nds,
for no other crime than having turned Presbyterian. This is quite a new
idea in Egypt, and we all wonder why the Pasha is so anxious to 'brush
the coat' of the Copt Patriarch. We also hear that the people up in the
Saaed are running away by wholesale, utterly unable to pay the new taxes
and to do the work exacted. Even here the beating is fearful. My Reis
has had to send all his month's wages to save his aunt and his
sister-in-law, both widows, from the courbash. He did not think so much
of the blows, but of the 'shame'; 'those are women, lone women, from
whence can they get the money?'

November 3, 1867: Mrs. Ross

_To Mrs. Ross_.

BOULAK,
_November_ 3, 1867.

DEAREST JANET,

Maurice arrived on Friday week, and is as happy as can be, he says he
never felt so well and never had such good snipe shooting. Little
Darfour's amusement at Maurice is boundless; he grins at him all the time
he waits at table, he marvels at his dirty boots, at his bathing, at his
much walking out shooting, at his knowing no Arabic. The dyke burst the
other day up at Bahr Yussuf, and we were nearly all swept away by the
furious rush of water. My little boat was upset while three men in her
were securing the anchor, and two of them were nearly drowned, though
they swim like fish; all the dahabiehs were rattled and pounded awfully;
and in the middle of the _fracas_, at noonday, a steamer ran into us
quite deliberately. I was rather frightened when the steamer bumped us,
and carried away the iron supports of the awning; and they cursed our
fathers into the bargain, which I thought needless. The English have
fallen into such contempt here that one no longer gets decent civility
from anything in the _Miri_ (Government).

Olagnier has lent us a lovely little skiff, and I have had her repaired
and painted, so Maurice is set up for shooting and boating. Darfour
calls him the 'son of a crocodile' because he loves the water, and
generally delights in him hugely, and all my men are enchanted with him.

December 20, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_December_ 20, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

We a