n, at the end of a long
bare large-windowed room. Without deigning even to nod the head which
hung over his shoulder with transcendent listlessness and affectation of
pride, in answer to my salams and benedictions, he eyed me with wicked
eyes and faintly ejaculated "Minent?" Then hearing that I was a Dervish
and doctor,--he must be an Osmanli Voltairian, that little Turk,--the
official snorted a contemptuous snort. He condescendingly added,
however, that the proper source to seek was "Taht," which, meaning
simply "below," conveyed rather imperfect information in a topographical
point of view to a stranger. At length however my soldier guide found
out that a room in the custom-house bore the honorable appellation of
"Foreign Office." Accordingly I went there, and after sitting at least a
couple of hours at the bolted door in the noonday sun, was told, with a
fury which made me think I had sinned, that the officer in whose charge
the department was had been presented with an olive-branch in the
morning, and consequently that business was not to be done that day. The
angry-faced official communicated the intelligence to a large group of
Anadolian, Caramanian, Bosniac, and Roumelian Turks,--sturdy,
undersized, broad-shouldered, bare-legged, splay-footed, horny-fisted,
dark-browed, honest-looking mountaineers, who were lounging about with
long pistols and yataghans stuck in their broad sashes, head-gear
composed of immense tarbooshes with proportionate turbans coiled round
them, and two or three suits of substantial clothes--even at this season
of the year--upon their shoulders.

Like myself they had waited some hours, but they were not patient under
disappointment: they bluntly told the angry official that he and his
master were a pair of idlers, and the curses that rumbled and gurgled in
their hairy throats as they strode towards the door sounded like the
growling of wild beasts.

Thus was another day truly Orientally lost. On the morrow however I
obtained permission, in the character of Dr. Abdullah, to visit any part
of Egypt I pleased, and to retain possession of my dagger and pistols.

And now I must explain what induced me to take so much trouble about a
passport. The home reader naturally inquires, Why not travel under your
English name?

For this reason. In the generality of barbarous countries you must
either proceed, like Bruce, preserving the "dignity of manhood" and
carrying matters with a high hand, or you