less beautiful.  But the most lovely object my eyes ever saw is the island of Philae.  It gives one quite the supernatural feeling of Claude’s best landscapes, only not the least like them—­ganz anders.  The Arabs say that Ans el Wogood, the most beautiful of men, built it for his most beautiful beloved, and there they lived in perfect beauty and happiness all alone.  If the weather had not been so cold while I was there I should have lived in the temple, in a chamber sculptured with the mystery of Osiris’ burial and resurrection.  Omar cleaned it out and meant to move my things there for a few days, but it was too cold to sleep in a room without a door.  The winds have been extraordinarily cold this year, and are so still.  We have had very little of the fine warm weather, and really been pinched with cold most of the time.  On the shore away from the river would be much better for invalids.

Mustapha Aga, the consular agent at Thebes, has offered me a house of his, up among the tombs in the finest air, if ever I want it.  He was very kind and hospitable indeed to all the English there.  I went into his hareem, and liked his wife’s manners very much.  It was charming to see that she henpecked her handsome old husband completely.  They had fine children and his boy, about thirteen or so, rode and played Jereed one day when Abdallah Pasha had ordered the people of the neighbourhood to do it for General Parker.  I never saw so beautiful a performance.  The old General and I were quite excited, and he tried it to the great amusement of the Sheykh el Beled.  Some young Englishmen were rather grand about it, but declined mounting the horses and trying a throw.  The Sheykh and young Hassan and then old Mustapha wheeled round and round like beautiful hawks, and caught the palm-sticks thrown at them as they dashed round.  It was superb, and the horses were good, though the saddles and bridles were rags and ends of rope, and the men mere tatterdemalions.  A little below Thebes I stopped, and walked inland to Koos to see a noble old mosque falling to ruin.  No English had ever been there and we were surrounded by a crowd in the bazaar.  Instantly five or six tall fellows with long sticks improvised themselves our body-guard and kept the people off, who du reste were perfectly civil and only curious to see such strange ‘Hareem,’ and after seeing us well out of the town evaporated as quietly as they came without a word.  I gave about ten-pence to buy oil, as it is Ramadan and the mosque ought to be lighted, and the old servant of the mosque kindly promised me full justice at the Day of Judgment, as I was one of those Nasranee of whom the Lord Mohammed said that they are not proud and wish well to the Muslimeen.  The Pasha had confiscated all the lands belonging to the mosque, and allowed 300 piastres—­not 2 pounds a month—­for all expenses; of course the noble old building with its beautiful carving and arabesque mouldings must fall down.  There was a smaller one beside it, where he declared that anciently forty girls lived unmarried and recited the Koran—­Muslim nuns, in fact.  I intend to ask the Alim, for whom I have a letter from Mustapha, about such an anomaly.