as a French protege.  So we waited for his return, and for the keys which he had taken with him, in hopes that the Keneh authorities would not care to keep me out of the house.  I wrote to the French Consular agent at Keneh, and to the Consul at Alexandria, and got him back the third day.  What would you think in Europe to see me welcome with enthusiasm a servant just out of chains and handcuffs?  At the very moment, too, that Mohammed and I were talking, a boat passed up the river with musick and singing on board.  It was a Sheykh-el-Beled, of a place above Esneb, who had lain in prison three years in Cairo, and whose friends were making all the fantasia they could to celebrate the end of his misfortune, of disgrace, il n’en est pas question; and why should it?  So many honest men go to prison that it is no presumption at all against a man.

The day after my arrival was the great and last day.  The crowd was but little and not lively—­times are too hard.  But the riding was beautiful.  Two young men from Hegaz performed wonderful feats.

I dined with the Maohn, whose wife cooked me the best dinner I ever ate in this country, or almost anywhere.  Marie, who was invited, rejoiced the kind old lady’s heart by her Belgian appreciation of the excellent cookery.  ‘Eat, my daughter, eat,’ and even I managed to give satisfaction.  Such Bakloweh I never tasted.  We removed to the house yesterday, and I have had company ever since.

One Sheykh Alee—­a very agreeable man from beyond Khartoom, offers to take me up to Khartoom and back with a Takhterawan (camel litter) in company with Mustapha A’gha, Sheykh Yussuf and a troop of his own Abab’deh.  It is a terrible temptation—­but it would cost 50 pounds—­so I refused.  Sheykh Alee is so clever and well-bred that I should enjoy it much, and the climate at this season is delightful.  He has been in the Denka country where the men are a cubit taller than Sheykh Hassan whom you know, and who enquires tenderly after you.

Now let me describe the state of things.  From the Moudeeriat of Keneh only, 25,000 men are taken to work for sixty days without food or pay; each man must take his own basket, and each third man a hoe, not a basket.  If you want to pay a substitute for a beloved or delicate son, it costs 1,000 piastres—­600 at the lowest; and about 300 to 400 for his food.  From Luxor only, 220 men are gone; of whom a third will very likely die of exposure to the cold and misery (the weather is unusually cold).  That is to say that this little village, of at most 2,000 souls male and female (we don’t usually count women, from decorum), will pay in labour at least 1,320 pounds in sixty days.  We have also already had eleven camels seized to go up to the Soudan; a camel is worth from 18 to 40 pounds.