is the best of remedies.  I can do no better than stay here till the heat becomes too great.  I left little Zeyneb at Alexandria with Janet’s maid Ellen who quite loves her, and begged to keep her ‘for company,’ and also to help in their removal to the new house.  She clung about me and made me promise to come back to her, but was content to stop with Ellen, whose affection she of course returns.  It was pleasant to see her so happy, and how she relished being ‘put to bed’ with a kiss by Ellen or Sally.  Her Turkish master, whom she pronounces to have been batal (bad), called her Salaam es-Sidi (the Peace of her Master); but she said that in her own village she used to be Zeyneb, and so we call her.  She has grown fatter and, if possible, blacker.  Mahbrooka (Good Fortune), the elder wife of Hegab, the confectioner, was much interested in her, as her fate had been the same.  She was bought by an Italian who lived with her till his death, when she married Hegab.  She is a pious Muslimeh, and invoked the intercession of Seyidna Mohammad for me when I told her I had no intention of baptizing Zeyneb by force, as had been done to her.