LIFE IN EGYPT

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 104, 26 January 1939, Page 4

LIFE IN EGYPT

Archaeologist And Wife To

Visit New Zealand

Two interesting people who will visit New Zealand in the near future are Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Greenbr. Mr. Greener is an archaeologist, who has lived for 12 years in Egypt, and is representing the Tourist Development Association of Egypt in Australia and New Zealand. After their return from New Zealand they intend to make their permanent home, in Sydney. “The winter season in Egypt is like a perpetual holiday," Mrs. Greener said in an interview with the “Sydney Morning Herald.” ‘The climate is glorious, unlike the extreme summer heat, and there is a very full social programme.”

Mr. and Mrs. Greener found an unusual and effective way of combating the summer heat, by making their home for a year in a houseboat on the Nile. It was a converted sailing boat, from which the mast had been removed, and was called Dahabeah Yvonne.' The first part of the name stands for "golden boat,” which i s the Arabic equivalent of ‘yacht.”

“This made a very comfortable home," said Mrs. Greener. “We had two permanent servants, the ’reis’ or captain, who looks after the moorings and keeps the decks clean, and our own cook-general, who was, of course, a man. When we entertained, as we quite often did, we augmented our staff with a very solemn 11-year-old l»oy, or ‘waled,’ who was learning to be a servant, and looked so cute,in his long white robe and huge turban that he was forgiven for breaking almost everything he handled." Two Egyptian cats, Seti and Pasha, also lived on the yacht, and Mrs. Greener said that they were perfectly at home on the water and used to sit beside the servants on the decks while they were fishing, waiting to claim their meals.

Mrs. Greener was very enthusiastic about the Egyptian perfumes, and said that they were not diluted, as most of ours are, but were made of the basic oils. “One little drop from a glass rod lasts for several days," she said. “My special favourite is called ‘Secret of the Desert,’ and is almost as glamorous as its name implies.” Mrs. Greener is very interested in art, and intends to take up fwrtrait painting seriously when she and her husband have settled in Sydney.