ARRIVAL AT CAIRO. 521 boat to Boulak, I dash at full speed down the long street leading into the heart of Cairo. No heed now of a broken neck : away we go, upsetting Turks, astonishing Copts and making Christians indignant, till I pull up in the shady alley before the British consulate. The door is not closed, and I go up stairs with three leaps and ask for letters. None ; but a quantity of papers which the shirt of my donkey-boy is scarcely capacious enough to hold. And now at full speed to my banker's. "Are there any letters for me?" "Letters? — a drawer full ! " and he reaches me the missives, more precious than gold. "Was not that a sweet repayment for my five months in the heat and silence and mystery of mid-Africa, when I sat by my window, opening on the great square of Cairo, fanned by cool airs from the flowering lemon groves, with the words of home in my ears, and my heart beating a fervent response to the sunset call from the minarets : " God is great ! G-od is merciful ! " I stayed eight days in Cairo, to allow my eyes time to heal. The season of winter travel was over, and the few tourists who still lingered, were about starting for Palestine, by way of Gaza. People were talking of the intense heat, and dreading the advent of the Jchamseen, or south-wind, so called because it blows fifty days. I found the temperature rather cool than warm, and the Jdiamseen, which blew occasionally, filling the city with dust, was mild as a zephyr, compared to the furnace-like blasts of the African Desert. Gentlemen prepared themselves for the journey across the Desert, by purchasing broad-brimmed hats, green veils, double-lined umbrel-