ad; no one else, he believes,
thinks of such a thing out of Cairo; there many of the daughters of the
Alim learn--those who desire it. His wife died two years ago, and six
months ago he married again a wife of twelve years old! (Sheykh Yussuf
is thirty he tells me; he looks twenty-two or twenty-three.) What a
stepmother and what a wife! He can repeat the whole Koran without a
book, it takes twelve hours to do it. Has read the Towrat (old
Testament) and the el-Aangeel (Gospels), of course, every Alim reads
them. 'The words of Seyyidna Eesa are the true faith, but Christians
have altered and corrupted their meaning. So we Muslims believe. We are
all the children of God.' I ask if Muslims call themselves so, or only
the slaves of God. ''Tis all one, children or slaves. Does not a good
man care for both tenderly alike?' (Pray observe the Oriental feeling
here. _Slave_ is a term of affection, not contempt; and remember the
Centurion's '_servant_ (slave) whom he loved.') He had heard from Fodl
Pasha how a cow was cured of the prevailing disease in Lower Egypt by
water weighed against a _Mushaf_ (copy of the Koran), and had no doubt it
was true, Fodl Pasha had tried it. Yet he thinks the Arab doctors no use
at all who use verses of the Koran.

M. de Rouge, the great _Egyptologue_, came here one evening; he speaks
Arabic perfectly, and delighted Sheykh Yussuf, who was much interested in
the translations of the hieroglyphics and anxious to know if he had found
anything about _Moussa_ (Moses) or _Yussuf_ (Joseph). He looked pleased
and grateful to be treated like a 'gentleman and scholar' by such an Alim
as M. de Rouge and such a Sheykhah as myself. As he acts as clerk to
Mustapha, our consular agent, and wears a shabby old brown shirt, or
gown, and speaks no English, I dare say he not seldom encounters great
slights (from sheer ignorance). He produced a bit of old Cufic MS. and
consulted M. de R. as to its meaning--a pretty little bit of flattery in
an Arab Alim to a Frenchman, to which the latter was not insensible, I
saw. In answer to the invariable questions about all my family I once
told him my father had been a great Alim of the Law, and that my mother
had got ready his written books and put some lectures in order to be
printed. He was amazed--first that I had a mother, as he told me he
thought I was fifty or sixty, and immensely delighted at the idea. 'God
has favoured your family with understanding an