MORE WANDERINGS AND WORK 221 



the Treasury, was cordial in the extreme and most flat- 

 tering, for I had been sounded in the middle of the sum- 

 mer and had given a most emphatic denial at that time. 



The following winter (1885-86) he went to Egypt, 

 which had not then become the great playground of 

 Europe and America, dotted with the huge caravansa- 

 ries which meet the modern tourist at every turn. Those 

 were the days of the insurrection on the Upper Nile ; 

 the Soudan was in possession of the followers of the 

 Mahdi, and all travel above the First Cataract was sus- 

 pended. " There are not many travellers," he writes, 

 " but there are also very few facilities for getting any- 

 where, the Government having seized everything that 

 can float or walk to transport troops and materials to 

 the Soudan." 



The place that he had engaged on a boat up the 

 Nile was requisitioned by an English officer, and he was 

 obliged to wait for a later steamer. He had the good 

 luck to reach Assouan, the end of his journey, just as 

 the Cairo Museum was opening some tombs in the 

 neighborhood. On his return to Cairo, finding that all 

 the steamers for Italy were full, he took passage for 

 Constantinople, stopped a couple of days in Athens, and 

 returned to America by way of Vienna, Paris, and 

 London. 



TO HIS SECRETARY, MISS E. H. CLARK 



Athens, March 1, 1886. 



Athens is a very clean and wholly uneastern place, 

 the native costumes of the men and women very gor- 

 geous, that of the women specially so, but few of them 

 however wear it in public. It being carnival time there 



