which I had given her, and her description of it was most dramatic, ending with a wheedling glance at the cupboard and ’of course there are no more dolls there; oh no, no more.’  She is a fine little creature, far more Arab than fellaha; quite a Shaitan, her father says.  She came in full of making cakes for Bairam, and offered her services; ’Oh my aunt, if thou wantest anything I can work,’ said she, tucking up her sleeves.

March 6, 1867:  Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.  LUXOR, March 6, 1867.

Dearest Mutter,

The warm weather has set in, and I am already as much the better for it as usual.  I had a slight attack, not nearly so bad as that at Soden, but it lingered and I kept my bed as a measure of precaution.  Dear Yussuf was with me the evening I was attacked, and sat up all night to give me my medicine every hour.  At the prayer of dawn, an hour and a half before sunrise, I heard his supplications for my life and health, and for you and all my family; and I thought of what I had lately read, how the Greeks massacred their own patriots because the Turks had shown them mercy—­a display of temper which I hope will enlighten Western Christendom as to what the Muslims have to expect, if they (the Western Christians) help the Eastern Christians to get the upper hand.  Yussuf was asking about a lady the other day who has turned Catholic.  ’Poor thing,’ said he, ’the priests have drawn out her brains through her ears, no doubt:  but never fear, her heart is good and her charity is great, and God will not deal hardly with those who serve Him with their hearts, though it is sad she should bow down before images.  But look at thy slave Mabrook, can he understand one hundredth part of the thoughts of thy mind?  Never-the-less he loves thee, and obeys thee with pleasure and alacrity; and wilt thou punish him because he knows not all thy ways?  And shall God, who is so much higher above us as thou art above thy slave, be less just than thou?’ I pinned him at once, and insisted on knowing the orthodox belief; but he quoted the Koran and the decisions of the Ulema to show that he stretched no point as far as Jews and Christians are concerned, and even that idolaters are not to be condemned by man.  Yussuf wants me to write a short account of the faith from his dictation.  Would anyone publish it?  It annoys him terribly to hear the Muslims constantly accused of intolerance, and he is right—­it is not true.  They show their conviction that their faith is the best in the world with the same sort of naivete that I have seen in very innocent and ignorant English women; in fact, display a sort of religious conceit; but it is not often bitter or haineux, however much they are in earnest.