There was a nice little Franciscan Convent of Italian monks near the inn, a mere hut with a room decorated as a chapel, where I used to pass an hour or so every day. Consul West and his wife were most hospitable to me, and they lent me a gigantic white donkey which nobody could break. He was more difficult to ride than any horse I ever mounted, as he ate his head off in the stable and never was ridden. I took long desert rides on him, but he nearly dislocated all my bones. Once I rode to see the Haj Caravan, and I went to see the _Da'aseh_ (the mounted Shaykh riding over the backs of the people), and once came in for a tremendous sand-storm. General Charles Gordon arrived, and stayed a week here, which I enjoyed very much, for of course I used to see him every day. He was certainly very eccentric, but very charming. I say eccentric, until you got to know and understand him. Also Mr. and Mrs. Ashley-Dodd came there for several days. I was obliged to go to Cairo for four days, including journeys. In those days it was a ten-hours' wearying affair. I arrived at six, and about half an hour afterwards got an invitation to the Khedive's theatricals, balls, and supper. It was a magnificent affair, a perfect garden upstairs, halls of blazing light and flowers, gorgeous dresses, magnificent supper and good wine, first-rate acting, and all the great people in Egypt present. The Khedive was exceedingly gracious to me. I had loads of people to see me, and many invitations. Amongst others, that admirable old man, Baron Ferdinand de Lesseps (in spite of his late _failure_, not his _fault_, a real Grand Old Man); and his pretty wife invited me to Ismailíyyeh; but of course I could not go. I just caught a glimpse of all my friends, not forgetting Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Baird, and on the fourth day worried back to Suez in the ten-hour train. During those four days and nights I think I had had only four hours' sleep. I had one little thing to amuse me. A P. and O. arrived and touched there, and on these days, unless you had friends on board, the passengers seemed to turn you out of house and home, and there were generally a quantity of Indian military ladies. The ladies' toilette-room for these passengers was near my room, and coming out I saw them struggling on very uncomfortably, almost in the dark; so I good-naturedly fetched a candle from my room, and said, "I am afraid you are very uncomfortable in there--will you have a candle?" They stared me up and down for a minute, and then said, "Why, of course. Go and get us a comb and some hot water, will you?" I began to be amused. I was in hopes they would give me a shilling--but they did not. I called my maid and told her in German to go and tell the landlady that they wanted a comb and some hot water. "Oh," they said, "do you _all_ speak German in this hotel?" I said, "I don't know--but that girl is an Austrian." I then went back to my room.