The guide-book says that the arrival at Alexandria is not very impressive. I suppose a good deal depends on the day and the time of day and one's mental attitude. As usual with our arrivals, it was early morning, and everything was hazy and yellow-misty with sunrise. We were moving slowly, and the water was glassy still. Here and there across the yellow haze drifted a barge-like craft with a lateen-sail, or a slow moving boat, pulled by men in native dress. Then out of the mist across the port bow came the outline of a low-lying shore, and a shaft that rose, a vague pencil against the morning glow. The Diplomat was leaning on the rail at my side. "Egypt," he said, quietly. "That is a lighthouse--they call it a pharos, after the one that Ptolemy built; it must have stood about in the same direction." Certainly that was not very dramatic, not actively so at least, but to me it was impressive; and stealing into that dream-like harbor, through the mellow quiet of the morning, I had the feeling that we were creeping up on the past--catching it asleep, as it were; that this was indeed the pharos of the Ptolemies--the harbor they had known. I shall always remember Alexandria, Egypt. I shall always remember the railway station with its wild hallabaloo of Arab porters, who grab one's hand-baggage, make off with it, and sit on it in a secluded place until you race around and hunt it up and produce baksheesh for its return. You do not check baggage in Egypt, by the way; you register it, which means that you tell somebody about it, then try to convince yourself that it is all right and that some day you will see it again. But I shall remember that station for another reason. When we had finally fought our way through to the train, and Laura and I had placed our things here and there in our compartment--in the racks and about--we realized that we were hot and thirsty, and I said I would slip back and get some oranges, seeing we had plenty of time. It was easy to do that--easy enough, I mean, for I no longer had anything for the Bedouins to grab. I got the oranges and paid a piastre apiece for them--about ten times what they were worth in Jaffa, and I had the usual difficulty making change--a detachment of interested Arabs looking on meanwhile. Then I started back, and was stopped by a guard who wanted to see my ticket. I felt for the flat leather case which I generally carry in my hip-pocket. It was gone!