ably folded wings. Nobody seemed to hurry much, for a Nile boat
does not start until her passengers are all on board. An hour or so
makes no difference.

You go down the bank of the Nile to go on board a boat upon steps cut
in the earth, and if your hands are full and you cannot hold up your
dress, you sweep some three inches of fine yellow dust after you. But
you don't care. The man ahead scuffed his dust in your face, and the
woman behind you is sneezing in yours, and everything and everybody
are a little yellowish from it, but nobody stops to brush it off. It
is too exciting to hurry up on deck and place your steamer-chair and
fling your things into your stateroom and rush out again for fear that
you will miss something. There were Italians, French, English, Poles,
Swedes, and Americans on board. Some of them had titles. Some had only
bad manners, with nothing to excuse them. But, after all, everybody
was nice, I got through the whole three weeks without hating anybody
and with only wanting to drown one passenger. What better record of
amiability could you ask?

But one thing marred the start. This Anglo-American line of boats is
the only line in Egypt which flies the American flag. That was the
final inducement they offered which decided my choice of the
_Mayflower_. But while we knew that she was obliged to fly the
British flag also, we were indignant beyond words to see a huge Union
Jack floating at the top of the forward flagstaff and beneath it a
toy American flag about the size of a cigar-box. _Beneath_ the
English flag! I nearly wept with rage. The owner of the line was
at hand, and I did not wait to draw up a petition or to consult my
fellow-Americans. I just said: "Have the goodness to haul down that
infant American flag, will you? I have no objection to sailing under
both, but I do object to such an insulting disparity in size. Besides
that, you seem to have forgotten that the American flag never flies
_below_ any other flag on God's green earth!"

He made some apologies, and gave the order at once. The baby was
hauled down amid the smiles of the English passengers. But at Assiout
we were avenged when an enormous American flag arrived by rail and was
hoisted to the main flagstaff, twenty feet higher than the British.
When I came out on deck that Sunday morning, and saw that blessed flag
waving above me, everything blurred before my eyes, and I do assure
you that it was the most beautiful sight I saw in a