Hitherto my right side has been the bad one, but now one side is uneasy and the other impossible to lie on.  It does not make one sleep pleasantly, and the loss of my good, sound sleep tries me, and so I don’t seem well.  We shall see what hot weather will do; if that fails I will give up the contest, and come home to see as much as I shall have time for of you and my chicks.

February 7, 1864:  Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin. Sunday, February 7, 1864

Dearest Mutter,

We have had our winter pretty sharp for three weeks, and everybody has had violent colds and coughs—­the Arabs, I mean.

I have been a good deal ailing, but have escaped any violent cold altogether, and now the thermometer is up to 64 degrees, and it feels very pleasant.  In the sun it is always very hot, but that does not prevent the air from being keen, and chapping lips and noses, and even hands; it is curious how a temperature, which would be summer in England, makes one shiver at Thebes—­Alhamdulillah! it is over now.

My poor Sheykh Yussuf is in great distress about his brother, also a young Sheykh (i.e., one learned in theology and competent to preach in the mosque).  Sheykh Mohammed is come home from studying in ‘El-Azhar’ at Cairo—­I fear to die.  I went with Sheykh Yussuf, at his desire, to see if I could help him, and found him gasping for breath and very, very ill.  I gave him a little soothing medicine, and put mustard plasters on him, and as it relieved him, I went again and repeated them.  All the family and a lot of neighbours crowded in to look on.  There he lay in a dark little den with bare mud walls, worse off, to our ideas, than any pauper; but these people do not feel the want of comforts, and one learns to think it quite natural to sit with perfect gentlemen in places inferior to our cattle-sheds.  I pulled some blankets up against the wall, and put my arm behind Sheykh Mohammed’s back to make him rest while the poultices were on him, whereupon he laid his green turban on my shoulder, and presently held up his delicate brown face for a kiss like an affectionate child.  As I kissed him, a very pious old moollah said Bismillah (In the name of God) with an approving nod, and Sheykh Mohammed’s old father, a splendid old man in a green turban, thanked me with effusion, and prayed that my children might always find help and kindness.  I suppose if I confessed to kissing a ‘dirty Arab’ in a ‘hovel’ the English travellers would execrate me; but it shows how much there is in ‘Mussulman bigotry, unconquerable hatred, etc.,’ for this family are Seyyids (descendents of the Prophet) and very pious.  Sheykh Yussuf does not even smoke, and he preaches on Fridays.  You would love these Saeedees, they are such thorough gentlemen.  I rode over to the village a few days ago to see a farmer named Omar.  Of course I had to eat, and the people were enchanted