edy-ish, but no worse. Everybody
is liver-sick this year, I give calomel and jalep all round--except to
myself.

The last two or three days we have been in great tribulation about the
boat. On Saturday all her ribs were finished, and the planking and
caulking ready to be put on, when in the night up came the old Nile with
a rush, and threatened to carry her off; but by the favour of
Abu-l-Hajjaj and Sheykh el-Bostawee she was saved in this wise. You
remember the tall old steersman who went with us to Bedreeshayn, and whom
we thought so ill-conditioned; well, he was in charge of a dahabieh close
by, and he called up all the Reises and steermen to help. 'Oh men of
el-Bostawee, this is _our_ boat (_i.e._ we are the servants of her owner)
and she is in our faces;' and then he set the example, stripped and
carried dust and hammered in piles all night, and by the morning she was
surrounded by a dyke breast-high. The 'long-shore' men of Boulak were
not a little surprised to see dignified Reises working for nothing like
fellaheen. Meanwhile my three _Ma-allimeen_, the chief builder, caulker
and foreman, had also stayed all night with Omar and my Reis, who worked
like the rest, and the Sheykh of all the boat-builders went to visit one
of my _Ma-allimeen_, who is his nephew, and hearing the case came down
too at one in the morning and stayed till dawn. Then as the workmen
passed, going to their respective jobs, he called them, and said, 'Come
and finish this boat; it must be done by to-morrow night.' Some men who
objected and said they were going to the Pasha's dockyard, got a beating
_pro forma_ and the end of it was that I found forty-six men under my
boat working 'like Afreets and Shaitans,' when I went to see how all was
going in the morning. The old Sheykh marked out a piece to each four
men, and then said, 'If that is not done to-night, Oh dogs! to-morrow
I'll put on the hat'--_i.e._ 'To-day I have beaten moderately, like an
Arab, but to-morrow, please God, I'll beat like a Frank, and be mad with
the stick.' _Kurz und gut_, the boat which yesterday morning was a
skeleton, is now, at four p.m. to-day, finished, caulked, pitched and all
capitally done; if the Nile carries off the dyke, she will float safe.
The shore is covered with debris of other people's half-finished boats I
believe. I owe the ardour of the _Ma-allims_ and of the Sheykh of the
builders to one of my absurd pieces of Arab civility. On the day when