The students are of all classes and conditions. Many are working their way through school. There are three scales of expense, graduated according to the tables at which the boys eat. One class has a table where all have knives and forks and the food furnished is as good and as varied as can be found anywhere. This is for the rich, who can pay as much as one hundred dollars a year for room and board. The second table is filled by students who can afford to pay only fifty dollars a year, and the third by those who cannot spare more than thirty-five dollars a year. Of the students of the first class only two or three live in one room, and of the second from four to eight, while those of the third are lodged in large rooms accommodating twenty or thirty, each of whom has his own bed, which he furnishes himself. The boys of the second class have simpler food than those of the first and eat with their fingers in native style. Those of the third class have still cheaper food, but in all cases it is as good as or better than the boys get at home, for here they have wheat bread and meat at least once a week. A pupil must pay a minimum fee of one dollar a session in money, but as far as is possible he may work out the rest of his expenses. The average tuition is only ten dollars a year. This big American college is doing so much good for Egypt that it is commended by the government and by every tourist who learns anything of Egyptian affairs. It was founded in 1865 and its first work was done in a donkey stable with five students. Dr. Hogg, a Scotch missionary, then constituted the entire faculty. It has now seven large buildings, which cover two acres, built around a campus shaded by date palms, and among its professors are graduates from the best of our colleges, including men from Princeton and Yale. It has not far from one thousand students, who come from all parts of Egypt and even from the Sudan and the other countries of northern Africa. These youths represent more than one hundred towns throughout the Nile valley and the graduates are scattered all over Egypt. Many of them are influential business men; some are lawyers, doctors, and teachers, and others are government officials. The graduates of the school are anxiously sought by the government as clerks. Their training is considered better than that of the Mohammedan colleges, where little except the Koranic law is taught, and they are found to be trustworthy and of high moral character. [Illustration: From Asyut come the famous metal shawls of silver or gold on black or white. The bazaar is over a mile long, and before the days of railroads was the trading place of caravan merchants from the south and buyers from the north.] [Illustration: The Egyptian complained that under British rule not enough of his tax money was spent on native schools. Only twelve per cent of the men and less than two per cent of the women can read and write.] CHAPTER XIV THE CHRISTIAN COPTS