To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon. March 7, 1867.

Dearest Alick,

I have written a long yarn to Mutter and am rather tired, so I only write to say I am much better.  The heat has set in, and, of course with it my health has mended, but I am a little shaky and afraid to tire myself.  Moreover I want to nurse up and be stronger by next Thursday when Janet and Ross are expected.

What a queer old fish your Dublin antiquary is, who wants to whitewash Miss Rhampsinitus, and to identify her with the beloved of Solomon (or Saleem); my brain spun round as I read it.  Must I answer him, or will you?  A dragoman gave me an old broken travelling arm-chair, and Yussuf sat in an arm-chair for the first time in his life.  ’May the soul of the man who made it find a seat in Paradise,’ was his exclamation, which strikes me as singularly appropriate on sitting in a very comfortable armchair.  Yussuf was thankful for small mercies in this case.

I am afraid Janet may be bored by all the people’s civility; they will insist on making great dinners and fantasias for her I am sure.  I hope they will go on to Assouan and take me with them; the change will do me good, and I should like to see as much of her as I can before she leaves Egypt for good.

The state of business here is curious.  The last regulations have stopped all money lending, and the prisons are full of Sheykh el-Beled whose villages can’t pay the taxes.  Most respectable men have offered me to go partners with them now in their wheat, which will be cut in six weeks, if only I would pay their present taxes, I to take half the crop and half the taxes, with interest out of their half—­some such trifle as 30 per cent, per month.  Our prison is full of men, and we send them their dinner a tour de role.  The other day a woman went with a big wooden bowl on her head, full of what she had cooked for them, accompanied by her husband.  One Khaleel Effendi, a new vakeel here, was there, and said, ‘What dost thou ask here thou harlot?’ Her husband answered, ’That is no harlot, oh Effendim, but my wife.’  Whereupon he was beaten till he fainted, and then there was a lamentation; they carried him down past my house, with a crowd of women all shrieking like mad creatures, especially his wife, who yelled and beat her head and threw dust over it, more majorum, as you see in the tombs.  The humours of tax-gathering in this country are quite impayable you perceive—­and ought to be set forth on the escutcheon of the new Knight of the Bath whom the Queen hath delighted to honour.  Cawass battant, Fellah rampant, and Fellaha pleurant would be the proper blazon.  Distress in England is terrible, but, at least, it is not the result of extortion, as it is here, where everything from nature is so abundant and glorious, and yet mankind so miserable.  It is not a little hunger, it is the cruel oppression which maddens the people now.  They never complained before, but now whole villages are deserted.  The boat goes to-morrow morning so I must say goodbye.