wedding, you would think I was relating the mysteries of Isis.  At one house I saw the bride’s father looking pale and anxious, and Omar said, ’I think he wants to hold his stomach with both hands till the women tell him if his daughter makes his face white.’  It was such a good phrase for the sinking at heart of anxiety.  It certainly seems more reasonable that a woman’s misconduct should blacken her father’s face than her husband’s.  There are a good many things about hareem here which I am barbarian enough to think extremely good and rational.  An old Turk of Cairo, who had been in Europe, was talking to an Englishman a short time ago, who politely chaffed him about Mussulman license.  The venerable Muslim replied, ’Pray, how many women have you, who are quite young, seen (that is the Eastern phrase) in your whole life?’ The Englishman could not count—­of course not.  ’Well, young man, I am old, and was married at twelve, and I have seen in all my life seven women; four are dead, and three are happy and comfortable in my house. Where are all yours?’ Hassaneyn Effendi heard the conversation, which passed in French, and was amused at the question.

I find that the criminal convicted of calumny accused, together with twenty-nine others not in custody, the Sheykh-el-Beled of his place of murdering his servant, and produced a basket full of bones as proof, but the Sheykh-el-Beled produced the living man, and his detractor gets hard labour for life.  The proceeding is characteristic of the childish ruses of this country.  I inquired whether the thief who was dragged in chains through the streets would be able to find work, and was told, ’Oh, certainly; is he not a poor man?  For the sake of God everyone will be ready to help him.’  An absolute uncertainty of justice naturally leads to this result.  Our captain was quite shocked to hear that in my country we did not like to employ a returned convict.

LUXOR,
January 13, 1864.

We spent all the afternoon of Saturday at Keneh, where I dined with the English Consul, a worthy old Arab, who also invited our captain, and we all sat round his copper tray on the floor and ate with our fingers, the captain, who sat next me, picking out the best bits and feeding me and Sally with them.  After dinner the French Consul, a Copt, one Jesus Buktor, sent to invite me to a fantasia at his house, where I found the Mouniers, the Moudir, and some other Turks, and a disagreeable Italian, who stared at me as if I had been young and pretty, and put Omar into a great fury.  I was glad to see the dancing-girls, but I liked old Seyyid Achmet’s patriarchal ways much better than the tone of the Frenchified Copt.  At first I thought the dancing queer and dull.  One girl was very handsome, but cold and uninteresting; one who sang was also very pretty and engaging, and a dear little thing.  But the dancing was contortions, more or less graceful, very wonderful as gymnastic