man
wants to wander, and he must do so or he shall die.

After about a month most pleasantly spent at Alexandria, I perceived the
approach of the enemy, and as nothing hampered my incomings and
outgoings, I surrendered. The world was "all before me," and there was
pleasant excitement in plunging single-handed into its chilling depths.
My Alexandrian Shaykh, whose heart fell victim to a new "jubbeh" which I
had given in exchange for his tattered zaabut, offered me in
consideration of a certain monthly stipend the affections of a brother
and religious refreshment, proposing to send his wife back to her papa,
and to accompany me in the capacity of private chaplain to the other
side of Kaf. I politely accepted the "bruederschaft," but many reasons
induced me to decline his society and services. In the first place, he
spoke the detestable Egyptian jargon. Secondly, it was but prudent to
lose the "spoor" between Alexandria and Suez. And thirdly, my "brother"
had shifting eyes (symptoms of fickleness), close together (indices of
cunning); a flat-crowned head and large ill-fitting lips, signs which
led me to think lightly of his honesty, firmness, and courage.
Phrenology and physiognomy, be it observed, disappoint you often among
civilized people, the proper action of whose brains and features is
impeded by the external pressure of education, accident, example, habit,
necessity, and what not. But they are tolerably safe guides when groping
your way through the mind of man in his natural state, a being of
impulse in that chrysalis stage of mental development which is rather
instinct than reason. But before my departure there was much to be done.

The land of the Pharaohs is becoming civilized, and unpleasantly so:
nothing can be more uncomfortable than its present middle state between
barbarism and the reverse. The prohibition against carrying arms is
rigid as in Italy; all "violence" is violently denounced; and beheading
being deemed cruel, the most atrocious crimes, as well as those small
political offenses which in the days of the Mamelukes would have led to
a beyship or a bowstring, receive fourfold punishment by deportation to
Faizoghli, the local Cayenne. If you order your peasant to be flogged,
his friends gather in threatening hundreds at your gates; when you curse
your boatman, he complains to your consul; the dragomans afflict you
with strange wild notions about honesty; a government order prevents you
from using vitu