Characterisation, especially by Letters 519 



On Saturday, the 24th, my short geographical speech* came off, quite successfully. I will use 

 the letter in French received to-day from the Secretary (in evidence) to wrap up the Jericho roses 

 in. Sunday and Monday were days of heavy rain. Cairo was flooded and the desert was quite 

 wet. We had tea with a Syrian, by name Makarius, who is a literary man and a printer, both 

 in Arabic and in English, and whose acquaintance I made last autumn at the British Associa- 

 tion. He showed me an Arabic periodical that forms a fat annual 8 V " volume, and which describes 

 what goes on in the scientific world everywhere. There was a chapter in last year's volume about 

 my latest work (the "Ancestral law," as people call it). We go with him to-night to hear some 

 Arabic music. Tuesday we walked to see some big quarries of white stone, whence files of camels 

 take the stones all day long to the Nile. On Wednesday I had a lunch and a tea party; Maud 

 Butler and her companions came, also Eva's cousins with three children, and Mrs Procter. On 

 Thursday we (Eva and I and a friend) went on donkeys about six miles, to see the wonderful 

 quarries from which the stones were cut, which formed the Pyramids. The stones must have 

 been rafted across the Nile, when flooded. From my window I can see at least seven large 

 Pyramids (including those at Gizeh). I am told that it is possible to count seventeen of them. 

 On Friday Eva and I made a desert expedition by carriage, and then onwards on foot. 

 Yt sterday we went for the clay to Cairo, to do things, and to-day is Sunday. Schweinfurth and 

 Professor Sayce (whose boat is 2J miles off) come to lunch with me to-morrow. The weather has 

 now turned hot, with a southerly (sirocco) wind, of which this month of March is sure to have 

 plenty. They call it the Khamsin wind. 



Those Jericho roses — they will make a letter unsafe, as the post office people may think they 

 are something valuable. So I have enclosed them in a separate packet, which may or may not 

 reach you, and I send the crumpled letter of the Secretary in this — tear it up. 



The above was written yesterday. We went in the evening to an Arab concert. The singers 

 w r ere five Syrian Jewesses. The room had a gallery round it with muslin 

 draperies, behind which the native ladies sat. The few European ladies v/AVS, WVY^aMoi 

 and all the men sat below. Eva was taken up to see the native ladies yC\G fr ' 1. e j* 9 OOOvVv 

 and says they had very good and pleasant manners and some were very 

 picturesque. They were all powdered on the faces, and the eyes and 

 eyebrows were much painted; not much perfume. Yesterday Mr W. 

 Bearcroft introduced himself. His father was the clergyman at Hadzorf. 

 He is on the engineering staff of the railroad. He had heard that the Cunliffes (Evelyn \) 

 were on the point of going, perhaps had already started for Cairo. 



I am anxious for home news of all sorts, for Gifi also is a little later than usual with his letter; 

 so also is Frank Butler. I only know that Chumley has been successfully operated on. I hope 

 that Darwin is recovering steadily, and that you, Bessy, have lost your cough at last. Mine is 

 practically gone for present purposes, but I know that bad English weather would soon bring 

 back that peculiar abomination. As for you, dear Emma, you do not often tell me about your- 

 self, so I imagine ups and downs. I hope Erasmus is now quite right. Bob Lethbridge has not 

 apparently been in the late heavy fighting. I wonder how soon the regular fighting will be over, 

 and armed occupation begin. This is only a sort of diary, you must please interpolate many 

 affectionate thoughts in my bald matter-of-fact story. Ever affectionately, Francis Galton. 



The following Postscript from a letter indicates that Galton had by mid- 

 summer exchanged the desert for Pall Mall. 



The Athenaeum, Pall Mall, S.W. June 29, 1900. 



P.S. I am enjoying this afternoon at the Club, and my favourite (but unwholesome) afternoon 

 provender is just set down at my elbow, viz. tea and muffins, with a muffineer and a large 

 napkin to wipe buttered fingers on. 



* Bee our Vol. m A , pp. 158 and 159. 

 r See our Vol. I, p. 53 and Plate XXIX. 

 % See p. 506, second footnote, above. 



