’Fair as two moons is the face of my sweetheart,
   And as to her neck and her bosom—­Mashallah. 
   And unless to my love I am soon reunited
   Death is my portion—­I swear it by Allah.’

Thus sings Ali Asleemee, the most debraille of my crew, a hashshash, {48} but a singer and a good fellow.  The translation is not free, though the sentiments are.  I merely rhymed Omar’s literal word-for-word interpretation.  The songs are all in a similar strain, except one funny one abusing the ‘Sheykh el-Beled, may the fleas bite him.’  Horrid imprecation! as I know to my cost, for after visiting the Coptic monks at Girgeh I came home to the boat with myriads.  Sally said she felt like Rameses the Great, so tremendous was the slaughter of the active enemy.

I had written the first page just as I got to Siout and was stopped by bad news of Janet; but now all is right again, and I am to meet her in Cairo, and she proposes a jaunt to Suez and to Damietta.  I have got a superb illumination to-night, improvised by Omar in honour of the Prince of Wales’s marriage, and consequently am writing with flaring candles, my lantern being on duty at the masthead, and the men are singing an epithalamium and beating the tarabookeh as loud as they can.

You will have seen my letter to my mother, and heard how much better I am for the glorious air of Nubia and the high up-country.  Already we are returning into misty weather.  I dined and spent the day with Wassef and his Hareem, such an amiable, kindly household.  I was charmed with their manner to each other, to the slaves and family.  The slaves (all Muslims) told Omar what an excellent master they had.  He had meant to make a dance-fantasia, but as I had not good news it was countermanded.  Poor Wassef ate his boiled beans rather ruefully, while his wife and I had an excellent dinner, she being excused fasting on account of a coming baby.  The Copt fast is no joke, neither butter, milk, eggs nor fish being allowed for fifty-five days.  They made Sally dine with us, and Omar was admitted to wait and interpret.  Wassef’s younger brother waited on him as in the Bible, and his clerk, a nice young fellow, assisted.  Black slaves brought the dishes in, and capital the food was.  There was plenty of joking between the lady and Omar about Ramadan, which he had broken, and the Nasranee fast, and also about the number of wives allowed, the young clerk intimating that he rather liked that point in Islam.  I have promised to spend ten or twelve days at their house if ever I go up the Nile again.  I have also promised to send Wassef all particulars as to the expense, etc. of educating his boy in England, and to look after him and have him to our house in the holidays.  I can’t describe how anxiously kind these people were to me.  One gets such a wonderful amount of sympathy and real hearty kindness here.  A curious instance of the affinity of the British mind for prejudice is the way