proper: I must say 'O my Lord' or
'Abou Maurice.'

March 7, 1863: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

A FEW MILES BELOW GIRGEH,
_March_ 7, 1863.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I was so glad to find from your letter (which Janet sent me to Thebes by
a steamer) that mine from Siout had reached you safely. First and
foremost I am wonderfully better. In Cairo the winter has been terribly
cold and damp, as the Coptic priest told me yesterday at Girgeh. So I
don't repent the expense of the boat for _j'en ai pour mon argent_--I am
_all_ the money better and really think of getting well. Now that I know
the ways of this country a little, which Herodotus truly says is like no
other, I see that I might have gone and lived at Thebes or at Keneh or
Assouan on next to nothing, but then how could I know it? The English
have raised a mirage of false wants and extravagance which the servants
of the country of course, some from interest and others from mere
ignorance, do their best to keep up. As soon as I had succeeded in
really persuading Omar that I was not as rich as a Pasha and had no wish
to be thought so, he immediately turned over a new leaf as to what must
be had and said 'Oh, if I could have thought an English lady would have
eaten and lived and done the least like Arab people, I might have hired a
house at Keneh for you, and we might have gone up in a clean passenger
boat, but I thought no English could bear it.' At Cairo, where we shall
be, Inshallaha, on the 19th, Omar will get a lodging and borrow a few
mattresses and a table and chair and, as he says, 'keep the money in our
pockets instead of giving it to the hotel.' I hope Alick got my letter
from Thebes, and that he told you that I had dined with 'the blameless
Ethiopians.' I have seen all the temples in Nubia and down as far as I
have come, and nine of the tombs at Thebes. Some are wonderfully
beautiful--Abou Simbel, Kalabshee, Room Ombo--a little temple at El Kab,
lovely--three tombs at Thebes and most of all Abydos; Edfou and Dendera
are the most perfect, Edfou quite perfect, but far less beautiful. But
the most lovely object my eyes ever saw is the island of Philae. It
gives one quite the supernatural feeling of Claude's best landscapes,
only not the least like them--_ganz anders_. The Arabs say that Ans el
Wogood, the most be