As we were returning to Cairo by the river, we passed the corpse of a woman floating on the water. Every European of the party felt pity for her fate, and for her fault. Had it been possible we would gladly have given sepulture to these dishonoured remains of our common humanity, from which the Divine inmate had been expelled so cruelly. Such sentiments, however, are unintelligible to the Arab mind. The dogs and the vultures, they think, will give sepulture good enough to one who has brought disgrace so stinging on father, brothers, and husband. No pity have they for the fallen. No consciousness of failings of their own. This is evil. But perhaps it might be more evil to care for none of these things. Indifference might be worse than hardness. Indifference would mean moral decay and rottenness. Hardness here is moral indignation, kindling up into an uncontrollable flame, which burns up, like stubble, all other feelings. These are simple-minded people, and they feel strongly within their narrow range of feelings. Something perhaps might be said in extenuation of the fault of this poor frail one, whose punishment, if it were not greater than her fault, was still the extremest man can inflict. What agonizing moments must those last ones have been when, not weakened by slow disease, nor broken by days spent in long imprisonment, but fresh from her home, in the flower of youth and Nature’s pride of strength, with the blood quick and warm, she was being dragged away to the dark river, and by those God had made nearest and dearest to her. Her brothers are foremost in the work. There is not a heart in all the world, except, perhaps, of one whom she dare not think of now, that is touched with pity for her. Brothers are turned to worse than tigers, for they never did to death their own kin, or even their own kind. But under such a system there will be some, among those who have wealth and leisure more than enough, who must fall. Women, like men, are only what the ideas in their minds make them. Every idea that is implanted, or springs up in the mind, may be regarded as a living thing. It has the attributes of life. It roots itself in the brain; it feeds, and assimilates what it feeds on; it grows; it ramifies; it bears fruit: it propagates itself after its kind; it carries on the Darwinian conflict for life with other ideas. If not killed itself, it may kill them. It may develop itself abnormally. It may get possession of an undue proportion of the ground.