I passed the house of the Sheykh-el-Ababdeh, who called out to me to take coffee.  The moon was splendid and the scene was lovely.  The handsome black-brown Sheykh in dark robes and white turban, Omar in a graceful white gown and red turban, and the wild Ababdeh in all manner of dingy white rags, and with every kind of uncouth weapon, spears, matchlocks, etc., in every kind of wild and graceful attitude, with their long black ringlets and bare heads, a few little black-brown children quite naked and shaped like Cupids.  And there we sat and looked so romantic and talked quite like ladies and gentlemen about the merits of Sakna and Almas, the two great rival women-singers of Cairo.  I think the Sheykh wished to display his experiences of fashionable life.

The Copts are now fasting and cross.  They fast fifty-five days for Lent; no meat, fish, eggs, or milk, no exception for Sundays, no food till after twelve at noon, and no intercourse with the hareem.  The only comfort is lots of arrak, and what a Copt can carry decently is an unknown quantity; one seldom sees them drunk, but they imbibe awful quantities.  They offer me wine and arrak always, and can’t think why I don’t drink it.  I believe they suspect my Christianity in consequence of my preference for Nile water.  As to that, though, they scorn all heretics, i.e., all Christians but themselves and the Abyssinians, more than they do the Muslims, and dislike them more; the procession of the Holy Ghost question divides us with the Gulf of Jehannum.  The gardener of this house is a Copt, such a nice fellow, and he and Omar chaff one another about religion with the utmost good humour; indeed they are seldom touchy with the Moslems.  There is a pretty little man called Michail, a Copt, vakeel to M. Mounier.  I wish I could draw him to show a perfect specimen of the ancient Egyptian race; his blood must be quite unmixed.  He came here yesterday to speak to Ali Bey, the Moudir of Keneh, who was visiting me (a splendid handsome Turk he is); so little Michail crept in to mention his business under my protection, and a few more followed, till Ali Bey got tired of holding a durbar in my divan and went away to his boat.  You see the people think the courbash is not quite so handy with an English spectator.  The other day Mustapha A’gha got Ali Bey to do a little job for him—­to let the people in the Gezeereh (the island), which is Mustapha’s property, work at a canal there instead of at the canal higher up for the Pasha.  Very well, but down comes the Nazir (the Moudir’s sub.), and courbashes the whole Gezeereh, not Mustapha, of course, but the poor fellaheen who were doing his corvee instead of the Pasha’s by the Moudir’s order.  I went to the Gezeereh and thought that Moses was at work again and had killed a firstborn in every house by the crying and wailing, when up came two fellows and showed me their bloody feet, which their wives were crying over like for a death, Shorghl el Mizr—­things of Egypt—­like Cosas de Espana.