MESURIER, Adelaide Julia le.

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What We Saw in Egypt During the Winter of 1883-1884. A privately published memoir, unrecorded institutionally, by an adventurous and well-connected woman traveller. She records in lively detail four months spent in Cairo and Alexandria, in the company of royalty and generals, shortly after the Anglo-Egyptian War.The account takes the form of a series of letters home, contextual references identifying the unnamed author as Adelaide Julia le Mesurier (1832-1913), the mother of Brigadier-General Edward John Granet and the railway administrator Sir Guy Granet. She dedicates her account to her first grandchild, born in 1883 to one of her daughters, Amy Granet.Le Mesurier's time in Egypt, spent with two younger relatives, lasts from December 1883 to March 1884 and consists of sightseeing, stays at Cairo's Shepheard's Hotel, and trips to Helwan and Alexandria. She visits Pompey's Pillar, the mosque at the Piazza, and the older city, cruises down the Nile, and journeys out to the pyramids. An observant traveller, she provides lengthy descriptions of sights and sounds (including the occasional "hideous din" - p. 32) met along the way.Like many Europeans, socializing is an important part of her trip. The letters are peppered with references to high-society figures, including Deputy Sirdar Francis Grenfell ("he looked very well in his beautiful uniform" - pp. 32-33), Brigadier-General Sir Gerald Graham (part of Wolseley's circle), and Emina Ilhamy, Khediva consort of Egypt, to whom she

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