I went off at once to Cairo, and I had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of our Consul-General, Mr. and Mrs. Vivian. I also had the worry of learning that the last _Sambúk_ (or open boat) had gone the day before. Not that I could have gone in her, because that would decidedly not have been "going properly," but I should have sent loads of things by it. I did not want to stop for the gaieties of Cairo; I wanted to get as near as I could to the opposite side of the water, and watch my chance of going. So I made my way up to Zagazíg, and visited poor Mrs. Clarke, who was just as unhappy as myself because her husband was gone with mine as secretary. I do not know that we did each other very much good. At Suez lived the Levick family (he was the Postmaster-General, and did good service to the State for something like forty-seven years, though his widow and children are now left to starve), and they were awfully kind to me. At last I was informed that a ship was going to be sent out, and that I was to have the offer of going in her, though it was intimated to me privately that the Khedive and the Governor, Said Bey, were very much in hopes that I should refuse. It was an Egyptian man-of-war, the _Senaar_, that was to anchor off the coast till the expedition emerged from the desert, and to bring them back. The Captain received me with all honour. All hands were piped on deck, and a guard and everything provided for me. They were most courteous, said that they would like to take me, and would do everything in their power to make me comfortable, but I saw at once that the accommodation was of too public a nature; in short, that it would be impossible for any woman to embark without her husband on an Egyptian man-of-war. It would lower _her_ in _their_ eyes, and hurt _his_ dignity. Besides turning _them_ out of their only quarters, when my husband came to embark the men of his Staff, I should be excessively in the way; so, thanking them exceedingly for their courteousness, I returned to the town, to the immense relief of all concerned, took some small rooms at the Suez Hotel, and started my literary work. To have crossed the Red Sea in an open _Sambúk_, with head winds blowing, and then to fight my way across the desert alone upon a camel, would have been dangerous to _me_ and _infra dig._ for my husband's position; and the Khedive was just in that critical state that I could not have asked him to organize a second Expedition, to send me out with no definite object, save my own pleasure, although I am sure that he would have done it in former prosperous years.