XXI
Luxor, Upper Egypt,
January 1898.
It was difficult for us to realise the snow and cold that you had for Christmas, while we were enjoying perpetual sunshine here.
My patient is now established in his little mud house, just across the road from this hotel. I am thankful to say his mother and brother have arrived, so we share the nursing between us.
It has been downhill work lately, and now he seldom leaves his bedroom, a large "upper chamber" with a nice view over the palm-trees to the Nile.
The nurse from Assouan has come down to be with him at night, as I have been annexed by a poor lady in the hotel who is desperately ill; she came up from Cairo with a very bad throat, and now that is better, but she is still very ill, and it is not quite clear whether it is typhoid fever or general pyæmia, but I am afraid, whatever it is, her strength cannot hold out much longer.
I am with her for all the nights and part of the days, and go backwards and forwards to the house, and get some sleep in just when I can.
There has been much excitement here about the rumour of war in the Soudan, and now it is more than rumour, and the troops are being pushed up country as fast as they can.
Cook's people are in great trouble, as all their tourists going down to Cairo have had to be turned off the boats at Naghamadi (the present railroad head), and they have to go the rest of the way down by train, while the boats turn back to take the troops up to Assouan. Some regiments are being sent all the way by rail, in spite of the line not being yet finished.