[p.17]fell victim to a new “jubbah,” which I had given in exchange for his tattered za’abut[FN#2] offered me, in consideration of a certain monthly stipend, the affections of a brother and religious refreshment, proposing to send his wife back to her papa, and to accompany me, in the capacity of private chaplain to the other side of Kaf. [FN#3] I politely accepted the “Bruderschaft,” but many reasons induced me to decline his society and services.  In the first place, he spoke the detestable Egyptian jargon.  Secondly, it was but prudent to lose the “spoor” between Alexandria and Suez.  And, thirdly, my “brother” had shifting eyes (symptoms of fickleness), close together (indices of cunning); a flat-crowned head, and large ill-fitting lips; signs which led me to think lightly of his honesty, firmness, and courage.  Phrenology and physiognomy, be it observed, disappoint you often amongst civilised people, the proper action of whose brain upon the features is impeded by the external pressure of education, accident, example, habit, and necessity.  But they are tolerably safe guides when groping your way through the mind of man in his so-called natural state, a being of impulse, in that chrysalis condition of mental development which is rather instinct than reason.

Before my departure, however, there was much to be done.

The land of the Pharaohs is becoming civilised, and unpleasantly so:  nothing can be more uncomfortable than its present middle state, between barbarism and the reverse.  The prohibition against carrying arms is rigid as in Italy; all “violence” is violently denounced; and beheading

[p.18]being deemed cruel, the most atrocious crimes, as well as those small political offences, which in the days of the Mamluks would have led to a beyship or a bow-string, receive fourfold punishment by deportation to Fayzoghlu, the local Cayenne.  If you order your peasant to be flogged, his friends gather in threatening hundreds at your gates; when you curse your boatman, he complains to your consul; the dragomans afflict you with strange wild notions about honesty; a Government order prevents you from using vituperative language to the “natives” in general; and the very donkey boys are becoming cognisant of the right of man to remain unbastinadoed.  Still the old leaven remains behind:  here, as elsewhere in the “Morning-land,” you cannot hold your own without employing the voie de fait.  The passport system, now dying out of Europe, has sprung up, or rather has revived, in Egypt, with peculiar vigour.[FN#4] Its good effects claim for it our respect; still we cannot but lament its inconvenience.  By we, I mean real Easterns.  As strangers-even those whose beards have whitened in the land-know absolutely nothing of what unfortunate natives must endure, I am tempted to subjoin a short

[p.19]sketch of my adventures in search of a Tazkirah, or passport, at Alexandria.