I sent down the poor black lad with Arakel Bey.  He took leave of me with his ugly face all blubbered like a sentimental hippopotamus.  He said ’for himself, he wished to stay with me, but then what would his boy, his little master do—­there was only a stepmother who would take all the money, and who else would work for the boy?’ Little Achmet was charmed to see Khayr go, of whom he chose to be horribly jealous, and to be wroth at all he did for me.  Now the Sheykh-el-Beled of Baidyeh has carried off my watchman, and the Christian Sheykh-el-Hara of our quarter of Luxor has taken the boy Yussuf for the Canal.  The former I successfully resisted and got back Mansoor, not indeed incolumes for he had been handcuffed and bastinadoed to make me pay 200 piastres, but he bore it like a man rather than ask me for the money and was thereupon surrendered.  But the Copt will be a tougher business—­he will want more money and be more resolved to get it. Veremus.  I must I suppose go to the Nazir at the Canal—­a Turk—­and beg off my donkey boy.

[Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, from sketch by G. F. Watts, R.A.:  ill231.jpg]

I saw Hassan Sheykh-el-Abab’deh yesterday, who was loud in praise of your good looks and gracious manners.  ’Mashallah, thy master is a sweet man, O Lady!’

Yesterday was Bairam, and lots of Hareem came in their best clothes to wish me a happy year and enjoyed themselves much with sweet cakes, coffee, and pipes.  Kursheed’s wife (whom I cured completely) looked very handsome.  Kursheed is a Circassian, a fine young fellow much shot and hacked about and with a Crimean medal.  He is cawass here and a great friend of mine.  He says if I ever want a servant he will go with me anywhere and fight anybody—­which I don’t doubt in the least.  He was a Turkish memlook and his condescension in wishing to serve a Christian woman is astounding.  His fair face and clear blue eyes, and brisk, neat, soldier-like air contrast curiously with the brown fellaheen.  He is like an Englishman only fairer and like them too fond of the courbash.  What would you say if I appeared in Germany attended by a memlook with pistols, sword, dagger, carbine and courbash, and with a decided and imperious manner the very reverse of the Arab softness—­and such a Muslim too—­prays five times a day and extra fasts besides Ramadan.  ’I beat my wife’ said Kursheed, ’oh!  I beat her well! she talked so, and I am like the English, I don’t like too many words.’  He was quite surprised that I said I was glad my master didn’t dislike talking so much.

I was talking the other day with Yussuf about people trying to make converts and I said that eternal betise, ‘Oh they mean well.’  ’True, oh Lady! perhaps they do mean well, but God says in the Noble Koran that he who injures or torments those Christians whose conduct is not evil, merely on account of religion, shall never smell the fragrance of the Garden (paradise).  Now when men begin to want to make others change their faith it is extremely hard for them not to injure or torment them and therefore I think it better to abstain altogether and to wish rather to see a Christian a good Christian and a Muslim a good Muslim.’