nent.
Well, Mustapha asked me several times what I wished to be done with the
thief, who spent twenty-one days here in irons. With my absurd English
ideas of justice I refused to interfere at all, and Omar and I had quite
a tiff because he wished me to say, 'Oh, poor man, let him go; I leave
the affair to God.' I thought Omar absurd, but it was I who was wrong.
The authorities concluded that it would oblige me very much if the poor
devil were punished with a 'rigour beyond the law,' and had not Sheykh
Yussuf come and explained the nature of the proceedings, the man would
have been sent up to the mines in Fazogloo _for life_, out of civility to
me, by the Moudir of Keneh, Ali Bey. There was no alternative between my
'forgiving him for the love of God' or sending him to a certain death by
a climate insupportable to these people. Mustapha and Co. tried hard to
prevent Sheykh Yussuf from speaking to me, for fear I should be angry and
complain at Cairo, if my vengeance were not wreaked on the thief, but he
said he knew me better, and brought the _proces verbal_ to show me.
Fancy my dismay! I went to Seleem Effendi and to the Kadee with Sheykh
Yussuf, and begged the man might be let go, and not sent to Keneh at all.
Having settled this, I said that I had thought it right that the people
of Karnac should pay the money I had lost, as a fine for their bad
conduct to strangers, but that I did not require it for the sake of the
money, which I would accordingly give to the poor of Luxor in the mosque
and in the church (great applause from the crowd). I asked how many were
Muslimeen and how many Nazranee, in order to divide the three napoleons
and a half, according to the numbers. Sheykh Yussuf awarded one napoleon
to the church, two to the mosque, and the half to the water-drinking
place--the _Sebeel_--which was also applauded. I then said, 'Shall we
send the money to the bishop?' but a respectable elderly Copt said,
'_Malcysh_! (never mind) better give it all to Sheykh Yussuf; he will
send the bread to the church.' Then the Cadi made me a fine speech, and
said I had behaved like a great _Emeereh_, and one that feared God; and
Sheykh Yussuf said he knew the English had mercy in their stomachs, and
that I especially had Mussulman feelings (as we say, Christian charity).
Did you ever hear of such a state of administration of justice. Of
course, sympathy here, as in Ireland, is mostly with the 'poor man' in
prison--'in trouble