to listen while I related the story. Before I had finished, an
old woman who had come up interrupted me. A young man who was standing
near and listening, desired her not to interrupt the lady, for he could
see she was learned, and 'thou art ignorant,' he added, with more truth
than politeness. 'But you are not well placed here,' he said, pointing
to the heap on which they were seated. 'Come to the roof of my house, my
mother will show you the way, and these women can come too if they
like.' I acceded to this courteous invitation, and followed the mother
and son up the mud-brick steps leading to the rude terrace; and though
anything but clean, it was a great improvement on what we had left, and
with genuine kindliness the old woman brought out an old but
well-preserved carpet and spread it for me. The others had followed, and
sat round to hear what the stranger could have to read to them. They
really seemed interested, though sometimes interrupting me with remarks
not at all to the purpose. I managed to bring them back to the stories I
read, of course choosing the simplest possible, and trying to explain a
little as we went." [1]

[Footnote 1: _Among the Huts_, pp. 181-184.]

Miss Whately would occasionally make an excursion into the desert,
making the acquaintance of the wild Bedouin tribes, and reading to them
the Scriptures. "Lady," once said a Bedouin, lifting the curtain of a
tent in which she and her sister were seated, "I saw your horse at the
water, and my comrade and I are come to hear some of your book." They
listened attentively while she read to them the ninth chapter of
John's Gospel.

An important part of her work was the missionary tours which she made
each year in the winter or early spring. The first of these journeys was
in 1861, the last within a few weeks of her death. The spiritual
condition of those she visited is thus described by Miss Whately: "The
mass of the peasants are little, if at all, different from what they
were in the days of Pharaoh. Instead of praying to gods of stone and
revering brutes, it is true they now call on the Almighty, but know
scarcely anything about Him, neither His Word nor His laws. Much of the
religion of the _fellah_ consists in prostrations, and his _spontaneous_
prayers are usually invocations to dead men, as we see with Nile boatmen
and other labourers; when in a fatiguing work, they call on the 'Lord
Hosseen or Zeid,' &c. to 'stretch out a hand and help.' Buffalo