July 15_th_.—­Last night came the two meneggets to pay a friendly visit, and sat and told stories; so I ordered coffee, and one took his sugar out of his pocket to put in his cup, which made me laugh inwardly.  He told a fisherman, who stopped his boat alongside for a little conversation, the story of two fishermen, the one a Jew, the other a Muslim, who were partners in the time of the Arab Prophet (upon whom be blessing and peace!).  The Jew, when he flung his nets called on the Prophet of the Jews, and hauled it up full of fish every time; then the Muslim called on our Master Mohammed etc., etc., and hauled up each time only stones, until the Jew said, ’Depart, O man, thou bringest us misfortune; shall I continue to take half thy stones, and give thee half my fish?  Not so.’  So the Muslim went to our Master Mohammed and said, ’Behold, I mention thy name when I cast my net, and I catch only stones and calamity.  How is this?’ But the blessed Prophet said to him, ’Because thy stomach is black inwardly, and thou thoughtest to sell thy fish at an unfair price, and to defraud thy partner and the people, while the Jew’s heart was clean towards thee and the people, and therefore God listened to him rather than to thee.’  I hope our fisherman was edified by this fine moral.  I also had good stories from the chief diver of Cairo, who came to examine the bottom of my boat, and told me, in a whisper, a long tale of his grandfather’s descent below the waters of the Nile, into the land of the people who lived there, and keep tame crocodiles to hunt fish for them.  They gave him a sleeve-full of fishes’ scales, and told him never to return, and not to tell about them:  and when he got home the scales had turned to money.  But most wonderful of all was Haggi Hannah’s story of her own life, and the journey of Omar’s mother carrying her old mother in a basket on her head from Damietta to Alexandria, and dragging Omar then a very little boy, by the hand.  The energy of many women here is amazing.

The Nile is rising fast, and the Bisheer is come (the messenger who precedes the Hajj, and brings letters). Bisheer is ‘good tidings,’ to coin a word.  Many hearts are lightened and many half-broken to-day.  I shall go up to the Abassia to meet the Mahmal and see the Hajjees arrive.

Next Friday I must take my boat out of the water, or at least heel her over, to repair the bad places made at Alexandria.  It seems I once cured a Reis of the Pasha’s of dysentery at Minieh, and he has not forgotten it, though I had; so Reis Awad will give me a good place on the Pasha’s bank, and lend ropes and levers which will save a deal of expense and trouble.  I shall move out all the things and myself into a boat of Zubeydeh’s for four or five days, and stay alongside to superintend my caulkers.