A poor neighbour of mine lost his little boy yesterday, and came out in the streets, as usual, for sympathy.  He stood under my window leaning his head against the wall, and sobbing and crying till, literally, his tears wetted the dust.  He was too grieved to tear off his turban or to lament in form, but clasped his hands and cried, ’Yah weled, yah weled, yah weled’ (O my boy, my boy).  The bean-seller opposite shut his shop, the dyer took no notice but smoked his pipe.  Some people passed on, but many stopped and stood round the poor man, saying nothing, but looking concerned.  Two were well-dressed Copts on handsome donkeys, who dismounted, and all waited till he went home, when about twenty men accompanied him with a respectful air.  How strange it seems to us to go out into the street and call on the passers-by to grieve with one!  I was at the house of Hekekian Bey the other day when he received a parcel from his former slave, now the Sultan’s chief eunuch.  It contained a very fine photograph of the eunuch—­whose face, though negro, is very intelligent and of charming expression—­a present of illustrated English books, and some printed music composed by the Sultan, Abd el Aziz, himself. O tempera! O mores! one was a waltz.  The very ugliest and scrubbiest of street dogs has adopted me—­like the Irishman who wrote to Lord Lansdowne that he had selected him as his patron—­and he guards the house and follows me in the street.  He is rewarded with scraps, and Sally cost me a new tin mug by letting the dog drink out of the old one, which was used to scoop the water from the jars, forgetting that Omar and Zeyneb could not drink after the poor beast.

Monday.—­I went yesterday to the port of Cairo, Boulak, to see Hassaneyn Effendi about boats.  He was gone up the Nile, and I sat with his wife—­a very nice Turkish woman who speaks English to perfection—­and heard all sorts of curious things.  I heard the whole story of an unhappy marriage made by Leyla, my hostess’s sister, and much Cairo gossip.  Like all Eastern ladies that I have seen she complains of indigestion, and said she knew she ought to go out more and to walk, but custom e contra il nostro decoro.

Mr. Thayer will be back in Egypt on December 15, so I shall embark about that time, as he may want his house here.  It is now a little fresh in the early morning, but like fine English summer weather.

Tuesday.—­Since I have been here my cough is nearly gone, and I am better for having good food again.  Omar manages to get good mutton, and I have discovered that some of the Nile fish is excellent.  The abyad, six or eight feet long and very fat, is delicious, and I am told there are still better; the eels are delicate and good too.  Maurice might hook an abyad, but how would he land him?  The worst is that everything is just double the price of last year, as, of course, no beef can be eaten at all, and the draught oxen