A most quaint little half-black boy a year and a half old has taken a fancy to me and comes and sits for hours gazing at me and then dances to amuse me.  He is Mahommed our guard’s son by a jet-black slave of his and is brown-black and very pretty.  He wears a bit of iron wire in one ear and iron rings round his ankles, and that is all—­and when he comes up little Achmet, who is his uncle, ‘makes him fit to be seen’ by emptying a pitcher of water over his head to rinse off the dust in which of course he has been rolling—­that is equivalent to a clean pinafore.  You would want to buy little Said I know, he is so pretty and so jolly.  He dances and sings and jabbers baby Arabic and then sits like a quaint little idol cross-legged quite still for hours.

I am now writing in the kitchen, which is the coolest place where there is any light at all.  Omar is diligently spelling words of six letters, with the wooden spoon in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth, and Sally is lying on her back on the floor.  I won’t describe our costume.  It is now two months since I have worn stockings, and I think you would wonder at the fellaha who ‘owns you,’ so deep a brown are my face, hands and feet.  One of the sailors in Arthur’s boat said:  ’See how the sun of the Arabs loves her; he has kissed her so hotly that she can’t go home among English people.’

June 18.—­I went last night to look at Karnac by moonlight.  The giant columns were overpowering.  I never saw anything so solemn.  On our way back we met the Sheykh-el-Beled, who ordered me an escort of ten men home.  Fancy me on my humble donkey, guarded most superfluously by ten tall fellows, with oh! such spears and venerable matchlocks.  At Mustapha’s house we found a party seated before the door, and joined it.  There was a tremendous Sheykh-el-Islam from Tunis, a Maghribee, seated on a carpet in state receiving homage.  I don’t think he liked the heretical woman at all.  Even the Maohn did not dare to be as ‘politeful’ as usual to me, but took the seat above me, which I had respectfully left vacant next to the holy man.  Mustapha was in a stew, afraid not to do the respectful to me, and fussing after the Sheykh.  Then Yussuf came fresh from the river, where he had bathed and prayed, and then you saw the real gentleman.  He salaamed the great Sheykh, who motioned to him to sit before him, but Yussuf quietly came round and sat below me on the mat, leaned his elbow on my cushion, and made more demonstration of regard for me than ever, and when I went came and helped me on my donkey.  The holy Sheykh went away to pray, and Mustapha hinted to Yussuf to go with him, but he only smiled, and did not stir; he had prayed an hour before down at the Nile.  It was as if a poor curate had devoted himself to a rank papist under the eye of a scowling Shaftesbury Bishop.  Then came Osman Effendi, a young Turk, with a poor devil accused in a distant village of stealing a letter