royal collection. Pinotem was the third king of the twenty-first dynasty, who reigned as nearly as possible a millennium B.C. In addition to the royal mummies, a multitude of objects bearing cartouches will throw great light upon the succession of these kings; and the tent of Pinotem, of leather, embroidered and colored, and covered with hieroglyphics, cannot fail to clear up some historical difficulties as to the priest-kings of Thebes. His face has an Ethiopian cast of features, and he is believed to have been descended from the princes of Egypt who came from the South. The lips are slightly parted, and the upper teeth are almost visible. The absence of the eyeball is indicated by the way in which the eyelids are sunken; and the nostrils are forcibly distended, in consequence of the method employed by the embalmers for the removal of the brain, which was effected by means of a hooked instrument passed up through the nose. The expression is, nevertheless, not unpleasing. The shrouds are of somewhat coarse texture; and a few withered flowers may be observed stuck through the bands which hold the wrappings together."

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CHAPTER XVIII.

HAREM LIFE IN THE EAST.-FROM LUXOR TO ASSOUAN.

SURPRISE was in store for Frank and Fred when they returned from their excursion to the tombs of the kings.

Several ladies of the party had declined to visit the tombs, partly on account of the fatigue of the journey, and partly because they had been

invited to see the harem of the English consul at Luxor, and did not wish to miss the opportunity of learning how the women of the East pass their time. When our friends returned to the boat the ladies had only been back a short time from the harem, and there was an active interchange of accumulated information until dinner was announced.

After dinner Frank tried to persuade one of the ladies to write an account of what she saw in the harem, as he wished to send it home for his sister and Miss Effie to read. She was unwilling to write, but promised that she would tell him the next day, while they were steaming

up the river, and then he might write it out for himself.

Frank accepted the conditions, and next morning he sat down, pencil in hand, to take the story from the lady's lips. He thought it would be more interesting in her words than in his, and, as he was a rapid writer, he managed to get down a good part of the story just as she told it.

Here is the result of his work:

THE INTERIOR OF A HAREM.

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"We went to the office," said the lady, "and found the consul was all ready for us. We walked from there to his house, which is quite pretty when you get inside of it, and has a nice little garden on a balcony; from this balcony we went into the harem, accompanied by the consul's son, who speaks English. The consul remained outside with the husband of one of the ladies, as it would have been a great outrage upon Oriental etiquette for a foreign gentleman to step inside the sacred spot.

"The son of the consul only stayed long enough to introduce us, and then we were left to take care of ourselves. There were half a dozen women, some of them the wives of the consul, and others married to his son: we couldn't remember them all separately, and so when the young man left us we didn't know which was which. But it was of no particular consequence that we forgot, as we had to do all our talking by signs; the women spoke only Arabic, and not one of us knew a dozen words of that language. The only word I could think of was empshy! (clear out!), which you say to beggars when you want to be rid of them, and that wasn't exactly the kind of language to use when you are introduced to strangers.

"When we entered the room they saluted us in Arabic, and invited us to sit on the carpet, which we did as well as we could. There were divans around the sides of the room, and a fine carpet in the centre, and we sat more on the carpet than on the divans. We wanted to do as nearly like our entertainers as we could, and when they invited us to the carpet we thought it would be rudeness to decline. Of course we were rather awkward about it, and laughed at our clumsiness, so as to give them a chance to laugh with us if they wanted to.

"They were dressed loosely in the flowing robes such as you see the Arab women wear in the streets, but they had no veils on their faces. There was one who did not seem to be more than fifteen years old, and I presume she was the favorite wife of the consul's son. She wore a

dress embroidered more richly than any other, and the material was of a costly silk. I wanted to ask her where it was made, and how much it cost, as I fancied it would be a nice one to take home and excite the envy of my friends. But then, you know, it might have been impolite to put such a question, and, besides, I didn't know how to ask in Arabic. All things considered, I didn't ask at all.

"As soon as we sat down on the carpet they began to examine us; they looked very intently into our faces, they scanned our clothing and boots, loosened our hair, took out our ear-drops, and appeared as curious

A BLONDE AMONG THE ARABS.

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and innocent as children. We returned the compliment by examining them, and they seemed greatly pleased that we did so.

"What excited their curiosity more than anything else was Mrs.'s hair. They pinched it and twisted it in all sorts of ways, passed it through their hands, and were not contented until they satisfied themselves that it grew naturally on her head. Even then they kept touching it and looking at it closely every few minutes, all the time we were in the harem."

Frank made a memorandum, for the benefit of his sister and Miss Effie, that the lady in question was English, and had hair of the purest blonde. It was rich and glossy, of the hue of old gold, and was doubtless the first hair of the kind these Arab ladies had ever seen. It was no wonder that their curiosity was roused by it. Black hair is universal among the Arabs, and the tricks of the bleachers of London and New York are unknown in Egypt.

"Before we knew what they were doing," the lady continued, "they had our heads in their laps, and were staining our eyelids. They wanted to stain our finger-nails and tattoo our chins, but we declined the honor, as we did not like the effect of the coloring matter, which will not wash off. It remains on for several days, and when it begins to wear off it makes the hands very dingy. They were as much amused at the whiteness of our finger-nails as we were at the dark color of theirs.

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They wore their hair loose, with bands around the head to keep it in place, and the youngest of them had a very rich head-dress with many pieces of gold attached to it. They served us with pipes and coffee soon after we entered, and seemed much surprised at our refusal to smoke. One of us tried a few whiffs from a nargileh, and it made them laugh very much when the smoke choked her and set her to coughing. "Our visit lasted about half an hour. came away, but did not offer to kiss us, and give a farewell pinch to Mrs. 's hair. they would like to come to the boat to see us; but of course that would not be according to Eastern usage, and they are not at all likely to come."

They embraced us when we the last thing they did was to They intimated by signs that

Frank gathered other details about the life of Eastern women which he appended to his account of the visit we have just described. A few of them will not be out of place in this narrative.

"According to all I can learn," wrote Frank, "the life of an Eastern woman must be very monotonous. She goes out very little, and after she is married can only rarely visit her relatives. Day and night her place is in the harem, and she never speaks to any man except her husband-not even to his most intimate friends or to her own brothers. The