July 8, 1867:  Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.  CAIRO, July 8, 1867.

Dearest Alick,

I arrived to-day, after thirty-eight days’ voyage, one month of ceaseless furious wind.  My poor men had a hard pull down against it.  However I am feeling better than when I left Luxor.

Omar has just brought a whole cargo of your letters, the last of the 26 June.  Let me know your plans.  If you can go up the river I might send the boat beforehand to Minieh, so far there is a railway now, which would break the neck of the tedious part of the voyage for you if you are pressed for time.  I must send this off at once to catch early post to-morrow.  Excuse haste, I write in all the bustle of arrival.

July 28, 1867:  Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.  BOULAK, July 28, 1867.

Dearest Mutter,

I know I can write nothing more sure to please you than that I am a good deal better.  It has been intensely hot, and the wind very worrying, but my cough has greatly abated and I do not feel so weak as I did.  I am anchored here in the river at my old quarters, and have not yet been ashore owing to the hot wind and the dust, which of course are far less troublesome here on the river.  I have seen but very few people and have but one neighbour, in a boat anchored near mine, a very bewitching Circassian, the former slave of a rich Pasha, now married to a respectable dragoman, and staying in his boat for a week or two.  She is young and pretty, and very amiable, and we visit each other often and get on very well indeed.  She is a very religious little lady, and was much relieved when I assured her it was not part of my daily devotions to curse the Prophet, and revile the noble Koran.

I am extremely glad that the English have given a hearty welcome to the Ameer el-Moornemeen (Commander of the Faithful); it will have an excellent effect in all Mussulman countries.  A queer little Indian from Delhi who had been converted to Islam, and spent four years at Mecca acting as dragoman to his own countrymen, is now settled at Karnac.  I sent for him, and he carne shaking in his shoes.  I asked why he was afraid?  ’Oh, perhaps I was angry about something, and he was my rayah, and I might have him beaten.’  I cried out at him, ’Ask pardon of God, O man.  How could I beat thee any more than thou couldst beat me?  Have we not laws? and art thou not my brother, and the rayah of our Queen, as I am and no more?’ ‘Mashallah!’ exclaimed the six or eight fellaheen who were waiting for physic, in prodigious admiration and wonder; ’and did we not tell thee that the face of the Sitt brings good fortune and not calamity and stick?’ I found the little Indian had been a hospital servant in Calcutta, and was practising a little physic on his own account.  So I gave him a few drugs especially for bad eyes, which he knew a good deal about, and we became very good friends; he was miserable when I left and would have liked me to have taken him as a volunteer servant.