Myt-ser'eu wants to buy cosmetics tomorrow. She says that she may only look at them and we may buy nothing, but I am not so young as to believe it. She also says that her own city, called Sais, was the capital of Kemet not long ago. Now the satrap rules from here, and she is glad. She would not wish him and all his foreign soldiers in her city. I am a foreign soldier myself-so I read. Yet Myt-ser'eu left Sais with me. No one can know the heart of a woman. MYT-SER'EU HAS NO new cosmetics, but she is good-natured about it. I tell her we will visit the perfumers' quarter when the satrap has spoken to us. This morning we walked about the saddlers' quarter first. Myt-ser'eu insisted I get a bag in which to carry this scroll and my ink, one that would protect them. We found such a bag and bought it after much haggling. We were about to enter the perfumers' quarter when Neht-nefret dashed up. We were to meet Muslak at the gate of the White Wall at once. He had a dozen sailors searching for us too, she said, but only she was wise enough to guess where Myt-ser'eu would take me.

We rented donkeys and rode to the gate of the White Wall, on red land some distance from the city. The donkey boys are to wait for us there. Muslak and Azibaal soon joined us, and we were admitted by the guards. Muslak has a firman.

Before I describe this fortress I should say that only the center of the city we left is noisy and crowded. Beyond it are many houses of two and three floors, fine and large, with walled gardens and more gardens on their roofs. Away from the shops, the streets are wide, traversed by carts and chariots. It would be very pleasant, I think, to live in one of those houses. There is no city wall. None at all.

Muslak wished us to remain where the soldiers had told us to wait. I was eager to see the fortress and left anyway, promising to return soon. I climbed to the top of the outer wall, walked along it some distance, spoke with the soldiers I met there, and so on. The best quarter of the city lay at my left hand and the fortress at my right. There can be few such views in all the world.