they wished to give thanks for my safe arrival.  Such a demonstration of tolerance was not to be resisted.  So after going back to rest, and dine in the boat, I returned at nightfall into the town and went to the burial-place.  The whole way was lighted up and thronged with the most motley crowd, and the usual mixture of holy and profane, which we know at the Catholic fetes also; but more prononce here.  Dancing girls, glittering with gold brocade and coins, swaggered about among the brown-shirted fellaheen, and the profane singing of the Alateeyeh mingled with the songs in honour of the Arab prophet chanted by the Moonsheeds and the deep tones of the ‘Allah, Allah’ of the Zikeers.  Rockets whizzed about and made the women screech, and a merry-go-round was in full swing.  And now fancy me clinging to the skirts of the Cadi ul Islam (who did not wear a spencer, as the Methodist parson threatened his congregation he would do at the Day of Judgement) and pushing into the tomb of the Seyd Abd er-Racheem, through such a throng.  No one seemed offended or even surprised.  I suppose my face is so well known at Keneh.  When my party had said a Fattah for me and another for my family, we retired to another kubbeh, where there was no tomb, and where we found the Mufti, and sat there all the evening over coffee and pipes and talk.  I was questioned about English administration of justice, and made to describe the process of trial by jury.  The Mufti is a very dignified gentlemanly man, and extremely kind and civil.  The Kadee pressed me to stay next day and dine with him and the Mufti, but I said I had a lantern for Luxor, and I wanted to arrive before the moolid was over, and only three days remained.  So the Kadee accompanied me back to the boat, looked at my maps, which pleased him very much, traced out the line of the railway as he had heard it, and had tea.

Next morning we had the first good wind, and bowled up to Luxor in one day, arriving just after sunset.  Instantly the boat was filled.  Of course Omar and the Reis at once organized a procession to take me and my lantern to the tomb of Abu-l-Hajjaj—­it was the last night but one of his moolid.  The lantern was borne on a pole between two of my sailors, and the rest, reinforced by men from a steamer which was there with a Prussian prince, sung and thumped the tarabookeh, and we all marched up after I had undergone every variety of salutation, from Sheykh Yussuf’s embrace to the little boys’ kissing of hands.  The first thing I heard was the hearty voice of the old Shereef, who praised God that ’our darling’ was safe back again, and then we all sat down for a talk; then more Fattahs were said for me, and for you, and for the children; and I went back to bed in my own boat.  I found the guard of the French house had been taken off to Keneh to the works, after lying eight days in chains and wooden handcuffs for resisting, and claiming his rights