as well as we can without an interpreter. The old fellow is
sixty-seven, but does not look more than forty-five. He has just the air
and manner of a seafaring-man with us, and has been wrecked four
times--the last in the Black Sea during the Crimean War, when he was
taken prisoner by the Russians and sent to Moscow for three years, until
the peace. He has a charming boy of eleven with him, and he tells me he
has twelve children in all, but only one wife, and is as strict a
monogamist as Dr. Primrose, for he told me he should not marry again if
she died, nor he believed would she. He is surprised at my gray hair.

There are a good many Copts on board too, of a rather low class and not
pleasant. The Christian gentlemen are very pleasant, but the low are
_low_ indeed compared to the Muslimeen, and one gets a feeling of
dirtiness about them to see them eat all among the coals, and then squat
there and pull out their beads to pray without washing their hands even.
It does look nasty when compared to the Muslim coming up clean washed,
and standing erect and manly--looking to his prayers; besides they are
coarse in their manners and conversation and have not the Arab respect
for women. I only speak of the common people--not of educated Copts.
The best fun was to hear the Greeks (one of whom spoke English) abusing
the Copts--rogues, heretics, schismatics from the Greek Church, ignorant,
rapacious, cunning, impudent, etc., etc. In short, they narrated the
whole fable about their own sweet selves. I am quite surprised to see
how well these men manage their work. The boat is quite as clean as an
English boat as crowded could be kept, and the engine in beautiful order.
The head-engineer, Achmet Effendi, and indeed all the crew and captain
too, wear English clothes and use the universal 'All right, stop
her--fooreh (full) speed, half speed--turn her head,' etc. I was
delighted to hear 'All right--go ahead--_el-Fathah_' in one breath. Here
we always say the _Fathah_ (first chapter of the Koran, nearly identical
with the Lord's Prayer) when starting on a journey, concluding a bargain,
etc. The combination was very quaint. There are rats and fleas on
board, but neither bugs nor cockroaches. Already the climate has
changed, the air is sensibly drier and clearer and the weather much
warmer, and we are not yet at Siout. I remarked last year that the
climate changed most at Keneh, forty miles below Thebes. The banks are
ter