258 By Stream and Sea, 



longer, indeed, than to give the Ismailia pilot time to put off 

 in his steam launch, and come on board to take charge from 

 his colleague, who had assumed command at Port Said. 



The Frenchman, even in the desert, is ever gay, and must 

 have his little amusements. At Ismailia you may see him 

 sitting under the trees to keep up his remembrances of the 

 Champs Elysees by a temperate consumption of sugar-water, 

 iced' syrups, and syphon drinks. Of course we found an 

 Irishman in Ismailia. Where do you not find one, especially 

 if there be a French colony anywhere handy ? He owned a 

 splendid Arab horse that he intended to ride at the forth- 

 coming races at Alexandria, but the animal had been ridden 

 too hard from Jerusalem across the desert, and was in a 

 sorry plight when his Egyptian groom led him out for his 

 afternoon canter to the Viceroy's palace. In his fez, and 

 from the fluent manner in which, as an officer of the telegraph 

 bureau, the owner of the Arab steed conversed with Turks, 

 Arabs, and niggers in their own tongues, I was puzzled to 

 account for his nationality until I discovered by accident that 

 he was a genuine son of green Erin. How out of place in 

 those sandy Egyptian wastes looked the telegraphic wires and 

 railway line ! 



At night we went the round of the places of public enter- 

 tainment. They were all well-conducted and some of them 

 really entertaining. In one concert hall we heard some 

 capital music from an orchestra composed of young German 

 girls, who discoursed most sweet strains from stringed, wind, 

 and brass instruments, and who, by contrast with the women 

 at the Cafe Chantant, looked the essence of homely sim- 

 plicity, and prettiness withal. There was a little too much 

 Wagner, perhaps, in the programme, but one could forgive 

 that in a bevy of genuinely blonde-haired enthusiasts fresh 

 from Fatherland. 



