?' Then another suggests that if the lady will consent to give
four napoleons, he had better take them, and that settles it. Everybody
gives an opinion here, and the price is fixed by a sort of improvised
jury.

_Christmas Day_.--At last my departure is fixed. I embark to-morrow
afternoon at Boulak, and we sail--or steam, rather--on Sunday morning
early, and expect to reach Thebes in eight days. I heard a curious
illustration of Arab manners to-day. I met Hassan, the janissary of the
American Consulate, a very respectable, good man. He told me he had
married another wife since last year--I asked what for. It was the widow
of his brother who had always lived with him in the same house, and who
died leaving two boys. She is neither young nor handsome, but he
considered it his duty to provide for her and the children, and not to
let her marry a stranger. So you see that polygamy is not always sensual
indulgence, and a man may practise greater self-sacrifice so than by
talking sentiment about deceased wives' sisters. Hassan has 3 pounds a
month, and two wives come expensive. I said, laughing, to Omar as we
left him, that I did not think the two wives sounded very comfortable.
'Oh no! not comfortable at all for the man, but he take care of the
women, that's what is proper--that is the good Mussulman.'

I shall have the company of a Turkish Effendi on my voyage--a
Commissioner of Inland Revenue, in fact, going to look after the
tax-gatherers in the Saeed. I wonder whether he will be civil. Sally is
gone with some English servants out to the Virgin's tree, the great
picnic frolic of Cairene Christians, and, indeed, of Muslimeen also at
some seasons. Omar is gone to a _Khatmeh_--a reading of the Koran--at
Hassan the donkey-boy's house. I was asked, but am afraid of the night
air. A good deal of religious celebration goes on now, the middle of the
month of Regeb, six weeks before Ramadan. I rather dread Ramadan as Omar
is sure to be faint and ill, and everybody else cross during the first
five days or so; then their stomachs get into training. The new
passenger-steamers have been promised ever since the 6th, and will not
now go till after the races--6th or 7th of next month. Fancy the Cairo
races! It is growing dreadfully Cockney here, I must go to Timbuctoo:
and we are to have a railway to Mecca, and take return tickets for the
_Haj_ from all parts of the world.

December 27, 1863: Mrs. Austin