There are streets in Cairo where the stench is so great that the wonder is how any living thing can breathe it and survive; in comparison with which a glue factory or fertiliser works is Attar of Roses, and an Irish pigsty a featherbed in heaven; and yet in these streets—these cesspools—the painted ladies of low degree live and move and carry on abominations which are unnamable; things which the brute creation is guiltless of. There are other streets in Cairo where the painted ladies of higher degree—the very patricians of their profession—follow their calling in an atmosphere of luxury permeated by all the seductive and sensual voluptuousness of a land which for countless æons has been the home of the voluptuary and the pleasure seeker; an atmosphere to breathe which might shatter the vows of an anchoret. There are houses in Cairo in which certain male and female vampires batten and wax rich on the proceeds of a thriving trade in the White Slave Market; houses in which wives are bought and sold like so many bullocks; aye, and houses in which, if rumour say truly, a man will sell you his own daughter—and not think it worth his while to witness the wedding ceremony! Yes, it is a wicked old city, the Rio Cairo. I have a lively remembrance of a certain Sunday evening which I put in as one of a strong Town Picket. Our "beat" lay for the most part in the localities I have just been describing, and it would be putting it mildly to say that we had our eyes opened to the pleasant little ways of the Eastern. It was more than an eye-opener; it was a revelation. And in some ways I reckon it was an education. At the same time I shouldn't advise the prospective student to imbibe too deeply of that sink—er—well of learning. I can smell that aroma even now. About six or seven miles up the line from our camp lay the native village of Maarg. I had heard that this was a typical Arabic-Egyptian settlement, and that it was quite unvisited by the troops, so I resolved to prospect it. Giving Church Parade a miss the following Sunday, my mate and I toddled down to Helmieh Station, had an early dinner in an eating-house there, and took train to Maarg Siding. The country we passed through was very different from that which surrounded our camp; it was all irrigated soil, hence the track wound through a belt of land blooming with flowers, lush grass, and magnificent berseine crops. Everywhere the date palm, the prickly pear, the banana, and the fig grew in the most prodigal profusion; everywhere one saw donkeys, buffaloes, camels, goats, and hybrid sheep revelling in the midst of plenty. The soil simply exuded fertility; tickle its bosom and the milk flowed.