Ultimately the whole party got off and reached Minieh. There the King joined a shooting party on the following day, while the Queen, Prince Louis of Battenberg, and some of the others visited the Viceroy’s palace, and afterwards saw the process of making sugar out of the sugar-canes. Queen Alexandra and Mrs. Grey were allowed to visit the wife of one of the directors of the sugar factory, whom Mrs. Grey describes as a very ugly woman, painted and bedizened. The room was full of her women friends, all as ugly and as lavishly dressed as she was. Queen Alexandra, however, was much pleased with the novelty of such a visit, for, though the hostess and her friends were very cheerful and talked and laughed, yet naturally everything that was said was quite unintelligible to their English visitors. The Queen afterwards sent some presents to the ladies in memory of the visit.
On the 11th the Queen and Mrs. Grey succeeded in staying for the whole day in the dahabeah, where they played and wrote and painted. The same thing happened on the afternoon of the 13th, the morning being occupied by an interesting lecture from Mr. Fowler on the Suez Canal.
During the voyage Queen Alexandra had one very serious adventure. One night the King, who was on board the steamer, observed a light reflected on the side of the _Alexandra_. He at once gave an alarm, the Queen and Mrs. Grey, who were in the dahabeah, were hurried off to the shore, and the fire, which had been caused by a lighted candle in Prince Louis of Battenberg’s cabin, was put out by the King and his suite. Had not the quick eye of the King discovered the danger a terrible disaster might have happened, for the boats were wooden and scorched by an Egyptian sun, while there were, of course, a considerable number of cartridges on board.
The 14th was Sunday, the first Sunday in Lent, and Mrs. Grey records that King Edward read the service to the party and the servants very impressively. The party frequently landed to visit the temples and the other splendid ruins of ancient Egyptian civilisation. On one occasion the King caught a bat in the large tomb of Rameses IV.
The party started to see the Temple of Karnak by moonlight on the evening of the 18th. The King rode a milk-white ass caparisoned in crimson velvet and gold, while the Queen was mounted on a gray mule. When they approached the temple an electric light was lit between each enormous column, and in the background there was a display of rockets and fireworks, forming stars of different colours. This had been arranged by the King as a surprise for the Queen, though Mrs. Grey confesses that the secret had been accidentally revealed. However, she describes the whole scene as one of surprising beauty. She walked alone with the Queen amid the gigantic columns, until they were recalled to the prosaic luxury of the nineteenth century by being offered glasses of iced champagne.