My boat is being painted, but is nearly finished; as soon as it is done I shall move back into her.  I got out into a little cangia but it swarmed with bugs and wasps, and was too dirty, so I moved yesterday into a good boat belonging to a dragoman, and hope to be back in my own by Sunday.  But oh Lord!  I got hold of the Barber himself turned painter; and as the little cangia was moored alongside the Urania in order to hold all the mattresses, carpets, etc.  I was his victim.  First, it was a request for ‘three pounds to buy paint.’  ’None but the best of paint is fitting for a noble person like thee, and that thou knowest is costly, and I am thy servant and would do thee honour.’  ‘Very well,’ say I, ’take the money, and see, oh man, that the paint is of the best, or thy backsheesh will be bad also.’  Well, he begins and then rushes in to say:  ’Come oh Bey, oh Pasha! and behold the brilliancy of the white paint, like milk, like glass, like the full moon.’  I go and say, ’Mashallah! but now be so good as to work fast, for my son will be here in a few days, and nothing is ready.’  Fatal remark.  ’Mashallah!  Bismillah! may the Lord spare him, may God prolong thy days, let me advise thee how to keep the eye from him, for doubtless thy son is beautiful as a memlook of 1,000 purses.  Remember to spit in his face when he comes on board, and revile him aloud that all the people may hear thee, and compel him to wear torn and dirty clothes when he goes out:—­and how many children hast thou, and our master, thy master, and is he well?’ etc. etc. ’Shukr Allah! all is well with us,’ say I; ’but, by the Prophet, paint, oh Ma-alim (exactly the German Meister) and do not break my head any more.’  But I was forced to take refuge at a distance from Hajj’ Alee’s tongue.  Read the story of the Barber, and you will know exactly what Ma-alim Hajj’ Alee is.  Also just as I got out of my boat and he had begun, the painter whom I had last year and with whom I was dissatisfied, went to the Sheykh of the painters and persuaded him to put my man in prison for working too cheap—­that was at daybreak.  So I sent up my Reis to the Sheykh to inform him that if my man did not return by next day at daybreak, I would send for an European painter and force the Sheykh to pay the bill.  Of course my man came.

My steersman Hassan, and a good man, Hoseyn, who can wash and is generally nice and pleasant, arrived from el-Bastowee a few days ago, and are waiting here till I want them.  Poor little ugly black Hassan has had his house burnt down in his village, and lost all the clothes which he had bought with his wages; they were very good clothes, some of them, and a heavy loss.  He is my Reis’s brother, and a good man, clean and careful and quiet, better than my Reis even—­they are a respectable family.  Big stout Hazazin owes me 200 piastres which he is to work out, so I have still five men and a boy to