ers
of this congregation for the welfare of the lady who gave me her
opera-box last Saturday. If prayers could avail to cure I ought to get
well rapidly. At Luxor Omar killed the sheep he had vowed, and Mustapha
and Mohammed each killed two, as thank-offerings for my life, and all the
derweeshes held two great _Zikrs_ in a tent pitched behind the boat, and
drummed and chanted and called on the Lord for two whole nights; and
every man in my boat fasted Ramadan severely, from Omar and the crew to
the little boys. I think Darfour was the most meritorious of all,
because he has such a Gargantuan appetite, but he fasted his thirty days
bravely and rubbed his little nose in the dust energetically in prayer.

On Christmas day I was at Esneh, it was warm and fine, and I made
fantasia and had the girls to dance. Zeyneb and Hillaleah claim to be my
own special _Ghazawee_, so to speak my _Ballerine da camera_, and they
did their best. How I did long to transport the whole scene before your
eyes--Ramadan warbling intense lovesongs, and beating on a tiny
tambourine, while Zeyneb danced before him and gave the pantomime to his
song; and the sailors, and girls, and respectable merchants sat
_pele-mele_ all round on the deck, and the player on the rabab drew from
it a wail like that of Isis for dead Osiris. I never quite know whether
it is now or four thousand years ago, or even ten thousand, when I am in
the dreamy intoxication of a real Egyptian fantasia; nothing is so
antique as the Ghazawee--the _real_ dancing girls. They are still
subject to religious ecstasies of a very curious kind, no doubt inherited
from the remotest antiquity. Ask any learned pundit to explain to you
the _Zar_--it is really curious.

Now that I am too ill to write I feel sorry that I did not persist and
write on the beliefs of Egypt in spite of your fear that the learned
would cut me up, for I honestly believe that knowledge will die with me
which few others possess. You must recollect that the learned know
books, and I know men, and what is still more difficult, women.

The Cataract is very bad this year, owing to want of water in the Nile,
and to the shameful conduct of the Maohn here. The cataract men came to
me, and prayed me to 'give them my voice' before the Mudir, which I will
do. Allah ed-deen Bey seems a decent man and will perhaps remove the
rascal, whose robberies on travellers are notorious, and his oppression
of the poor savages who