Luxor, Upper Egypt,
January 1898.

It was difficult for us to realise the snow and cold that you had for Christmas, while we were enjoying perpetual sunshine here.

My patient is now established in his little mud house, just across the road from this hotel. I am thankful to say his mother and brother have arrived, so we share the nursing between us.

It has been downhill work lately, and now he seldom leaves his bedroom, a large "upper chamber" with a nice view over the palm-trees to the Nile.

The nurse from Assouan has come down to be with him at night, as I have been annexed by a poor lady in the hotel who is desperately ill; she came up from Cairo with a very bad throat, and now that is better, but she is still very ill, and it is not quite clear whether it is typhoid fever or general pyÆmia, but I am afraid, whatever it is, her strength cannot hold out much longer.

I am with her for all the nights and part of the days, and go backwards and forwards to the house, and get some sleep in just when I can.

There has been much excitement here about the rumour of war in the Soudan, and now it is more than rumour, and the troops are being pushed up country as fast as they can.

Cook's people are in great trouble, as all their tourists going down to Cairo have had to be turned off the boats at Naghamadi (the present railroad head), and they have to go the rest of the way down by train, while the boats turn back to take the troops up to Assouan. Some regiments are being sent all the way by rail, in spite of the line not being yet finished.

The engineers are working day and night. I met one of them just now, who said he was up to his eyes in work, and that he had twenty telegrams in his pocket, all different orders, and each contradicting the one before; so I said I supposed he did what he thought was right and hoped for the best!

They have been busy here with an old tub of a steamer that has been used for years as a landing stage; with much tinkering at last they got the engines to work, and now she has gone wobbling down the Nile to bring up stores. It was exciting when they first lit up the fires, as I hear she ran away and knocked pieces out of the road on the front.

The Oxfordshire and Lincolnshire Regiments have gone past, the men packed like sardines in the boats.

I badly want to go up with them, but at present they don't seem to be sending any sisters, and my work is cut out for me here just at present.

All the steamers that come up, besides being heavily loaded, are towing large barges with either men or stores in them, so there is a good deal of delay about our mails, &c.

I expect you hear more of what is going on at the front than we do, as all the wires are blocked with service messages, and we hear only rumours; to-day we hear our troops have had a bad smash up near Berber, and that they have lost a gunboat, but whether there is any truth in it or not is very doubtful.

To-day the Camerons are passing through here, and the natives are much excited at the kilts. I think they rather imagine that England has run out of men and has begun to send the women!

Somehow life seems very strange here just now; for one thing, there is the rustle and bustle of war in the air, then, at the same time, in this little place we are already having a stern fight against the enemy of disease, and all the time there are tourists filling up the hotel and making merry, and you hear them talk of the Luxor Meet of the Sporting Club, and which donkey they will secure as their mount, as though it was the most important thing in the world.

Until last week I still went for a ride now and then by way of refreshment. There is a doctor here who rides an enormous white Syrian horse, and he was most kind in bringing me a beautiful little Arab, and taking me out for a gallop when I could get away; the Arab was too quick for the Syrian, and often, having let it go, I had to wait for him afterwards. One day we were coming in from the desert and passed our chaplain, who afterwards amused my friends by telling them that I had passed him at such a pace on the Arab that the wind I made nearly blew him off his donkey, and then about a mile behind something thundered past that at first he thought was a white elephant but afterwards concluded it was a watering-pot of a new fashion, as it left such a track of damp on the sand!

One day the German Consul took me to see his collection of curios (I believe he does a good deal of trading in them): he has got a splendid collection. I had to drink native coffee—which I can't abide—but before I left he gave me a beautiful little "antique," a little blue image that was found in a tomb near here, and probably dates from about 3000 B.C., so I forgave him the coffee!

The other day Miss C., the housekeeper at the hotel, knocked up with dysentery, and was very seedy for a few days. Before she got well again there was an urgent call for more steamers for troops; so the steamer Rameses the Great, that happened to be moored here (meaning to stay four days while the passengers explored the place), suddenly had to turn all her passengers and their baggage off into the hotels and leave them there, while she did a trip up to Assouan and back. The hotel was simply packed for five days, and the noise was very bad for our sick ones; poor Miss C. was frantic at not being able to get about and see about rooms, &c., for all these people, so I had to do what I could to help her, but I was frightfully busy with so many ill.

The Nile is getting very low and "smelly," and we hear that they have several cases of dysentery at Assouan, and there is a poor lady somewhere up the river on a dahabeah very ill with it, and there is no nurse within reach free to go to her.

With all this urgent traffic on the river it is difficult to get things up from Cairo (even urgent "medical comforts"), and you cannot imagine how many things one finds lacking for the sick ones from day to day, when you are 450 miles from the nearest chemist's shop, with uncertain communication by post or telegraph.

I am always making raids on the little hospital, and the doctor there is most kind in helping us, but he is short of some things that he needs himself and cannot get—for one thing, the supply of chloroform is very nearly exhausted. We sent an urgent message (telegraph not available) by the last boat going up to Assouan, and we hope the doctor there may be able to lend us some for the present.

It seems weeks since I have had a night in bed; my poor lady is so ill that I can hardly leave her, and I just sleep in an arm-chair in her room when her husband sits by her for a time.

The Arab servants, especially Hassan and Girgus, are wonderfully attentive and good—in fact, all help us as much as they possibly can; but with people so desperately ill one does long for London, and the best physicians, and the best nurses to help one. It is not possible to do all one would wish for several patients at once both night and day; and having had so little sleep of late I am afraid of forgetting things, and I have to write all the orders down and tick them off as I carry them out.

This letter has been written in scraps, and I am finishing it as I sit by poor Mrs. ——; I must keep awake somehow till her husband wakes, then he will watch while I have a nap. I fear it is quite hopeless, and she has been unconscious for some hours now, so I cannot leave the poor man alone with her.