A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

82 PLAGUES OF EGYPT.
weather is fine^'—for we know tliat to-morrow
here will be as fine as to-day. To be sure there
are drawbacks to tlic delights which such a tem-
perature is calculated to confer, for the genial
warmth gives vitality to such myriads of flies that
they amount to an absolute plague, and are, I
think, a more annoying and disgusting visitation
even than the musquitoes (wiiicli likewise abound)
for besides being personal torments, they cannot
be excluded from swarming about our food,
whereas the musquitoes, when once they have
fed upon ourselves, go to sleep and leave our
repasts unmolested. As to the other plagues of
Egypt which were held up to me in terrorem
before I left Europe, I begin to think that in that
particular the land must have been somewhat ca-
lumniated, for as yet I have seen nothing unclean
(with the exception of a few fleas) that either
crawls, jumps, or, according to Dean Swift's
authority, skips. This I attribute, first, to the
great cleanliness of the sleeping-rooms at Shep-
heard's Hotel ; secondly, to never having ridden
upon the saddles of the country, which being
arranged with carpets, generally harbour live
stock—and lastly, to the practice I observe of
always undressing when I return from a ride
through the crowded streets of Cairo, and causing
;