l the Jew said, 'Depart, O man, thou bringest us
misfortune; shall I continue to take half thy stones, and give thee half
my fish? Not so.' So the Muslim went to our Master Mohammed and said,
'Behold, I mention thy name when I cast my net, and I catch only stones
and calamity. How is this?' But the blessed Prophet said to him,
'Because thy stomach is black inwardly, and thou thoughtest to sell thy
fish at an unfair price, and to defraud thy partner and the people, while
the Jew's heart was clean towards thee and the people, and therefore God
listened to him rather than to thee.' I hope our fisherman was edified
by this fine moral. I also had good stories from the chief diver of
Cairo, who came to examine the bottom of my boat, and told me, in a
whisper, a long tale of his grandfather's descent below the waters of the
Nile, into the land of the people who lived there, and keep tame
crocodiles to hunt fish for them. They gave him a sleeve-full of fishes'
scales, and told him never to return, and not to tell about them: and
when he got home the scales had turned to money. But most wonderful of
all was Haggi Hannah's story of her own life, and the journey of Omar's
mother carrying her old mother in a basket on her head from Damietta to
Alexandria, and dragging Omar then a very little boy, by the hand. The
energy of many women here is amazing.

The Nile is rising fast, and the _Bisheer_ is come (the messenger who
precedes the Hajj, and brings letters). _Bisheer_ is 'good tidings,' to
coin a word. Many hearts are lightened and many half-broken to-day. I
shall go up to the Abassia to meet the Mahmal and see the Hajjees arrive.

Next Friday I must take my boat out of the water, or at least heel her
over, to repair the bad places made at Alexandria. It seems I once cured
a Reis of the Pasha's of dysentery at Minieh, and he has not forgotten
it, though I had; so Reis Awad will give me a good place on the Pasha's
bank, and lend ropes and levers which will save a deal of expense and
trouble. I shall move out all the things and myself into a boat of
Zubeydeh's for four or five days, and stay alongside to superintend my
caulkers.

Miss Berry _is_ dull no doubt, but few books seem dull to me now, I can
tell you, and I was much delighted with such a _piece de resistance_.
Miss Eden I don't wish for--that sort of theatre burlesque view of the
customs of a strange country is inexpressibly tedious to one who is
familiar wi