Through the village, with its dirty streets lined by huts of mud and past little villages of the same squalid character, the train sped. Then across the arid desert region that extends northward from Suez to Ismalia, running parallel with the canal for a distance of thirty-five miles, and leaving the desert we entered the rich valley of the Nile, where the vegetation was most luxuriant. Groves of palm and acacias dotted the fields and flocks of sheep and goats were to be seen along the roadways of the irrigating canals that appeared to overspread the valley like a net. Camels plodding along beneath their heavy burden and water buffalos standing knee-deep in the clover were not uncommon sights at every station, while the train was surrounded by motley crowds of Bedouins, Arabs and Egyptians, the women being veiled to the eyes, a fact for which we probably had reason to be devoutly grateful, if we but knew it, as there was nothing in their shapeless figures to indicate any hidden beauty. Just as dusk we pulled into a little station some twenty miles from Cairo, and here Ryan started a panic among the natives by dressing Clarence Duval up in his drum-major suit of scarlet and gold lace, with a catcher's mask, over his face and a rope fastened around his waist, and turning him loose among the crowd that surrounded the carriages. To the minds of the unsophisticated natives the mascot appeared some gigantic ape that his keeper could with difficulty control, and both men and women fell over each other in their hurry to get out of his way. It was after dark when we arrived at Cairo where, as we alighted from the train, we were beset by an army of Egyptians, and we were obliged to literally fight our way to the carriages that were in waiting and that were to take us to the Hotel d'Orient, where rooms had already been secured for us, and where an excellent dinner was awaiting our arrival. CHAPTER XXVII. IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMIDS.