in the times when the fever of travelling from place to place was
an unknown disease, and home was indeed "sweet home." Infected by
strange maladies of the blood and nerves, to which even scientific
physicians find it hard to give suitable names, they shudder at
the first whiff of cold, and filling huge trunks with a thousand
foolish things which have, through luxurious habit, become
necessities to their pallid existences, they hastily depart to the
Land of the Sun, carrying with them their nameless languors,
discontents and incurable illnesses, for which Heaven itself, much
less Egypt, could provide no remedy. It is not at all to be
wondered at that these physically and morally sick tribes of human
kind have ceased to give any serious attention as to what may
possibly become of them after death, or whether there IS any
"after," for they are in the mentally comatose condition which
precedes entire wreckage of brain-force; existence itself has
become a "bore;" one place is like another, and they repeat the
same monotonous round of living in every spot where they
congregate, whether it be east, west, north, or south. On the
Riviera they find little to do except meet at Rumpelmayer's at
Cannes, the London House at Nice, or the Casino at Monte-Carlo;
and in Cairo they inaugurate a miniature London "season" over
again, worked in the same groove of dinners, dances, drives,
picnics, flirtations, and matrimonial engagements. But the Cairene
season has perhaps some advantage over the London one so far as
this particular set of "swagger" folk are concerned--it is less
hampered by the proprieties. One can be more "free," you know! You
may take a little walk into "Old" Cairo, and turning a corner you
may catch glimpses of what Mark Twain calls "Oriental simplicity,"
namely, picturesquely-composed groups of "dear delightful" Arabs
whose clothing is no more than primitive custom makes strictly