We then drove over the bridge that spans the Nile to the Khedive's gardens, the roadway being lined with magnificent equipages of all kinds, for this is the fashionable drive of Cairo and one of the sights of the place, the gorgeous liveries of the coachmen and outriders, the gaily-caparisoned and magnificent horses and the beautiful toilettes of the ladies all combined to make a picture that entranced the senses.

One of the Khedive's palaces, and, by the way, he has half a dozen of them in Cairo, is situated at the far end of these gardens, which are finer than any of our parks at home, and their palaces being built in the Egyptian style of architecture, are a delight to the eye.
The day passed all too quickly, and when night came and we returned to the hotel, we had not seen half as much as we wished.
That evening after dinner, wishing to see how Cairo looked by gaslight, Mrs.Anson and I drove out in search of a theater, which I naturally thought it would be no very difficult matter to find, though which of the many we wished to go to we had not made up our minds.

The driver, unfortunately, could not understand a word of English, that being the trouble with half of the beggars one encounters in a strange land, and so as we drove down by the Grand Hotel and French Opera House and came to a palatial-looking building, with brilliantly lighted grounds and colored awnings extending down to the sidewalk, and looking the sort of a place that we were in search of, I stopped the carriage and tried to find out from the driver as best I could what sort of a theater it was.
His answer sounded very much like circus, and I thought that it would just about fill the bill that evening, as far as Mrs.Anson and I were concerned.

Helping my wife to alight we passed under the awning and by liveried servants that stood in the doorway, the music of many bands coming to our ears and the scent of a perfumed fountain whose spray we could see, to our nostrils.
"This is a pretty swell sort of a circus, isn't it ?" I said to my wife, who nodded her head in reply.
Through the open door we could catch glimpses of large parties of ladies and gentlemen in full dress, but it had never occurred to me that it could be anything but what I had understood the driver to say it was, a circus, and I began to look around for a ticket office in order that I might purchase the necessary pasteboards.

At last, running up against a dark-complexioned and distinguished-looking man in full uniform, I asked him if he could tell us where the tickets could be bought.
"Tickets! What tickets ?" he asked, in very good English, but in a rather surprised tone.
"Why, the tickets to the circus here," I answered, nervously, for I began to fear that I had make a mistake.