Cairo more than answered his expectations.  He stayed here till the 13th, making several excursions in company with Sir W. Gregory, notably to Boulak Museum, where he particularly notes the “man with ape” from Memphis; and, of course, the pyramids, of which he remarks that Cephren’s is cased at the top with limestone, not granite.  His notebook and sketch-book show that he was equally interested in archeology, in the landscape and scenes of everyday life, and in the peculiar geographical and geological features of the country.  His first impression of the Delta was its resemblance to Belgium and Lincolnshire.  He has sections and descriptions of the Mokatta hill, and the windmill mound, with a general panorama of the surrounding country and an explanation of it.  He remarks at Memphis how the unburnt brick of which the mounds are made up had in many places become remanie into a stratified deposit—­distinguishable from Nile mud chiefly by the pottery fragments—­and notes the bearing of this fact on the Cairo mounds.  It is the same on his trip up the Nile; he jots down the geology whenever opportunity offered; remarks, as indication of the former height of the river, a high mud-bank beyond Edfou, and near Assouan a pot-hole in the granite fifty feet above the present level.  Here is a detailed description of the tomb of Aahmes; there a river-scene beside the pyramid of Meidum; or vivid sketches of vulture and jackal at a meal in the desert, the jackal in possession of the carcass, the vulture impatiently waiting his good pleasure for the last scraps; of the natives working at the endless shadoofs; of a group of listeners around a professional story-teller—­unfinished, for he was observed sketching them.

Egypt left a profound impression upon him.  His artistic delight in it apart, the antiquities and geology of the country were a vivid illustration to his trained eye of the history of man and the influence upon him of the surrounding country, the link between geography and history.

He left behind him for a while a most unexpected memorial of his visit.  A friend not long after going to the pyramids, was delighted to find himself thus adjured by a donkey-boy, who tried to cut out his rival with “Not him donkey, sah; him donkey bad, sah; my donkey good; my donkey ’Fessor-uxley donkey, sah.”  It appears that the Cairo donkey-boys have a way of naming their animals after celebrities whom they have borne on their backs.

While at Thebes, on his way down the river again, he received news of the death of the second son of Matthew Arnold, to whom he wrote the following letter:—­]

Thebes, March 10, 1872.

My dear Arnold,

I cannot tell you how shocked I was to see in the papers we received yesterday the announcement of the terrible blow which has fallen upon Mrs. Arnold and yourself.

Your poor boy looked such a fine manly fellow the last time I saw him, when we dined at your house, that I had to read the paragraph over and over again before I could bring myself to believe what I read.  And it is such a grievous opening of a wound hardly yet healed that I hardly dare to think of the grief which must have bowed down Mrs. Arnold and yourself.