I got my cradle finally "by some ingenious method." (One of the students is always saying that.) Funny how the boys here pick out bookish expressions and use them for everything. I collected my strings again, suspecting that they had not been out of Asturah's belt pocket since the day I gave them to him. You ought to see those belts! The natives take a square of wool material with a striped blue and brown and red Persian design, fold it corner-wise, and attach one end to their potato-sack trousers. Then they wind this affair around and around their middle and fasten it on the other side. The shawl is pretty big to begin with. They keep an amazing number and variety of things in the fold of this belt; dagger, package of bread and cheese and olives for lunch, and a little brass contrivance for holding pen and ink. There is really some sense to this kind of a belt in a blow-cold, blow-hot country, for it keeps tummies warm and protects from intestinal troubles. No wonder natives get along without expensive Jaeger cholera belts. This time I sent Socrates with my strings to the tinsmith in the bazaar. He made me a tin affair according to my measurements. Baby's bathtub. Next I sent the bathtub to the Fellahin with orders to make a basket covering for it, the same shape as the "tin dish" to protect it during a long journey we expected soon to take. The weaver then had in his mind's eye just how tub and basket would be strapped on one side of a pack-saddle. For these people, a journey means going somewhere on horseback. When we sail for Marseilles in June, I will put the tub into the basket, pillows, didies and mattress into the tub, cover the whole with a Turkish cradle shawl we bought yesterday, and fasten it with a big strap. The cradle shawl is two yards square, made of coarse woolen material. If you please, it is dyed brilliant red and green, with alternating checks. How is that for something dainty for a baby? In the middle of the shawl, about a yard apart, are round buttonholes. One is worked in green and the other red. A native mother would hitch these buttonholes to little pegs that stand up at either end of the box-like affair she uses for a cradle to protect the baby inside from fresh air. Germs are carefully tucked into the cradle with the baby. Never mind, I am going to give my cradle shawl a good cleaning, and I expect it will serve me well as outer covering for the package I shall make of the tub and bed and bedding. I must plan thoughtfully for that journey. It will be worth while to do this because we have to go to Egypt in order to get a good boat for Marseilles and that makes a twelve-day voyage. Cotton crops are coming in. I bought a pile, and had a man fluff it up with a stringed instrument that looks for all the world like a giant's violin bow. On the first windless day I put it on a sheet, spread out in the tennis court, for a day's sunshine. The sunshine here reminds me of Nice at its best.