sayings the people here hit upon; they cultivate talk for want of reading, and the consequence is great facility of narration and illustration.  Everybody enforces his ideas like Christ, in parables.  Hajjee Hannah told me two excellent fairy tales, which I will write for Rainie with some Bowdlerizing, and several laughable stories, which I will leave unrecorded, as savouring too much of Boccaccio’s manner, or that of the Queen of Navarre.  I told Achmet to sweep the floor after dinner just now.  He hesitated, and I called again:  ‘What manner is this, not to sweep when I bid thee?’ ’By the most high God,’ said the boy, ’my hand shall not sweep in thy boat after sunset, oh Lady; I would rather have it cut off than sweep thee out of thy property.’  I found that you must not sweep at night, nor for three days after the departure of a guest whose return you desire, or of the master of the house.  ’Thinkest thou that my brother would sweep away the dust of thy feet from the floors at Luxor,’ continued Achmet, ’he would fear never to see thy fortunate face again.’  If you don’t want to see your visitor again you break a gulleh (water-jar) behind him as he leaves the house, and sweep away his footsteps.

What a canard your papers have in Europe about a constitution here.  I won’t write any politics, it is all too dreary; and Cairo gossip is odious, as you may judge by the productions of Mesdames Odouard and Lott.  Only remember this, there is no law nor justice but the will, or rather the caprice, of one man.  It is nearly impossible for any European to conceive such a state of things as really exists.  Nothing but perfect familiarity with the governed, i.e. oppressed, class will teach it; however intimate a man may be with the rulers he will never fully take it in.  I am a l’index here, and none of the people I know dare come to see me; Arab I mean.  It was whispered in my ear in the street by a friend I met.  Ismael Pasha’s chief pleasure is gossip, and a certain number of persons, chiefly Europeans, furnish him with it daily, true or false.  If the farce of the constitution ever should be acted here it will be superb.  Something like the Consul going in state to ask the fellaheen what wages they got.  I could tell you a little of the value of consular information; but what is the use?  Europe is enchanted with the enlightened Pasha who has ruined this fine country.

I long so to see you and Rainie!  I don’t like to hope too much, but Inshallah, next year I shall see you all.

October 19, 1866:  Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.  OFF BOULAK, October 19, 1866.

I shall soon sail up the river.  Yesterday Seyd Mustapha arrived, who says that the Greeks are all gone, and the poor Austrian at Thebes is dead, so I shall represent Europe in my single person from Siout to, I suppose, Khartoum.