It is not to be supposed that the people of Alexandria could look upon my phials and pill-boxes without a yearning for their contents.  An Indian doctor, too, was a novelty to them; Franks they despised,-but a man who had come so far from East and West!  Then there was something infinitely seducing in the character of a magician, doctor, and fakir, each admirable of itself, thus combined to make “great medicine.”  Men, women, and children besieged my door, by which means I could see the people face to face, and especially the fair sex, of which Europeans, generally speaking, know only the worst specimens.  Even respectable natives, after witnessing a performance of “Mandal” and the Magic mirror[FN#19], opined that the stranger was a holy man, gifted

[p.13]with supernatural powers, and knowing everything.  One old person sent to offer me his daughter in marriage; he said nothing about dowry,-but I thought proper to decline the honour.  And a middle-aged lady proffered me the sum of one hundred piastres, nearly one pound sterling, if I would stay at Alexandria, and superintend the restoration of her blind left eye.

But the reader must not be led to suppose that I acted “Carabin” or “Sangrado” without any knowledge of my trade.  From youth I have always been a dabbler in medical and mystical study.  Moreover, the practice of physic is comparatively easy amongst dwellers in warm latitudes, uncivilised peoples, where there is not that complication of maladies which troubles more polished nations.  And further, what simplifies extremely the treatment of the sick in these parts is the undoubted periodicity of disease, reducing almost all to one type-ague.[FN#20] Many of the complaints of tropical climates, as medical men well know, display palpably intermittent symptoms little known to colder countries; and speaking from individual experience, I may safely assert that in all cases of suffering, from a wound to ophthalmia, this phenomenon has forced itself upon my notice.  So much by way of excuse.  I therefore considered myself as well qualified for the work as if I had taken out a buono per l’estero diploma at Padua, and not more likely to do active harm than most of the regularly graduated young surgeons who start to “finish” themselves upon the frame of the British soldier.

After a month’s hard work at Alexandria, I prepared to assume the character of a wandering Darwaysh; after

[p.14]reforming my title from “Mirza"[FN#21] to “Shaykh” Abdullah.[FN#22] A reverend man, whose name I do not care to quote, some time ago initiated me into his order, the Kadiriyah, under the high-sounding name of Bismillah-Shah:[FN#23] and, after a due period of probation, he graciously elevated me to the proud position of a Murshid,[FN#24] or Master in the mystic craft.  I was therefore sufficiently well acquainted with the tenets and practices of these Oriental Freemasons.  No character in the Moslem world is so proper for disguise as that of the Darwaysh.