moon was in some favourable aspect. He praised to me his friend, a learned Jew of Cairo. I could have fancied myself listening to Abu Suleyman of Cordova, in the days when we were barbarians and the Arabs were the learned race. There is something very winning in the gentle dignified manners of all the men of learning I have seen here, and their homely dress and habits make it still more striking. I longed to photograph my sheykh as he sat on my divan pulling manuscripts out of his bosom to read to me the words of "El Hakeem Lokman," or to overwhelm me with the authority of some physician whose very name I had never heard.

The hand of the Government is awfully heavy upon us. All this week the people have been working night and day cutting their unripe corn, because 310 men are to go to-1 -morrow to work on the railway below Sioot. This green corn is of course valueless to sell and unwholesome to eat. So the magnificent harvest of this year is turned to bitterness at the last moment. From a neighbouring village all the men are gone, and some more are wanted to make up the corvée The population of Luxor is 1,000 males of all ages, so you can guess how many strong men are left after 310 are taken.

The poor Copts are working away today at their 450 "rekahs" (prostrations) which take place on Good Friday: how tired and faint they will be to start to-morrow for the works, after fifty-five days' hard fasting, too!

The new black boy who is coming to me is, I am told, a Coptic Christian, which is odd, as he is from Darfoor, which is a Mahommedan country. Mabrook suits me better and better; he has a very good, kind disposition; I have grown very fond of him. I am sure you will be pleased with his pleasant, honest face. I don't like to think too much about seeing you and M- next winter for fear I should be disappointed. If I am too sick and wretched I can hardly wish you to

come, because I know what a nuisance it is to be with one always coughing and panting, and unable to do like other people. But if I pick up tolerably this summer, I shall be very glad to see you and him once more.

This house is falling sadly into decay, which produces snakes and scorpions. I sent for the "Hawee" or charmer, who caught a snake, but who can't conjure the scorpions out of their holes. One of my fat turkeys has just fallen a victim, and I am in constant fear for my little dog, Bob, only he is always in Omar's arms. I think I described to you the festival of Sheykh Gibrieel: the dinner, and the poets who improvised; this year I had a fine piece of declamation in my honour. A real calamity is the loss of our good Maohn. The Mudir hailed him from his steamer to go to Keneh directly, with no further notice. We hoped some good luck for him, and so it would have been to a Turk. He is made "Nazer

el Gisr" over the poor people at the railroad works. He only gets 21. 58. per month additional, and has to keep a horse and a donkey, and to buy them, and keep a sais, and he does not know how to squeeze the fellaheen. It is true, "however close you skin an onion, a clever man can always peel it again ;" which means that even the poorest devils at the works can be beaten into giving a little more; but our dear Maohn, God bless him, will be ruined and made miserable by his promotion. I had a very woeful letter from him yesterday.

THEBES, 15th May.

All the Christendom of Upper Egypt is in a state of excitement owing to the arrival of the Patriarch of Cairo, who is now in Luxor. My neighbour Mikaeel entertains him, and Omar has been busily decorating his house, and. arranging the illumination of his garden; and to-day is gone to cook the confectionery, he being looked on as the person best acquainted with the customs of the great. Last night the Patriarch sent for me, and I went to

kiss his hand, but I won't go again. It was a very droll caricature of the thunder of the Vatican. Poor Mikaeel had planned that I was to dine with the Patriarch, and had borrowed my silver spoons, &c. &c. &c. in that belief. But the representative of St. Mark is furious against the American missionaries, who have converted some twenty Copts at Koos, and he could not bring himself to be decently civil to a Protestant. I found a coarse-looking man seated on a raised divan, smoking his chibouk: on his right were some priests on a low divan. I went up and kissed his hand, was about to sit by the priests, but he roughly ordered a cavass to put a wooden chair off the carpet to his left, at a distance from him, and told me to sit there. I looked round to see whether any of my neighbours were present, and I saw consternation in their faces; so, not wishing to annoy them, I did as if I did not perceive the affront, and sat down and talked for half an hour to the priests, and then took leave. Mikaeel's servant brought a pipe, but the Patriarch bawled at him to take it away, and then poor Mikaeel asked his leave to give me a cup of coffee, which was granted. I was informed that "the Catholics were Maas messakeen (inoffensive people), and that the Muslims at least were of an old religion, but that the Protestants ate meat all the year round, like dogs," 166 or Muslims," put in Omar, who stood behind my chair, and did not relish the mention of dogs and of the "English religion in one sentence. As I went, the Patriarch called for dinner; it seems he had told Mikaeel he would not eat with me. It is evidently "a judgment" of a most signal nature that I should be snubbed for the offences of missionaries, but it has caused some ill-blood, the Cadee and Sheykh Yussuf, and the rest, who all intended to do the civil to the Patriarch, now won't go near him, on account of his rudeness to me. He has come up in a steamer at the Pasha's expense, with a guard of cavasses, and of course is loud in praise of the government, though he failed in getting the Mudir

to send all the Protestants of Koos to the public works or the army.1

Yesterday I heard a little whispered murmuring about the money demanded by the "Father" one of my Copt neighbours was forced to sell me his whole provision of cooking-butter to pay his quota. This a little damps the exultation caused by seeing him so honoured by the Pasha. Keneh gave

him 200 purses (6007.). I do not know what Luxor has given yet, but it falls heavy on the top of all the other taxes. One man, who had heard that he called the American missionaries "beggars," grumbled to me-" Ah, yes, beggars, beggars; they did not ask me for any money." "I really do think that there must be something, in this dread of the Protestant movement. Evidently the Pasha is backing up the Patriarch, who keeps his Church well apart from all other Christians, and well under the thumb of the Turks. It was pretty to hear the priests talk so politely of Islam, and curse the Protestants so bitterly. We were very near having a row about a woman who formerly turned Muslimeh to get rid of an old blind Copt husband, who had been forced upon her, and was permitted to recant, I suppose, in order to get rid of the Muslim husband in his turn. However, he said, "I don't care, she is the mother of my two children; and whether she is Muslim or Christian, she is my wife, and I won't divorce her, but I'll send her to church as much as she likes." Therefore the priests, of course, dropped the wrangle, much to the relief of Yussuf, in whose house she had taken up her quarters after leaving the church, and who was afraid of being drawn into a dispute. My new little Darfoor boy is very

1 Since the above was written three Protestant converts were seized at Koos by the directions of the Patriarch, and sent up the river to the White Nile. It is believed that instructions had been given to throw them overboard as soon as they were at a safe distance. Through the vigorous interposition, however, of the English and American consulsgeneral, the Government was compelled to send after them, and they have been restored to their homes.-EDITOR

66

funny, and very intelligent. I hope he will turn out well; he seems well disposed, though rather lazy. Mabrook quarrelled with a boy belonging to the quarter close to us about a bird, and both boys ran away. The Arab boy is missing still, I suppose, but Mabrook was brought back by force, swelling with passion, and with his clothes most Scripturally "rent." He had regularly run a-muck." Sheykh Yussuf lectured him on his insolence to the people of the quarter, and I wound up by saying, "Oh, my son, whither then dost thou wish to go? I cannot let thee wander about like a beggar, with torn clothes and no money, that the police may take thee, and put thee in the army, but say where thou desirest to go, and we will talk about it with discretion." It at once broke in upon him that he did not want to go anywhere, and he said, "I repent that I am but an ox; bring the courbash, beat me, and let me go to finish cooking the Sitt's dinner." I remitted the beating, with a threat that if he bullied the neighbours again he would get it from the police, and not from Omar's very inefficient arm. In half an hour he was as merry as ever. It was a curious display of negro temper, and all about nothing at all. As he stood before me he looked quite grandly tragic, and swore he only wanted to run outside and die, that was all!

I must get you to send me stuff to clothe my boys-not yet, but towards the winter; stout, unbleached calico, a horsecloth for them a-piece, a piece or two of strong print, and some coarse red flannel, or serge. Little Darfoor, of course, is very chilly, and requires flannel shirts. I have cut up some old clothes to make them.

We have had a curiously cool season, but the winds have been infernal; the heat only began yesterday. I have been very ailing indeed, never ill enough to be laid up, and never well enough to get out. I hope soon to feel better. I have never been in any danger all the winter, but I have never been at all well, chiefly a feeling of horrid weakness and fatigue.. I have never been

well enough to get on the horse, which is provoking, but can't be helped.

I wish you could have heard (and understood) my soirées, au clair de la lune, with Sheykh Abdurrachman and Sheykh Yussuf. How Abdurrachman and I wrangled, and how Yussuf laughed and egged us on! Abdurrachman was wroth at my want of faith in physic generally, as well as his in particular, and said I talked like an infidel; for had not God said, "I have made a medicine for every disease." I said, "Yes, but He does not say that He has told His doctors which it is, and, meanwhile, I say, 'Hekmet Allah' (God will care), which can't be called an infidel sentiment." Then we got into alchemy, astrology, magic, and the rest; and Yussuf vexed his friend by telling, gravely, stories palpably absurd. Abdurrachan intimated that he was laughing at "El Elm el Muslimeen" (the science of the Muslims); but Yussuf said, "What is the Elm el Muslimeen?' God has revealed religion through His Prophets, and we can learn nothing new on that point; but all other learning He has left to the intelligence of men, and the Prophet Mohammed said,

All learning is from God, even the learning of idolaters.' Why then should we Muslims shut out the light, and want to remain ever like children? The learning of the Franks is as lawful as any other." Abdurrachman was too sensible a man to be able to dispute this, but it vexed him.

I am tired of telling all the Plackereien of our poor people-how 310 men were dragged off on Easter Monday with their bread and tools; how in four days they were all sent back from Keneh because there were no orders about them, and made to pay their boat hire. Then in five days they were all sent for again. Meanwhile the harvest was cut green, and the wheat is lying out unthreshed to be devoured by birds and rats, and the men's bread was wasted and spoiled with the hauling in and out of the boats. I am obliged to send camels twenty miles for charcoal, because the Ababdeh won't bring it to market any more, the

tax is too heavy. Butter, too, we have to buy secretly, none comes into the market. When I remember the lovely, smiling landscape which I first beheld from my windows, swarming with beasts and men, and look at the dreary waste now, I feel the "foot of the Turk" heavy indeed. Where there were fifty donkeys there is but one: camels, horses, all are gone, not only the horned cattle -even the dogs are more than decimated, and the hawks and vultures seem to me fewer. Mankind has no food to spare to hangers-on the donkeys are sold, the camels confiscated, and the dogs are dead (the one sole advantage). Meat is cheap, as every one must sell to pay taxes, and no one has money to buy. I am implored to take sheep and poultry for what I will give. Excuse my being idle, I am still so shaky, although really better.

LUXOR, 17th May.

The little Darfoor boy has been brought to me: he is very intelligent: I hope he will do well. He has quite lost his air of solemnity, and seems very happy, and inclined to be affectionate, I think. I have had to scold him for dirtiness and bad language, in which he indulged most profusely; but he is quite childish, and I hope will soon lose it.

I have only time for a few words by Giafar Pasha, who goes early in the morning. My boat arrived all right. She brought me all sorts of things: the books and toys were very welcome. The latter threw little Darfoor into ecstasies, and he got into disgrace for playing with the "Sitt," instead of minding some business in hand. I fear I shall spoil him, he is so extremely engaging and such a baby: he is still changing his teeth, so cannot be more than eight. At first I did not like him, and feared he was sullen, but it was the usual khef (fear)-the word that is always in one's ears-and now that is gone he is always coming hopping in to play with me. He is extremely intelligent, and has a pretty baby nigger face. The Darfoor people are, as you know, an independent and brave people, and by no means savages." I cannot help thinking how pleased R would be

with the child. He asked me to give him the picture of the English Sultaneh out of the Illustrated London News, and has stuck it inside the lid of his box.

On Sunday the Patriarch snubbed me, and would not eat with me, and on Monday a walee (saint) picked out tit-bits for me with his own fingers, and went with me inside the tomb. The Patriarch has made a blunder with his progress. He has come ostentatiously, as the protégé of the Pasha, and he has "eaten" and beaten the fellaheen, and wanted to maltreat a woman for mentioning divorce. The Copts of Luxor have had to pay 407. for the honour of his presence, besides no end of sheep, poultry, butter, &c. If I were of a proselytizing mind, I could make converts of several whose pockets and backs are smarting, and the American missionaries will do it. Of course the Muslims sympathise with the converts to a religion which has no "idols," and no monks, and whose priests marry like other folk, so they are the less afraid. I hear there are fifty Protestants at Koos, and the Patriarch was furious because he could not beat them. Omar very kindly cooked a grand dinner for him last night for one Mikaeel, a neighbour of ours, and the eating was not over till two in the morning. Our Government should manage to put the screw on him about the Abyssinian prisoners. The Patriarch answered me sharply, when I asked about the state of religion in Abyssinia, that "they were lovers of the faith, and his obedient children."

Giafar Pasha came here, like a gentleman, alone, without a retinue. He is on his way from two years in the Soodan, where he is absolute Pasha. He is much liked and respected, and seems a very sensible and agreeable man, quite unlike any Turkish big-wig I have seen. Great potentate as he is, he made Yussuf, Mustafa, and Abdallah sit down, and was extremely civil and simple in his manners. I believe he is a real Turk, and not a Memlook like the rest. I will write again soon. Now you will soon know that I am much better, and all is prospering with me.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

CHAP. XXII.

REALMAH BECOMES KING.

THE city was now in peace. Order had been restored; and all the sensible inhabitants of Abibah felt that to Realmah this peace and order were due. No member of the family of the chief of the West had come forward to take his place. The flight of the chiefs of the North and of the South was looked upon as an act of abdication on their part. The councils of these quarters of the town met together, and it was almost unanimously resolved (what was done in one council not being, at the time, known in the others) that the chiefdom of each quarter should be offered to Realmah. aged uncle, the great chief of the East, upon hearing the determinations of the several councils, said that he would abdicate in favour of his nephew, who should thenceforward be king of the whole nation. It is curious to observe that, from their having a word in their language for king, the kingly form of government must, at some time or other, have prevailed amongst them. There was an ancient proverb to this effect,"Lakaree1 slapped the king's white face -when he was dead."

His

The principal men of the several councils presented themselves before Realmah, and tendered to him this kingly office. He asked for twenty-four hours to deliberate.

The evening after he had received these men was like the one that has been described at the beginning of this story. The atmosphere was cloudless, and the stars were visible. Realmah walked out upon the balcony overlooking the lake, which he had walked upon in the early days of his 1 A cant name for one of the lowest class of

weavers,

FRIENDS IN COUNCIL."

career, and when his chief thought had been how to defeat the wiles of the ambassador of the Phelatahs. What great events had happened to him during the interval that had passed! He had been comparatively an obscure young man when he first walked up and down that balcony, and gazed upon those stars. Since then, he had been in battles; had performed the part of a conqueror; and endured that of a prisoner. He had been madly in love with the beautiful Talora; and now, if he told the truth, her charms had very small attraction for him. The despised Ainah had taken with her, to her untimely grave, all the capability for love that there was in him.

Since that first walk, too, on the balcony, he had become a great inventor; and his discovery of iron, he felt, would be the chief safeguard for his nation.

These were the principal subjects of thought for Realmah; but there were others which will force themselves upon the minds of all poetic and imaginative people when they regard the unclouded heavens, and think of, or guess at, the great story which those heavens can tell them.

Perhaps a starlight night is the greatest instructor that is permitted, otherwise than in revelation, to address mankind. Realmah could not know what science has taught us. We now know that, in contemplating those heavens, we are looking at an historical scene which makes all other histories trivial and transitory. That speck of light which we call a star, is an emanation which proceeded from its origin thousands of years ago perhaps, and may not in any manner represent the state of the star at the present day. Then, again, it is not as if we were reading the history of any one past