While resting here, I will briefly describe the mansion, as it is a good specimen of the better kind of houses in Cairo. Entering from the street, we found ourselves in a passage with seats on either side, a stopping-place for attendants, porter, or servants, who may come on business. This opened into one angle of a court, enclosed on three sides by the house; and on the fourth by a wall separating it from an outer yard or garden. Turning here to the left, we came presently to a stairway leading to the second story of the edifice. The lower part is occupied by servants, and as store rooms or for similar purposes. At the head of the stairs on the right was a chamber opening into the kitchen and its offices, and on the left a vestibule conducting to the dining-room, a lofty and very airy apartment. The walls and ceiling were ornamented with a variety of carved work in wood, and for windows were lattices in a great variety of handsome patterns: at one side of the room were two large recesses, adjoining projecting lattices; the floors in these were raised about two feet, and furnished with carpets and cushions. And here, after dinner, our company retired to enjoy their Turkish pipes. Ascending to the third story, and turning to the end of the building opposite the dining-room, we came first to a vestibule, the most striking object in which is several mammoth jars of earthenware, filled with Nile water. Through this vestibule we are admitted into the principal apartment of the house. It is about fifty feet in length, and airy and lofty; and raising our eyes to the ceiling, we have here explained to us an object which is apt to puzzle a traveller on his first approach to an Egyptian city. He sees on each of the flat roofs of the town before him something like a low shed, closed at the sides but open in front, and with a very long slanting roof. Here we discover its use, for the elevated ceiling of this room, instead of being flat throughout, towards one end begins to ascend, and rising high above the roof of the house, a large opening is thus made for the admission of air from above. This opening is covered with fanciful lattice-work. Its utility must be evident in a city where the houses are three or four stories high, and the streets usually not more than four feet in width. Entering this long room, the visitor finds each end of it occupied by a platform about a foot in height, covered with Turkey carpets, and lined with broad, luxurious ottomans. These platforms are separated at the centre of the room by a strip of marble pavement about twelve feet wide; at one end of which, opposite to us as we enter, is a recess with marble shelves for confectionary, pipes, and for supporting the priceless and most tempting Baldac. The Baldac, the reader, after this encomium, will be surprised to hear is only an earthen drinking vessel, in shape of a Florence flask, though about three times as large; it is unglazed, and the water oozing through its