now pressed so closely at hand.  Then the coach from the Gehzireh Palace rolled by in a cloud of dust, and people hurried down the steps of Shepheard’s and took their places in our coach, and the dragomans in their gorgeous costumes followed with wraps, and the porters bustled about stowing away hand-luggage, and Arabs crowded near, thrusting their violets and roses and amber necklaces and beaded fly-brushes into your very face, and the old man who sells turquoises made his last effort to sell you a set for shirt-studs, and the Egyptians and East-Indians from the bazaars opposite came to the door and looked on with the perennial interest and friendliness of the Orient, and a swarm of beggars pleaded, with the excitement of a last chance, for backsheesh, and there was a babel of tongues—­French, English, Italian, German, and Arabic, all hurtling about your ears like so many verbal bullets in a battle, when suddenly the door slammed, the driver cracked his whip, the coach lurched forward, the children scattered—­and we were off.

Everybody knows when a boat starts up the Nile, and everybody is interested and nods and waves to everybody else.  There was a short drive to the river amid polite calls of “good-bye” and “bon voyage,” and there lay the Mayflower, like a great white bird with comfortably folded wings.  Nobody seemed to hurry much, for a Nile boat does not start until her passengers are all on board.  An hour or so makes no difference.

You go down the bank of the Nile to go on board a boat upon steps cut in the earth, and if your hands are full and you cannot hold up your dress, you sweep some three inches of fine yellow dust after you.  But you don’t care.  The man ahead scuffed his dust in your face, and the woman behind you is sneezing in yours, and everything and everybody are a little yellowish from it, but nobody stops to brush it off.  It is too exciting to hurry up on deck and place your steamer-chair and fling your things into your stateroom and rush out again for fear that you will miss something.  There were Italians, French, English, Poles, Swedes, and Americans on board.  Some of them had titles.  Some had only bad manners, with nothing to excuse them.  But, after all, everybody was nice, I got through the whole three weeks without hating anybody and with only wanting to drown one passenger.  What better record of amiability could you ask?

But one thing marred the start.  This Anglo-American line of boats is the only line in Egypt which flies the American flag.  That was the final inducement they offered which decided my choice of the Mayflower.  But while we knew that she was obliged to fly the British flag also, we were indignant beyond words to see a huge Union Jack floating at the top of the forward flagstaff and beneath it a toy American flag about the size of a cigar-box. Beneath the English flag!  I nearly wept with rage.  The owner of the line was at hand, and I did not wait to draw up a petition or to consult my fellow-Americans.  I just said:  “Have the goodness to haul down that infant American flag, will you?  I have no objection to sailing under both, but I do object to such an insulting disparity in size.  Besides that, you seem to have forgotten that the American flag never flies below any other flag on God’s green earth!”