Newsletter, 20 October 1955

: During the summer Dr. Simpson returned to New York, whereas I visited a number of Egyptian collections in France and England. The office was reopened early in September, and now, several weeks later, it seems to us as if we had never been absent from Egypt since last year. Once again the Nile has risen, and the muddy swift-moving waters barely seem to get through under the bridges. The crest of the flood was reached in the beginning of the month, but it will take several weeks before the inundation subsides visibly. The Cairo bridges, incidentally, are being illuminated at night by neon tubing which lines the contours of spans and girders. The new Shepheard's Hotel with its eight stories, to which the structure has now risen, already dwarfs the Semiramis in the next block, and lovely fountains have been installed on the Midan el Tahrir and the Opera Square. They incorporate sets of colored lights which change every few seconds and attract vast crowds in these pleasantly cool September evenings. The Corniche has been extended further and now follows the Nile embankment well north of the Bulaq Bridge. The palm trees on the street leading from the railroad station toward Heliopolis, once cut down by order of Farouk fearing assassination, have been replanted, and new buildings of 13 and 16 stories have sprung up all over town.