"What an awful place for flies!" Arthur Hill said, after brushing two or three off his cheek. "Just look at that child! Why, there are a dozen round its eyes, and it doesn't seem to mind them in the least; and there is another just the same!" "I expect the coating of dirt is so thick that they do not feel it," Jim Tucker said. "Poor little beggars, most of them look as if they had not had a wash for the last month. The women are ugly enough, what you can see of them, and that is not much. What a rascally set the Europeans look! The Egyptians are gentlemen by the side of them. I fancy from what I have heard they are the sweepings of the European ports--Greeks, Italians, Maltese, and French. When a fellow makes it too hot at home for the place to hold him, he comes over here-- "Ah! this is more like a town," he broke off as they entered the great square. "My goodness! how hot the sun does blaze down here. I say, here is a refreshment place. Sorbette--Ices. It is lucky that they put the English. Come on, you fellows, an ice would be just the thing now." As they came out they were accosted by an Egyptian driver. "Take a carriage, gentlemen? Drive to Sweet-water Canal. See the gardens." "What do you say, Jack?" Tucker asked. "I suppose we may as well go there as anywhere else." "Well, we will go there later, Tucker. One does get shade in the narrow streets; but there would be no fun in driving with this sun blazing down on us. By five o'clock, when the sun gets a bit lower, it will be pleasant enough. I vote we go into the narrow streets, where we shall get shade, and see the natives in their own quarters." The others agreed, and turning out of the square they were soon in the lanes. "This is not half as amusing as the Indian towns," Tucker said. "Last voyage I went to Calcutta, and it is jolly in the natives' town there, seeing the natives squatting in their little shops, tinkering and tailoring, and all sorts of things. And such a crowd of them in the streets! This is a poor place in comparison, and most of the shops you see have European names over them. However, one gets the shade; that is something." CHAPTER IX. THE RIOT IN ALEXANDRIA. FOR half an hour the lads sauntered on, interested in the people rather than the shops. They bought a few things. Jack invested in half a pound of Egyptian tobacco and a gaily-decorated pipe for his Uncle Ben, two little filigree brooches, and a couple of very large silk handkerchiefs of many colours, with knotted fringes, for his mother and sister. "I do not know what they will do with them," he said; "but they will do to put on the back of a sofa or something of that sort." The others also made some purchases, both expending a good deal more than Jack did; but the latter said that he would keep his money for Smyrna, where probably he would get all sorts of pretty things.