I received Meadow’s review; I wish he had not said so much about me in it.

Mohammed Gazowee begs to give his best Salaam to Sheykh Stanley whom he longs to see again.  He says that all the people said he was not a Christian, for he was not proud ever towards them as Christians are, but a real Sheykh, and that the Bedaween still talk of Sheykh Stanley and of his piety.  The old half-witted jester of Luxor has found me out—­he has wandered down here to see his eldest son who is serving in the army.  He had brought a little boy with him, but is ‘afraid for him’ here, I don’t know why, and has begged me to take the child up to his mother.  These licensed possenreisser are like our fools in old times—­but less witty than we fancy them to have been—­thanks to Shakespeare, I suppose.  Each district has one who attends all moolids and other gatherings of the people, and picks up a living.  He tells me that the Turkish Nazir of Zeneea has begun some business against our Kadee, Sheykh Ibraheem, and Sheykh Yussuf, accused them of something—­he does not know what—­perhaps of being friends of Hajjee Sultan, or of stealing wood!!  If all the friends of Hajjee Sultan are to be prosecuted that will include the whole Saeed.

Of course I am anxious about my friends.  All Haleem Pasha Oghdee’s villages have been confiscated (those tributary to him for work) sous pretexte that he ill-used the people, n.b. he alone paid them—­a bad example.  Pharoah is indeed laying intolerable burthens—­not on the Israelites—­but on the fellaheen.

Omar said of the great dinner to-day, ’I think all the food will taste of blood, it is the blood of the poor, and more haram than any pork or wine or blood of beasts.’  Of course such sentiments are not to be repeated—­but they are general.  The meneggets who picked and made ten mattrasses and fourteen cushions for me in half a day, were laughing and saying, ’for the Pasha’s boat we work also, at so much a day and we should have done it in four days.’  ’And for me if I paid by the day instead of by the piece, how long?’ ’One day instead of half, O Lady, for fear thou shouldest say to us, you have finished in half a day and half the wages is enough for you.’  That is the way in which all the work is done for Effendeena—­no wonder his steamers don’t pay.

I saw Ross yesterday—­he tells me the Shereef of Mecca has sent him a horse.

December 25, 1865:  Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.  THEBES, From December 25, 1865, to January 3, 1866.

Dearest Alick,