The mother brought the bride up to me and unveiled her and
asked me to let her kiss my hand, and to look at her, I said all the
usual _Bismillah Mashallah's_, and after a time went to the men who were
eating, all but Hassan who sat apart and who begged me to sit by him, and
whispered anxious enquiries about his _aroosah's_ looks. After a time he
went to visit her and returned in half an hour very shy and covering his
face and hand and kissed the hands of the chief guests. Then we all
departed and the girl was taken to look at the Nile, and then to her
husband's house. Last night he gave me a dinner--a very good dinner
indeed, in his house which is equal to a very poor cattle shed at home.
We were only five. Sheykh Yussuf, Omar, an elderly merchant and I.
Hassan wanted to serve us but I made him sit.

The merchant, a well-bred man of the world who has enjoyed life and
married wives everywhere--had arrived that day and found a daughter of
his dead here. He said he felt very miserable--and everyone told him not
to mind and consoled him oddly enough to English ideas. Then people told
stories. Omar's was a good version of the man and wife who would not
shut the door and agreed that the first to speak should do it--very funny
indeed. Yussuf told a pretty tale of a Sultan who married a Bint el-Arab
(daughter of the Bedawee) and how she would not live in his palace, and
said she was no fellaha to dwell in houses, and scorned his silk clothes
and sheep killed for her daily, and made him live in the desert with her.
A black slave told a prosy tale about thieves--and the rest were more
long than pointed.

Hassan's Arab feelings were hurt at the small quantity of meat set before
me. (They can't kill a sheep now for an honoured guest.) But I told him
no greater honour could be paid to us English than to let us eat lentils
and onions like one of the family, so that we might not feel as strangers
among them--which delighted all the party. After a time the merchant
told us his heart was somewhat dilated--as a man might say his toothache
had abated--and we said 'Praise be to God' all round.

A short time ago my poor friend the Maohn had a terrible 'tile' fall on
his head. His wife, two married daughters and nine miscellaneous
children arrived on a sudden, and the poor man is now tasting the
pleasures which Abraham once endured between Sarah and Hagar. I visited
the ladies and found a very ancient Sarah and a daughter of w