he soldiers lay sixty
men down on their backs by ten at a time and _chop_ them to death with
the pioneers' axes. He estimated the people killed--men, women, and
children at 1,600--but Mounier tells me it was over 2,000. Sheykh Hassan
agreed exactly with Kursheed, only the Arab was full of horror and the
Circassian full of exultation. His talk was exactly what we all once
heard about 'Pandies,' and he looked and talked and laughed so like a
fine young English soldier, that I was ashamed to call him the kelb (dog)
which rose to my tongue, and I bestowed it on Fadil Pasha instead. I
must also say in behalf of my own countrymen that they _had_ provocation
while here there was none. Poor Haggee Sultan lies in chains at Keneh.
One of the best and kindest of men! I am to go and take secret messages
to him, and money from certain men of religion to bribe the Moudir with.
The Shurafa who have asked me to do this are from another place, as well
as a few of the Abu-l-Hajjajieh. A very great Shereef indeed from lower
Egypt, said to me the other day, 'Thou knowest if I am a Muslim or no.
Well, I pray to the most Merciful to send us Europeans to govern us, and
to deliver us from these wicked men.' We were all sitting after the
funeral of one of the Shurafa and I was sitting between the Shereef of
Luxor and the Imam--and this was said before thirty or forty men, all
Shurafa. No one said 'No,' and many assented aloud.

The Shereef asked me to lend him the New Testament, it was a pretty copy
and when he admired it I said, 'From me to thee, oh my master the
Shereef, write in it as we do in remembrance of a friend--the gift of a
Nazraneeyeh who loves the Muslimeen.' The old man kissed the book and
said 'I will write moreover--to a Muslim who loves all such
Christians'--and after this the old Sheykh of Abou Ali took me aside and
asked me to go as messenger to Haggee Sultan for if one of them took the
money it would be taken from them and the man get no good by it.

Soldiers are now to be quartered in the Saeed--a new plague worse than
all the rest. Do not the cawasses already rob the poor enough? They fix
their own price in the market and beat the sakkas as sole payment. What
will the soldiers do? The taxes are being illegally levied on lands
which are _sheragi_, _i.e._ totally unwatered by the last Nile and
therefore exempt _by law_--and the people are driven to desperation. I
feel sure there will be more troubles as soon a