the carpet to his left, at a distance from him, and told me to sit there.  I looked round to see whether any of my neighbours were present, and I saw the consternation in their faces so, not wishing to annoy them, I did as if I did not perceive the affront, and sat down and talked for half an hour to the priests, and then took leave.  I was informed that the Catholics were naas mesakeen (poor inoffensive people), and that the Muslims at least were of an old religion, but that the Protestants ate meat all the year round, ‘like dogs’—­’or Muslims,’ put in Omar, who stood behind my chair and did not relish the mention of dogs and the ‘English religion’ in one sentence.  As I went the Patriarch called for dinner, it seems he had told Mikaeel he would not eat with me.  It is evidently ‘a judgment’ of a most signal nature that I should be snubbed for the offences of missionaries, but it has caused some ill blood; the Kadee and Sheykh Yussuf and the rest, who all intended to do the civil to the Patriarch, now won’t go near him on account of his rudeness to me.  He has come up in a steamer, at the Pasha’s expense, with a guard of cawasses, and, of course, is loud in praise of the Government, though he failed in getting the Moudir to send all the Protestants of Koos to the public works, or the army.

From what he said before me about the Abyssinians, and still more, from what he said to others about the English prisoners up there, I am convinced that the place to put the screw on is the Batrarchane (Patriarch’s palace) at Cairo, and that the priests are at the bottom of that affair. {350} He boasted immensely of the obedience and piety of El Habbesh (the Abyssinians).

Saturday.—­Yesterday I heard a little whispered grumbling about the money demanded by the ‘Father.’  One of my Copt neighbours was forced to sell me his whole provision of cooking butter to pay his quota.  This a little damps the exultation caused by seeing him so honoured by the Effendina.  One man who had heard that he had called the American missionaries ‘beggars,’ grumbled to me, ’Ah yes, beggars, beggars, they didn’t beg of me for money.’  I really do think that there must be something in this dread of the Protestant movement.  Evidently the Pasha is backing up the Patriarch who keeps his church well apart from all other Christians, and well under the thumb of the Turks.  It was pretty to hear the priests talk so politely of Islam, and curse the Protestants so bitterly.  We were very nearly having a row about a woman, who formerly turned Moslimeh to get rid of an old blind Copt husband who had been forced upon her, and was permitted to recant, I suppose in order to get rid of the Muslim husband in his turn.  However he said, ’I don’t care, she is the mother of my two children, and whether she is Muslim or Christian she is my wife, and I won’t divorce her, but I’ll send her to church as much as she likes.’  Thereupon the priests of course dropped the wrangle, much to the relief of Sheykh Yussuf, in whose house she had taken up her quarters after leaving the church, and who was afraid of being drawn into a dispute.