butcher's boy who brings the meat--a cat?' I gasped.
'To be sure, and he knows well where to look for a bit of good cookery,
you see. All twins go out as cats at night if they go to sleep hungry;
and their own bodies lie at home like dead meanwhile, but no one must
touch them, or they would die. When they grow up to ten or twelve they
leave it off. Why your boy Achmet does it. Oh Achmet! do you go out as
a cat at night?' 'No,' said Achmet tranquilly, 'I am not a twin--my
sister's sons do.' I inquired if people were not afraid of such cats.
'No, there is no fear, they only eat a little of the cookery, but if you
beat them they will tell their parents next day, "So-and-so beat me in
his house last night," and show their bruises. No, they are not Afreets,
they are _beni Adam_ (sons of Adam), only twins do it, and if you give
them a sort of onion broth and camel's milk the first thing when they are
born, they don't do it at all.' Omar professed never to have heard of
it, but I am sure he had, only he dreads being laughed at. One of the
American missionaries told me something like it as belonging to the
Copts, but it is entirely Egyptian, and common to both religions. I
asked several Copts who assured me it was true, and told it just the
same. Is it a remnant of the doctrine of transmigration? However the
notion fully accounts for the horror the people feel at the idea of
killing a cat.

A poor pilgrim from the black country was taken ill yesterday at a
village six miles from here, he could speak only a few words of Arabic
and begged to be carried to the Abab'deh. So the Sheykh el-Beled put him
on a donkey and sent him and his little boy, and laid him in Sheykh
Hassan's house. He called for Hassan and begged him to take care of the
child, and to send him to an uncle somewhere in Cairo. Hassan said, 'Oh
you will get well Inshallah, etc., and take the boy with you.' 'I cannot
take him into the grave with me,' said the black pilgrim. Well in the
night he died and the boy went to Hassan's mat and said, 'Oh Hassan, my
father is dead.' So the two Sheykhs and several men got up and went and
sat with the boy till dawn, because he refused to lie down or to leave
his father's corpse. At daybreak he said, 'Take me now and sell me, and
buy new cloth to dress my father for the tomb.' All the Abab'deh cried
when they heard it, and Hassan went and bought the cloth, and some sweet
stuff for the boy who remains with him.