ens died of it, and the
Arabs look blue and pinched. Of course it is _my weather_ and there
never was such cold and such incessant contrary winds known. To-day was
better, and Wassef, a Copt here, lent me his superb donkey to go up to
the tomb in the mountain. The tomb is a mere cavern, so defaced, but the
view of beautiful Siout standing in the midst of a loop of the Nile was
ravishing. A green deeper and brighter than England, graceful minarets
in crowds, a picturesque bridge, gardens, palm-trees, then the river
beyond it, the barren yellow cliffs as a frame all around that. At our
feet a woman was being carried to the grave, and the boys' voices rang
out the Koran full and clear as the long procession--first white turbans
and then black veils and robes--wound along. It is all a dream to me.
You can't think what an odd effect it is to take up an English book and
read it and then look up and hear the men cry, 'Yah Mohammad.' 'Bless
thee, Bottom, how art thou translated;' it is the reverse of all one's
former life when one sat in England and read of the East. '_Und nun sitz
ich mitten drein_' in the real, true Arabian Nights, and don't know
whether 'I be I as I suppose I be' or not.

Tell Alick the news, for I have not written to any but you. I do so long
for my Rainie. The little Copt girls are like her, only pale; but they
don't let you admire them for fear of the evil-eye.

December 20, 1862: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

THEBES,
_December_ 20, 1862.

DEAR ALICK,

I have had a long, dawdling voyage up here, but enjoyed it much, and have
seen and heard many curious things. I only stop here for letters and
shall go on at once to Wady Halfeh, as the weather is very cold still,
and I shall be better able to enjoy the ruins when I return about a month
hence, and shall certainly prefer the tropics now. I can't describe the
kindness of the Copts. The men I met at a party in Cairo wrote to all
their friends and relations to be civil to me. Wassef's attentions
consisted first in lending me his superb donkey and accompanying me about
all day. Next morning arrived a procession headed by his clerk, a
gentlemanly young Copt, and consisting of five black memlooks carrying a
live sheep, a huge basket of the most delicious bread, a pile o