It was at the Abdin Palace that I met His Highness to-day. The interview had been arranged by the American consul general. We left his office together in the consular carriage. The dragoman of the legation, a bright-eyed Syrian in the most gorgeous of Turkish clothes of brown covered with gold embroidery and with a great sword shaped like a scimitar clanking at his side, opened the carriage door for us and took his seat by the coachman. The Arabian Jehu cracked his whip and away we went through the narrow streets. We drove by the modern European mansions of the rich Greeks, past the palaces of Egyptian princes from which came the sweet smell of orange flowers and over which whispered broad spreading palms. We then went through a business street amid droves of donkeys, through a caravan of camels, by veiled women clad in black, past the palace in which Ismail Pasha had his harem when he was khedive, and on into a great square of many acres. On the right of this square were vast barracks filled with Arab troops in blue uniforms and fezzes. A regiment of Egyptian troops was going through a gymnastic drill, performing the motions as well to-day as they did at the time when our American General Stone was their commander and when General Grant reviewed them and said that they seemed to be good soldiers for everything except fighting. The Abdin Palace, built in the form of a great horseshoe, is at the end of this square. It is a vast building of two stories, of brown stucco, with many windows and a grand entrance way in the centre. At the left there is a door leading to the harem, and as our carriage drove up we were passed by a closed coach drawn by two magnificent Arabian horses. On the box beside the liveried coachman sat a scowling eunuch whose black skin and dark clothes were all the more sombre by contrast with his bright red skullcap. In front of the carriage ran two fleet _syces_ with wands or staffs held up in the air in front of them, warning plebeians to get out of the way. I was told that the carriage was that of a princess who was about to make a call upon the Khedivieh, or queen. These runners, who are a part of every nobleman’s turnout, are among the most picturesque sights of Egypt.