We stayed some hours at Malta, and I had an interesting drive round the place. From Alexandria we had meant to go straight on to Cairo, but eventually agreed it was best to stay a night at a hotel in Alexandria to rest before the dusty train journey. We had a wretched night, and, not knowing how to find a good doctor if I needed one, I felt very lonely in a vast hotel where no one seemed to speak English. The next day we managed to journey on to Cairo in the morning, and rested at Shepherd's Hotel until the evening, and then moved on to this place--about half an hour by rail from Cairo, and actually on the borders of the desert. We have many friends in Cairo, and there is a good train service, so they often come out to spend the day with us, or for the afternoon, and then sometimes I go into Cairo to do necessary shopping or to pay some visits. Cairo is a very gay place, and the people very pleasant and friendly. One day I went to lunch with some friends, and they drove me to see the Citadel (driving all through the native quarter of the town), and then we had tea with the sisters at the Military Hospital--a rambling big place, designed for a palace and not for a hospital--and they seemed very full up with enteric patients. Then we went to see the Mosque, and were seized by the feet by several Arabs, who tied on sandals for us before we went inside, and in these we were allowed to flop about. The Mosque is a vast dome, nearly all marble and alabaster, with a lovely alabaster fountain, where the people wash their feet before going in to pray. We walked all round the fortifications, and had a splendid view of Cairo, and then drove back to town just in time to see the Khedive arrive from Alexandria; a stout, sad-looking young man, his native escort very smart, and riding such beautiful little horses. Another day I was invited to bicycle out from Cairo to Mena House; so I went into Cairo by the early morning train, and mounted a hired bicycle for the nine-mile ride to Mena House Hotel. The first two miles seemed very perilous, as our route lay all through the town, and many water-carts made the roads very slippery, and electric trams and steam trams rushed about in a most confusing way, and natives in swarms (many of them blind) seemed to take a pleasure in strolling in our track, and stupid donkeys and sad-eyed camels with unwieldy loads kept turning about in unexpected directions, and looking at us in a reproachful way, as much as to say they thought bicycles _quite_ out of place in their country. The narrow bridges over the Nile were thick with traffic, and I was quite glad when we got out to the open country and on to a good road with trees all along. We left our bicycles at the hotel, and walked out to the great Ghizeh Pyramids, really a most marvellous sight.