I saw a very interesting man at Keneh, one Faam, a Copt, who has turned Presbyterian, and has induced a hundred others at Koos to do likewise:  an American missionary is their minister.  Faam was sent off to the Soudan by the Patriarch, but brought back.  He is a splendid old fellow, and I felt I looked on the face of a Christian martyr, a curious sight in the nineteenth century:  the calm, fearless, rapt expression was like what you see in noble old Italian pictures, and he had the perfect absence of ‘doing pious’ which shows the undoubting faith.  He and the Mufti, also a noble fellow, sparred about religion in a jocose and friendly tone which would be quite unintelligible in Exeter Hall.  When he was gone the Mufti said, ’Ah! we thank them, for though they know not the truth of Islam, they are good men, and walk straight, and would die for their religion:  their example is excellent; praise be to God for them.’

June 14, 1868:  Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.  BOULAK, June 14, 1868.

Dearest Alick,

The climate has been odious for Egypt—­to shiver in cold winds of June on the Nile seems hard.  Maurice inherits my faculty for getting on with ‘d------d niggers’; all the crew kissed him on both cheeks and swore to come back again in the winter; and up the country he was hand and glove with all the fellaheen, eating a good deal of what he called ‘muck’ with great enjoyment, walking arm in arm with a crazy derweesh, fetching home a bride at night and swearing lustily by the Prophet.  The good manners of the Arab canaille, have rubbed off the very disagreeable varnish which he got at Brussels.

Dr. Patterson wants me to go to Beyrout or one of the Greek isles for a change.  I am very feeble and short of breath—­but I will try the experiment.  Would you be shocked if a nigger taught Maurice?  One Hajjee Daboos I know to be a capital Arabic scholar and he speaks French like a Parisian, and Italian also, only he is a real nigger and so is the best music-master in Cairo. Que faire? it’s not catching, as Lady Morley said, and I won’t present you with a young mulatto any more than with a young brave Belge.  I may however find someone at Beyrout.  Cairo is in such a state of beggary that all educated young men have fled.  Maurice has no sort of idea why a nigger should not be as good as anyone else, but thinks perhaps you might not approve.

You would have stared to see old Achmet Agha Abd el-Sadig, a very good friend of ours at Assouan, coaxing and patting the weled (boy) when he dined here the other day, and laughing immoderately at Maurice’s nonsense.  He is one of the M.P.’s for Assouan, and a wealthy and much respected man in the Saeed.  The Abyssinian affair is an awful disappointment to the Pasha; he had laid his calculations for something altogether different, and is furious.  The Coptic clergy are ready to murder us.  The Arabs are all in raptures.  ’God bless the English general, he has frightened our Pasha.’