I have continued very fairly well.  We had great heat ten days ago; now it is quite cool.  Harvesting is going on, and never did I see in any dream so lovely a sight as the whole process.  An acquaintance of mine, one Abdurachman, is Boaz, and as I sat with him on the threshing-floor and ate roasted corn, I felt quite puzzled as to whether I were really alive or only existing in imagination in the Book of Ruth.  It is such a kief that one enjoys under the palm-trees, with such a scene.  The harvest is magnificent here; I never saw such crops.  There is no cattle disease, but a good deal of sickness among the people; I have to practise very extensively, and often feel very anxious, as I cannot refuse to go to the poor souls and give them medicine, with sore misgivings all the while.  Fancy that Hekekian Bey can’t get me an Arabic dictionary in Cairo.  I must send to London, I suppose, which seems hardly worth while.  I wish you could see my teacher, Sheykh Yussuf.  I never before saw a pious person amiable and good like him.  He is intensely devout, and not at all bigoted—­a difficult combination; and, moreover, he is lovely to behold, and has the prettiest and merriest laugh possible.  It is quite curious to see the mixture of a sort of learning with utter ignorance and great superstition, and such perfect high-breeding and beauty of character.  It is exactly like associating with St. John.

I want dreadfully to be able to draw, or to photograph.  The group at the Sheykh-el-Ababdeh’s last night was ravishing, all but my ugly hat and self.  The black ringlets and dirty white drapery and obsolete weapons—­the graceful splendid Sheykh ‘black but beautiful’ like the Shulamite—­I thought of Antar and Abou Zeyd.

Give my salaam to Mme. Tastu and ask her whether I may stay on here, or if I go down stream during the heat whether I may return next winter, in which case I might leave some of my goods.  Hekekian strongly advises me to remain here, and thinks the heat will be good.  I will try; 88 degrees seemed to agree with me wonderfully, my cough is much better.

April 14, 1864:  Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.  LUXOR, April 14, 1864.

Dearest Alick,

I have but this moment received your letter of the 18th March, which went after Janet, who was hunting at Tel-el-Kebir.  We have had a tremendous Khamseen wind, and now a strong north wind quite fresh and cool.  The thermometer was 92 degrees during the Khamseen, but it did me no harm.  Luckily I am very well for I am worked hard, as a strange epidemic has broken out, and I am the Hakeemeh (doctress) of Luxor.  The Hakeem Pasha from Cairo came up and frightened the people, telling them it was catching, and Yussuf forgot his religion so far as to beg me not to be all day in the people’s huts; but Omar and I despised the danger, I feeling sure it was not infectious,