rrived here all safe three days ago. I think of starting for Nubia
directly after Christmas Day, which we must keep here. We have lovely
weather. Maurice is going with a friend of my friends, a Bedawee, to
shoot, I hope among the Abab'deh he will get some gazelle shooting. I
shall stop at Syaleh to visit the Sheykh's mother, and with them Maurice
could go for some days into the desert. As to crocodiles, Inshallah, we
will eat their hearts, and not they ours. You may rely on it that
Maurice is 'on the head and in the eye' of all my crew, and will not be
allowed to bathe in 'unclean places.' Reis Mohammed stopped him at Gebel
Abu'l Foda. You would be delighted to see how different he looks; all
his clothes are too tight now. He says he is thoroughly happy, and that
he was never more amused than when with me, which I think very
flattering.

Half of the old house at Luxor fell down into the temple beneath six days
before I arrived; so there is an end of the _Maison de France_, I
suppose. It might be made very nice again at a small expense, but I
suppose the Consul will not do it, and certainly I shall not unless I
want it again. Nothing now remains solid but the three small front rooms
and the big hall with two rooms off it. All the part I lived in is gone,
and the steps, so one cannot get in. Luckily Yussuf had told Mohammed to
move my little furniture to the part which is solid, having a misgiving
of the rest. He has the most exquisite baby, an exact minature of
himself. He is in a manner my godson, being named Noor ed-Deen Hishan
Abu-l-Hajjaj, to be called _Noor_ like me.

January, 1868: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

ON BOARD THE _URANIA_,
_January_, 1868.

DEAREST ALICK,

Your letter of the 10 December most luckily came on to Edfoo by the
American Consul-General, who overtook us there in his steamer and gave me
a lunch. Maurice was as usual up to his knees in a distant swamp trying
to shoot wild geese. Now we are up close to Assouan, and there are no
more marshes; but _en revanche_ there are quails and _kata_, the
beautiful little sand grouse. I eat all that Maurice shoots, which I
find very good for me; and as for Maurice he has got back his old round
boyish face; he eats like an ogre, walks all day, sleeps like a top,
bathes in th