man who is not within the degree of consanguinity within which they are forbidden to marry; yet pretty women let the veil fall by accident when there is an opportunity for their faces to be admired, and their eyes invite regard. Woman's highest honor comes to her through motherhood; to have sons, exalts her to "freedom from the pains of hell," and the care of her children is her most noble duty. But she may not, by the Koran, be the teacher of the boys after they are two years old. The instructions of the Prophet are very plain to the father; he must teach his son manners, morals, business, all that he need to know of himself, prayers when he is seven years old, and whip him if he does not pray at ten. Needle work is taught the girls of good families, and the spindle to the poor. The mother should instruct the daughter in gait, carriage, and feminine allurements by which she may please her husband. In the early part of the century young women often learned to play the lutes, but that has now been relegated to the service of professionals, and the young have no musical instrument.

ENTERTAINMENTS.

The entertainments of women are marriages, births, and the Festival of Spring; both Copts and Muslims have a week of festivities at Easter. The women keep their holidays by themselves; they dance and sing, or hire singers and musicians, and eat and drink with each other, and though they do not admit men to partake of their festivities with them, they are permitted to sit in the court or garden and hear the music. The Egyptian woman is a tender and affectionate mother, and while she does not keep her children clean, or provide changes of clothing for them, she clings to them through her whole life, and receives the divorced daughter, and often her children, into her home and heart. Seven days after the birth of a child, the home is filled with female visitors, and the baby is taken in a sieve and carried about the house. Drums, cymbals, and singing women tell the world that joy has come to the household. The father, in male fashion, entertains his friends with dancing girls and other pious pleasures.

Christians and Muslims regard it as disreputable for a man not to marry at a suitable age, and a girl must be a wife and mother to be respected and fulfill her destiny. It is desirable for first cousins to marry, but when that is impossible, parents select for their children

from friendly circles. For a well-ordered marriage the man may not have seen the face of the woman since she came to marriageable age. Before the girl has reached womanhood, her parents can betroth her without her consent; after that she must give her consent. The husband's father must support the new family, until the son is able to separate himself from the father. A marriage is not valid until the bride has unveiled to the husband. It is imperative to give the bride a dower, and over this dower there is often much bargaining. The husband's father pays the bride's father a part of the dower in hand, and the rest is to be paid to the wife in case of divorce. Often the rich husband gives the dower either in money or clothes to the bride. There are various deceptions practiced by the bride and her friends on the husband; one is to make her appear very tall and of grand proportions, which the bridal swaddling clothes render easy.

I shall never forget the blindfolded bundle of bright pink satin, jewels, lace, and tarlatan, trundled into a crowded room, by five priests, and deposited on a chair beside a fine-looking, well-dressed man, who seemed to realize the ridiculous appearance of the gaudy mass beside him. Over the face and head of the bride, and on her chest, were several thicknesses of lace and muslin, covered with diamonds and other jewels, plates of gold, and heavy ornaments of strange designs. There was little indication of lovely woman in that consignment. The sprightly girl who entertained us, said that the bride had on very high shoes to make her tall. On paying our respects to the new mothers-in-law, whom we found in the hareem on divans, smoking, the bride's mother expressed great delight at the height of one of my daughters, and inquired of us if her daughter did not look as tall as mine. Whereupon our wicked little girl gave us a sly glance.

After the ceremony follow days of feasting, dancing and music for the men in house and tents. The child-bride exhilarated, or frightened by the company and confusion, is led away to the hareem and prepared for the formalities of the coming days. If the bride has property, when she marries, it remains hers inviolable, as well as what she may inherit after marriage. I must not ignore that the hareem has a mixed reputation and that many men are bad husbands. As everywhere else, irresponsible power is often cruel. Public opinion sustains wife-beating for disobedience, and wife-murder on suspicion of infidelity.

The ceremonies of death and burial are alike for men and women. In the hour of death the face is turned towards Mecca or Jerusalem,

and when the final moment comes, the women of the hareem, in regular succession, send forth shrill falsetto cries that rend the air and make the nerves quiver. This cry brings to the home the women of the village, who join in the lament for the dead. All are dressed in soiled dark blue robes and have faces, hands, breasts, and even the walls of the house, daubed with indigo. They unbraid their hair, and often pluck it out, and lash themselves into a frenzy. Among the rich, the clothing of the dead is strewn about the room, and the dishes and ornaments broken with great noise. Before the chill of death has fallen upon the inanimate form, it must be carried to the tomb. The mourners follow the bier which is covered with a cashmere shawl, and carried on the shoulders of men. All are in soiled garments, with coarse cloth on the head. The night following the burial, the men pass the hours with friends, smoking and drinking coffee, calm and resigned to destiny; the women spend the night in wailing and shrieking. On certain days a mother bewails her dead through the years, and on the festivals for the dead families take their provisions and shawls and spend the night at the graves of their relations. After the death of the husband the widow must remain in the house a year, with all the coverings of the furniture wrong side out, and the mirrors and ornaments covered. She does not offer refreshments to visitors, and the pipes are without their mouthpieces, and she must have at stated times professional wailers to perform in the house. The women beautify themselves by tattooing the face and breast; Coptic women have a cross or star tattooed on the arm. Lips are stained a dark purple, and the finger nails and palms of the hands are colored orange with henna. Women of every class put a black rim under the eye made with kohl, which is not injurious and besides lending size and force to the eye, gives it shade from light.

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION.

There are in Egypt governmental schools, colleges and universities for boys, Coptic schools, and schools of religious and benevolent societies. At Cairo and Alexandria they are large and well situated. The sons and daughters of poor foreigners attend them, and make creditable progress. The short time girls may attend school, does not permit them to get much beyond reading and sewing. The large, free university of El Azhar, at Cairo, has a women's department of midwifery attached to the medical school, not because the State

desires to educate women, but because the religion of the country excludes male physicians from the hareems, except in unusual cases. In some of the larger towns along the river, small schools for boys are taught by Greek priests and Catholic monks. Comparatively few girls attend school; there is a deep-seated prejudice against their reading and understanding numbers, and it is considered immoral for them to sit under a roof with strange boys, though they may play with them out of doors. If the girl can read, she will not wish to bring the water, drive the buffalo to the river, grind the doorra; she will not work; she will be like the boy. These reasons were many times given us by men and boys who were opposed to education for girls.

We were much interested in the mission schools. The American mission in its eleven schools and colleges, teaches an average attendance of 1,350 pupils, at an annual cost of $8,000; in its six girl schools, with an average attendance of 630, the cost of instruction is but $2,600, or about $4 per girl. Of the 1,400 girls enrolled, 10 study physiology, 112 Arabic, 116 geography, 111 French, 248 arithmetic and 278 the American language. More than 50 other independent schools scattered all over Egypt, have grown up under the encouragement of the mission and are taught by graduates of its schools. In these an average attendance of more than 2,000 scholars, 300 being girls, are taught at a yearly cost of $6,000. At Syoot our consular agent, Mr. Khayatt, an Egyptian, besides supporting a school of 200 girls and boys, gives liberally to the college and schools of the American mission. Miss Thompson, the superintendent teacher of the mission schools of Cairo for girls, has given us another evidence of womanly energy and unselfish capacity. Miss Whately has for several years carried on a girl's school and earned the encomiums of her English patrons. At the school in Luxor, we found girls in the first class reading Peter Parley; one of them recently married the native teacher. I made every effort possible to learn the comparitive condition of women and girls, and my questions to priests, consuls, town officers and teachers as to the place they assigned to my side of humanity, gave much amusement to my sons and daughters

Among those who are doing good to the people and educating the children, I make most honorable mention of Père Samuel, a Neapolitan priest who has spent more than fifty years in Upper Egypt. He has given of his time and means to the sick and needy of every class and sect, without stint or reward. On our return voyage we

anchored at the village of Negadeh and spent an afternoon with the old man in his church and garden. We found the church clean and cool. More than forty years ago he built it, a worthy work of architecture and finish. A Belgian lady has given him a parlor organ, and he is organist and choir as well as priest. There are fine bits of old temples built into the doors and pillars, which he shows with pride. He said that women came to church and were more than half of his congregation. He led us to his school of seventy little and better-sized boys, and three little girls. The boys were writing on tin slates; some of the texts were in Coptic. The Père told us that he read the service in Latin, Arabic, and Coptic, and was teaching the Copt boys the language of their service, that they might pray intelligently. Mr. Wilbour asked if he had ever converted Muslims; he was quite radiant as he replied: "I have baptized forty-two Muslims in my fifty years of service." He said that before the British occupation he had a school of fifty girls, but donations failed after that began; he had to give it up with much regret, and feared that he could never re-open it. He resignedly added: "But that must always be, the girls after the boys." One of our sailors who knew him, spoke of him as a saint who in times of epidemics, went fearlessly among the dying and dead, and did his duty by all in suffering. Grand old man, when the work falls from his willing hands, who shall take it up?

We visited Muslim schools without satisfaction, except to our curiosity. Let me tell you what I saw in one at Luxor. The school was found under a cornstalk shed, open on one side. When we entered, a lively boy ran to an elevated divan at one end of the shed, and shouted up the master, who was lying on the divan with a pillow under his head. He sat up, and looked at us with soft dreamy eyes, but did not recognize our salutation, though twice repeated. Not a ray of intelligence passed over his handsome face; we were embarassed, and eighty little faces turned toward us in sympathy. My daughter beckoned to the lively lad, who came to us, and asked that the boys might repeat a prayer from the Koran. The monitor gave the command to the school, and the slates were laid down and the recitation began in a low voice, which grew louder and louder every moment till the little half-naked brown bodies rocked to and fro as though intoxicated. When the recitation was over, we walked about and looked at the slates, at the babies crowded up into a dirty corner, made our obeisance to the statue of the sleepy god on the divan, and as we went out, he fell back upon his pillow.