ty of an Arab
sheick, seated on the ground in the shade of a tree, with his sons and
grandsons standing before him, waiting for his commands, is singularly
imposing.

CHAPTER VI.

Mohammed Bey, Defterdar--His Expedition to Senaar--His Barbarity
and Rapacity--His Defiance of the Pasha--Stories of his Cruelty and
Tyranny--The Horse-shoe--The Fight of the Mamelukes--His cruel
Treachery--His Mode of administering Justice--The stolen Milk--The
Widow's Cow--Sale and Distribution of the Thief--The Turkish
Character--Pleasures of a Journey on the Nile--The Copts--Their
Patriarchs--The Patriarch of Abyssinia--Basileos Bey--His Boat--An
American's choice of a Sleeping-place.

Just before my arrival in Cairo a certain Mohammed Bey, Defterdar, had
died rather suddenly, after drinking a cup of coffee, a beverage which
occasionally disagrees with the great men in Turkey, although not so
much so now as in former days. This Defterdar, or accountant, had been
sent by the Sultan to receive the Imperial revenue from the Pasha of
Egypt, who had given him his daughter in marriage. As the presence of
the Defterdar was probably a check upon the projects of the Pasha, he
sent him to Senaar, at the head of an expedition, to revenge the death
of Toussoun Pasha, his second son, who had been burned alive in his
house by one of the exasperated chiefs of Nubia. This was a mission
after Mohammed Bey's own heart: he impaled the chief and several of his
family, and displayed a rapacity and cruelty unheard of before even in
those blood-stained countries. His talent for collecting spoil, and
valuables of every description, was first-rate; chests and bags of the
pure gold rings used in the traffic of Central Africa accumulated in his
tents; he did not stick at a trifle in his measures for procuring gold,
pearls, and diamonds, wherever they were to be heard of; streams of
blood accompanied his march, and the vultures followed in his track. He
was a sportsman too, and hunted slaves, killing the old ones, and
carrying off the children, whom he sent to Egypt to be sold. Many died
on the journey; but that did not much matter, as it increased the value
of the rest.

At last, alter a most successful campaign, the Defterdar returned to his
palace at Cairo, which was reported to be filled with treasure. The
habits he had acquired in the upper country stuck to him after he got
back to Egypt, and the Pasha was obl