but I am still weak and thin, and hear many
lamentations at my altered looks. However, '_Inshallah_, thou wilt soon
be better.'

Why don't you make Alexander edit your letters from Spain? I am sure
they would be far more amusing than mine can possibly be--for you _can_
write letters and I never could. I wish I had Miss Berry's though I
never did think her such a genius as most people, but her letters must be
amusing from the time when they were written. Alexander will tell you
how heavy the hand of Pharaoh is upon this poor people. 'My father
scourged you with whips but I will scourge you with scorpions,' did not
Rehoboam say so? or I forget which King of Judah. The distress here is
frightful in all classes, and no man's life is safe.

Ali Bey Rheda told me the other day that Prince Arthur is coming here and
that he was coming up with him after taking a Prince of Hohenzollern back
to Cairo. There will be all the _fantasia_ possible for him here. Every
man that has a horse will gallop him to pieces in honour of the son of
the Queen of the English, and not a charge of powder will be spared. If
you see Layard tell him that Mustapha A'gha had the whole Koran read for
his benefit at the tomb of Abu-l-Hajjaj besides innumerable _fathahs_
which he said for him himself. He consulted me as to the propriety of
sending Layard a backsheesh, but I declared that Layard was an Emeer of
the Arabs and a giver, not a taker of backsheesh.

January 9, 1865: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR,
_January_ 9, 1865.

I gave Sheykh Yussuf your knife to cut his _kalem_ (reed pen) with, and
to his little girl the coral waistband clasp you gave me _as from you_.
He was much pleased. I also brought the Shereef the psalms in Arabic to
his great delight. The old man called on all 'our family' to say a
_fathah_ for their sister, after making us all laugh by shouting out
'_Alhamdulillah_! here is our darling safe back again.'

I wish you could have seen me in the crowd at Keneh holding on to the
Kadee's _farageeyeh_ (a loose robe worn by the Ulema). He is the real
original Kadee of the Thousand and One Nights. Did ever Kadee tow an
Englishwoman round a Sheykh's tomb before? but I thought his
determination to show the people that he considered a Christian not out
of place in