was not like other Ingeleez in money, I likewise differed in politeness, and had refrained from abuse, etc., etc., and I should have the boat for 25 pounds.  It was so very excellent in all fittings, and so much larger, that I thought it would make a great difference in health, so I said if he would go before the American Vice-Consul (who is looked on as a sharp hand) and would promise all he said to me before him, it should be well.

Mr. Thayer, the American Consul-General, gives me letters to every consular agent depending on him; and two Coptic merchants whom I met at the fantasia have already begged me to ‘honour their houses.’  I rather think the poor agents, who are all Armenians and Copts, will think I am the republic in person.  The weather has been all this time like a splendid English August, and I hope I shall get rid of my cough in time, but it has been very bad.  There is no cold at night here as at the Cape, but it is nothing like so clear and bright.

Omar took Sally sightseeing all day while I was away, into several mosques; in one he begged her to wait a minute while he said a prayer.  They compare notes about their respective countries and are great friends; but he is put out at my not having provided her with a husband long ago, as is one’s duty towards a ‘female servant,’ which almost always here means a slave.

Of all the falsehoods I have heard about the East, that about women being old hags at thirty is the biggest.  Among the poor fellah women it may be true enough, but not nearly as much as in Germany; and I have now seen a considerable number of Levantine ladies looking very handsome, or at least comely, till fifty.  Sakna, the Arab Grisi, is fifty-five—­an ugly face, I am told (she was veiled and one only saw the eyes and glimpses of her mouth when she drank water), but the figure of a leopard, all grace and beauty, and a splendid voice of its kind, harsh but thrilling like Malibran’s.  I guessed her about thirty, or perhaps thirty-five.  When she improvised, the finesse and grace of her whole Wesen were ravishing.  I was on the point of shouting out ‘Wallah!’ as heartily as the natives.  The eight younger Halmeh (i.e., learned women, which the English call Almeh and think is an improper word) were ugly and screeched.  Sakna was treated with great consideration and quite as a friend by the Armenian ladies with whom she talked between her songs.  She is a Muslimeh and very rich and charitable; she gets 50 pounds for a night’s singing at least.

It would be very easy to learn colloquial Arabic, as they all speak with such perfect distinctness that one can follow the sentences and catch the words one knows as they are repeated.  I think I know forty or fifty words already, besides my ‘salaam aleikum’ and ‘backsheesh.’