red him invulnerable. He then made friends with a Jinn who taught
him many more tricks--among others, that practised in England by the
Davenports of slipping out of any bonds. He then deluded the people of
the desert by giving himself out as _El-Mahdi_ (he who is to come with
the Lord Jesus and to slay Antichrist at the end of the world), and
proclaimed a revolt against the Turks. Three villages below Keneh--Gau,
Rayanaeh and Bedeh took part in the disturbance, and Fodl Pasha came up
with steamboats, burnt the villages, shot about one hundred men and
devastated the fields. At first we heard one thousand were shot, now it
is one hundred. The women and children will be distributed among other
villages. The darweesh some say is killed, others that he is gone off
into the desert with a body of bedaween and a few of the fellaheen from
the three ravaged villages. Gau is a large place--as large, I think as
Luxor. The darweesh is a native of Salamieh, a village close by here,
and yesterday his brother, a very quiet man, and his father's
father-in-law old Hajjee Sultan were carried off prisoners to Cairo, or
Keneh, we don't know which. It seems that the boat robbed belonged to
Greek traders, but no one was hurt, I believe, and no European boat has
been molested.

Baron Kevenbrinck was here yesterday with his wife, and they saw all the
sacking of the villages and said no resistance was offered by the people
whom the soldiers shot down as they ran, and they saw the sheep etc.
being driven off by the soldiers. You need be in no alarm about me. The
darweesh and his followers could not pounce on us as we are eight good
miles from the desert, _i.e._ the mountain, so we must have timely
notice, and we have arranged that if they appear in the neighbourhood the
women and children of the outlying huts should come into my house which
is a regular fortress, and also any travellers in boats, and we muster
little short of seven hundred men able to fight including Karnac,
moreover Fodl Pasha and the troops are at Keneh only forty miles off.

Three English boats went down river to-day and one came up. The
Kevenbrincks went up last night. I dined with them, she is very lively
and pleasant. I nearly died of laughing to-day when little Achmet came
for his lesson. He pronounced that he was sick of love for her. He
played at cards with her yesterday afternoon and it seems lost his heart
(he is twelve and quite a boyish boy, though a