ether it was true that the
Europeans still fancied they could make gold. I said that no one had
believed that for nearly two hundred years, and he said that the Arabs
also knew it was 'a lie,' and he wondered to hear that Europeans, who
were so clever, believed it. He had just been across the Nile to see the
tombs of the Kings and of course 'improved the occasion' and uttered a
number of the usual fine sayings about the vanity of human things. He
told me I was the only Frank he had ever spoken to. I observed he did
not say a word about religion, or use the usual pious phrases. By the
bye, Sheykh Yussuf filled up my inkstand for me the other evening and in
pouring the ink said 'Bismillah el-Rachman el-Racheem' (In the name of
God, the merciful, the compassionate). I said 'I like that custom, it is
good to remind us that ink may be a cruel poison or a good medicine.'

I am better, and have hardly any cough. The people here think it is
owing to the intercession of Abu-l-Hajjaj who specially protects me. I
was obliged to be wrapped in the green silk cover of his tomb when it was
taken off to be carried in procession, partly for my health and general
welfare, and as a sort of adoption into the family. I made a feeble
resistance on the score of being a Nazraneeyeh but was told 'Never fear,
does not God know thee and the Sheykh also? no evil will come to thee on
that account but good.' And I rather think that general goodwill and
kindness is wholesome.

February 7, 1865: Miss Austin

_To Miss Austin_.

LUXOR,
_February_ 7, 1865.

MY DEAREST CHARLEY,

I am tolerably well, but I am growing very homesick--or rather
children-sick. As the time slips on I get more and more the feeling of
all I am losing of my children. We have delicious weather here and have
had all the time; there has been no cold at all this winter here.

M. Prevost Paradol is here for a few days--a very pleasant man indeed,
and a little good European talk is a very agreeable interlude to the Arab
prosiness, or rather _enfantillage_, on the part of the women. I have
sought about for shells and a few have been brought me from the Cataract,
but of snails I can learn no tidings nor have I ever seen one, neither
can I discover that there are any shells in the Nile mud. At the first
Cataract th