du reste_ the Abu-l-Hajjajieh (family of Abu-l-Hajjaj)
will 'put their seal' to it that I am their sister and answer for me with
a man's life. It would be foolish to go down into whatever disturbance
there may be alone in a small country boat and where I am not known. The
Pasha himself we hear is at Girgeh with steamboats and soldiers, and if
the slightest fear should arise steamers will be sent up to fetch all the
Europeans. What I grieve over is the poor villagers whose little
property is all confiscated, guilty and innocent alike, and many shot as
they ran away. Hajjee Ali tells me privately that he believes the
discontent against the Government is very deep and universal and that
there will be an outbreak--but not yet. The Pasha's attempt to regulate
the price of food by edicts has been very disastrous, and of course the
present famine prices are laid to his charge--if a man will be omnipotent
he must take the consequences when he fails. I don't believe in an
outbreak--I think the people are too thoroughly accustomed to suffer and
to obey, besides they have no means of communication, and the steamboats
can run up and down and destroy them _en detail_ in a country which is
eight hundred miles long by from one to eight wide, and thinly peopled.
Only Cairo could do anything, and everything is done to please the
Cairenes at the expense of the fellaheen.

The great heat has begun these last three days. My cough is better and I
am grown fatter again. The Nile is so low that I fancy that six weeks or
two months hence I shall have to go down in two little boats--even now
the dahabiehs keep sticking fast continually. I have promised some
neighbours to bring back a little seed corn for them, some of the best
English wheat without beard. All the wheat here is bearded and they have
an ambition for some of ours. I long to bring them wheelbarrows and
spades and pickaxes. The great folks get steamploughs, but the labourers
work with their bare hands and a rush basket _pour tout potage_, and it
takes six to do the work of one who has got good tools.

March 25, 1865: Mrs. Ross

_To Mrs. Ross_.

LUXOR,
_March_ 25, 1865.

DEAREST JANET,

I hope you have not had visions of me plundered and massacred by the
crazy darweesh who has caused the destruction of Gau and