Cairo.
At Cairo I engaged a guide whom I paid three dollars for accompanying me as many hours, and bargained with him that he must furnish the mules, (or donkeys I should have said), and pay all the contingent expenses. We visited the Mosk of Mohamet Ali in the Citadel, the Mosk of Hassen and others. Attendants at the doors provided us with slippers, for no one is allowed to tread the fine carpet (or matting?) of these holy temples with his shoes. Hats must be kept on, however. A large mosque generally consists of porticoes surrounded a square open court, containing a fountain or tank in the center. Here every Mussulman washes his hands and feet before he goes to prayers. They sometimes would here bathe their whole bodies in former times! It is not at all surprising that washing of feet should have become a part of the religious ceremonies in countries like Egypt, where washing is quite as necessary to existence, as eating and drinking, even. I wish they had pure water enough to wash themselves a dozen times a day. They would certainly be, what we consider very dirty, more than half the time, even then. As it is, they must take their untanned goat-skin bags and collect the luke-warm water which they find in dirty pools, and take it home for drinking purposes! It is impossible for the poor Egyptians to keep themselves clean. It rains only about three days in a year, and the wind takes so much dust into the air that one can often neither see or breath for a few seconds. This dust collected in such a thick layer upon my body, the first day, that I could in the evening plow furrows with my fingers upon any portion of my skin. I protected my eyes, by hiding my face in my shawl, during the most dangerous busts; but being ignorant of the necessity of putting cotton into my ears, I lost the hearing of one of them, which I only recovered quite lately. Hundreds of people in Cairo are blind, and certainly the majority of them have but poor sight or have very sore eyes! What wretched houses they live in! Many of the huts in their villages consist of but a single apartment, large enough for a person to lie down lengthwise in it, but not more than 5 feet wide. The walls and roof are all mud, and so low that a man cannot stand erect in some of them! These mud-huts have no doors even! The men as well as the women wear long flowing garments, like those represented in our picture Bibles. Many of the poor women have but a single garment to cover their bodies with. This consists of a hood-like covering for the head, and a loose flowing robe, all in one piece; having neither shoes nor the other garments to make themselves presentable in any decent or refined society. Many present pictures of indescribable wretchedness. I saw a woman nurse her child in the cars, who, when presented with an apple for her babe, returned her thanks without a smile, even, to the giver! These people are in too great misery to know what it is to feel happy! I saw men and women speak by the hour in the train without once turning into any pleasant mood. How my pity might have turned into joy, could I only have seen them indulge in a hearty laugh occasionally! Some of their girls and women of all ages will still ride the donkey, after the oriental style. The middle and poorer classes of Egyptians will eat little snails and fish fried with the heads, scales and all the appurtenances of their internal structures! In the East they churn the butter in bags made of untanned goat-skins, having the hair inside. Moreover, they bring the butter upon the table without doing so much as to comb it, even!
When I had seen these things, and was informed that on account of the cholera which was still raging in Syria, the surrounding nations had interposed a quarantine, so that if I would venture to go on to Joppa (which I could have reached in a few hours), I would become a prisoner, I soon decided that I would rather not see a people (the Syrians) that is more miserable than the Egyptians, even, than be in danger of being obliged to partake of food that could scarcely have failed to make me sick. Crossing the desert by rail, meeting large caravans of camels, and seeing the palm-trees, the minarets, the mosks, the pyramids, the muddy waters of the Nile, and above all the curious styles of the oriental costume, are interesting enough to one that comes to Egypt with ordinary expectations and correct information in regard to the country; but I did not expect to find the Egyptians a black inferior race, that would fight with each other on the pavements in the largest cities in broad daylight, violently tear my property out of my hands in sight of the finest square in Alexandria, carry naked children upon their shoulders in their large towns, and seat themselves around large dishes of rice and gravy mixing the same with their fingers and conveying it to their mouths in the palms of their hands! Numbers of them will dine without the use of either knives, forks or spoons, and when dinner is over, there is but one dish to be washed. Each has two hands and ten fingers to clean, and washing those, ends the whole matter! These are extreme cases, of course. Some live decently, too. Some few of the ruling classes, in luxury, perhaps. From Cairo I traveled by rail to Ismalia, thence by the Suez Canal to Port Said, where I spent the Sunday (October 3rd). On Tuesday I reached Alexandria again. I there put up at a first-class hotel (for travelers from civilized and refined nations can not enjoy themselves at inferior hotels in Egypt), and stayed five days, until the next steamer sailed for Brindisi. The hotel contained an excellent cafe, where ten intelligent and refined ladies and four gentlemen, all natives of Austria, were engaged to render music every evening for a whole year. One evening as I sat in the cafe at my supper, a poor boy came in to sell flowers; for what we must pay in this country for a drink, I bought a bouquet almost as large as a bucket, and when the next lady came to collect for the music, I gave her the bouquet as a present to the whole company. It was worth more than an introduction to the entire party, and for the balance of my stay I was always well entertained, and was kindly informed of anything that I asked in regard to the manners and customs of oriental life. The people of every nation under the sun, travel in Egypt in the habits of their own peculiar national costumes--the Turk with his turban, the Greek with his red cap, and the Arabians, East Indians, Russians, and all the nations of Western Europe are represented here, all wearing their own peculiar styles and fashions. The money too is a mixture of the coins of a dozen different countries. None except the poorest women will come out of their houses without having their faces covered with thick black veils.