re Sally
sits at work, which is a clean, quiet place. Yussuf went and joined him
there yesterday evening, and prayed with him, and gave him some religious
instruction quite undisturbed by Sally and her needlework, and I am
continually complimented on _not hating_ the Muslims. Yussuf promises me
letters to some Alim in Cairo when I go there again, that I may be shown
the Azhar (the great college). Omar had told him that I refused to go
with a janissary from the Consul for fear of giving offence to any very
strict Muslims, which astonished him much. He says his friends shall
dress me in their women's clothes and take me in. I asked whether as a
concealment of my religion, and he said no, only there were 'thousands'
of young men, and it would be 'more delicate' that they should not stare
and talk about my face.

Seleem told me a very pretty grammatical quibble about 'son' and
'prophet' (apropos of Christ) on a verse in the Gospel, depending on the
reduplicative sign [Arabic sign for sheddeh] (_sheddeh_) over one letter;
he was just as put out when I reminded him that it was written in Greek,
as our amateur theologians are if you say the Bible was not originally
composed in English. However, I told him that many Christians in
England, Germany, and America did not believe that Seyyidna Eesa was God,
but only the greatest of prophets and teachers, and that I was myself of
that opinion. He at once declared that that was sufficient, that all
such had 'received guidance,' and were not 'among the rejected'; how
could they be, since such Christians only believed the teaching of Eesa,
which was true, and not the falsifications of the priests and bishops
(the bishops always 'catch it,' as schoolboys say). I was curious to
hear whether on the strength of this he would let out any further
intolerance against the Copts, but he said far less and far less bitterly
than I have heard from Unitarians, and debited the usual most
commonplace, common-sense kind of arguments on the subject. I fancy it
would not be very palatable to many Unitarians, to be claimed _mir nichts
dir nichts_ as followers of _el-Islam_; but if people really wish to
convert in the sense of improving, that door is open, and no other.

_Monday_, 7_th_.--The steamer is come down already and will, I suppose,
go on to-morrow, so I must finish this letter to go by it. I have not
received any letter for some time, and am anxiously expecting the post.
We have now se