All the Arab doctors come to see me now as they go up and down the river to give me help if I want it.  Some are very pleasant men.  Mourad Effendi speaks German exactly like a German.  The old Sheykh-el-Beled of Erment who visits me whenever he comes here, and has the sweetest voice I ever heard, complained of the climate of Cairo.  ’There is no sun there at all, it is no brighter or warmer than the moon.’  What do you think our sun must be now you know Cairo.  We have had a glorious winter, like the finest summer weather at home only so much finer.

Janet wishes to go with me if I go to Soden, I must make enquiries about the climate.  Ross fears it is too cold for an Egyptian like me.  I should enjoy to have all the family au grand complet.  I will leave Luxor in May and get to you towards the latter part of June, if that pleases you, Inshallah!

February 7, 1865:  Mrs. Ross

To Mrs. Ross.  LUXOR, February 7, 1865.

Dearest Janet,

It is quite heartrending about my letters.  I have ‘got the eye’ evidently.  The black slave of the poor dragoman who died in my house is here still, and like a dog that has lost his master has devoted himself to me.  It seems nobody’s business to take him away—­as the Kadee did the money and the goods—­and so it looks as if I should quietly inherit poor ugly Khayr.  He is of a degree of ugliness quite transcendent, with teeth filed sharp ‘in order to eat people’ as he says, but the most good-humoured creature and a very fair laundry-maid.  It is evidently no concern of mine to send him to be sold in Cairo, so I wait the event.  If nobody ever claims him I shall keep him at whatever wages may seem fit, and he will subside into liberty. Du reste, the Maohn here says he is legally entitled to his freedom.  If the new French Consul-General will let me stay on here I will leave my furniture and come down straight to your hospitable roof in Alexandria en route for Europe.  I fear my plan of a dahabieh of my own would be too expensive, the wages of common boatmen now are three napoleons a month.  M. Prevost Paradol, whose company has been a real bonne fortune to me, will speak to the Consul-General.  I know all Thebes would sign a round-robin in my favour if they only knew how, for I am very popular here, and the only Hakeen.  I have effected some brilliant cures, and get lots of presents.  Eggs, turkeys, etc., etc., it is quite a pleasure to see how the poor people instead of trying to sponge on one are anxious to make a return for kindness.  I give nothing whatever but my physick.  These country people are very good.  A nice young Circassian Cawass sat up with a stranger, a dying Englishman, all night because I had doctored his wife.  I have also a pupil, Mustapha’s youngest boy, a sweet intelligent lad who is pining for an education.  I wish he could go to England.  He speaks English very well and reads and writes indifferently, but I never saw a boy so wild to learn.  Is it difficult to get a boy into the Abbassieh college? as it is gratuitous I suppose it is.  I quite grieve over little Ach met forced to dawdle away his time and his faculties here.