My carpenter’s boy was the son of a moonsheed (singer in the Mosque), and at night he used to sit and warble to us, with his little baby-voice, and little round, innocent face, the most violent love-songs.  He was about eight years old, and sang with wonderful finish and precision, but no expression, until I asked him for a sacred song, which begins, ’I cannot sleep for longing for thee, O Full Moon’ (the Prophet), and then the little chap warmed to his work, and the feeling came out.

Palgrave has left in my charge a little black boy of his, now at Luxor, where he left him very ill, with Mustapha A’gha.  The child told me he was a nyan-nyan (cannibal), but he did not look ogreish.  I have written to Mustapha to send him me by the first opportunity.  Achmet has quite recovered his temper, and I do so much better without a maid that I shall remain so.  The difference in expense is enormous, and the peace and quiet a still greater gain; no more grumbling and ‘exigencies’ and worry; Omar irons very fairly, and the sailor washes well enough, and I don’t want toilette—­anyhow, I would rather wear a sack than try the experiment again.  An uneducated, coarse-minded European is too disturbing an element in the family life of Easterns; the sort of filial relation, at once familiar and reverential of servants to a master they like, is odious to English and still more to French servants.  If I fall in with an Arab or Abyssinian woman to suit me I will take her; but of course it is rare; a raw slave can do nothing, nor can a fellaha, and a Cairo woman is bored to death up in the Saeed.  As to care and attention, I want for nothing.  Omar does everything well and with pride and pleasure, and is delighted at the saving of expense in wine, beer, meat, etc. etc.  One feeds six or eight Arabs well with the money for one European.

While the carpenter, his boy, and two meneggets were here, a very moderate dish of vegetables, stewed with a pound of meat, was put before me, followed by a chicken or a pigeon for me alone.  The stew was then set on the ground to all the men, and two loaves of a piastre each, to every one, a jar of water, and, Alhamdulillah, four men and two boys had dined handsomely.  At breakfast a water-melon and another loaf-a-piece, and a cup of coffee all round; and I pass for a true Arab in hospitality.  Of course no European can live so, and they despise the Arabs for doing it, while the Arab servant is not flattered at seeing the European get all sorts of costly luxuries which he thinks unnecessary; besides he has to stand on the defensive, in order not to be made a drudge by his European fellow-servant, and despised for being one; and so he leaves undone all sorts of things which he does with alacrity when it is for ‘the master’ only.  What Omar does now seems wonderful, but he says he feels like the Sultan now he has only me to please.