Arabs in his book:  it is not one’s notion of Oriental feeling, but a murder in England is taken quite as a joke compared with the scene here.  I fear there will be robberies, owing to the distress, and the numbers who are running away from the land unable to pay their taxes.  Don’t fear for me, for I have two watchmen in the house every night—­the regular guard and an amateur, a man whose boy I took down to Cairo to study in Gama’l Azhar.

Palgrave has written to Ross wanting Mabrook back.  I am very sorry, the more so as Mabrook is recalcitrant.  ’I want to stay with thee, I don’t want to go back to the Nazarene.’  A boy who heard him said, ’but the Lady is a Nazarene too;’ whereupon Mabrook slapped his face with great vigour.  He will be troublesome if he does turn restive, and he is one who can only be managed by kindness.  He is as good and quiet as possible with us, but the stubborn will is there and he is too ignorant to be reasoned with.

January 14.—­To-day the four Copts have again changed their story, and after swearing that the robbers were strangers, have accused a man who has shot birds for me all this winter:  and the poor devil is gone to Keneh in chains.  The weather seems to have set in steadily for fine.  I hope soon to get out, but my donkey has grown old and shaky and I am too weak to walk, so I sit in the balcony.

January 14, 1867:  Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.  LUXOR, January 14, 1867.

Dearest Mutter,

We have had a very cold winter and I have been constantly ailing, luckily the cough has transferred itself from the night to the day, and I get some good sleep.  The last two days have been much warmer and I hope matters will mend.  I am beginning to take cod-liver oil, as we can’t find a milch camel anywhere.

My boat has been well let in Cairo and is expected here every day.  The gentlemen shoot, and tell the crew not to row, and in short take it easy, and give them 2 pounds in every place.  Imagine what luxury for my crew.  I shall have to dismiss the lot, they will be so spoilt.  The English Consul-General came up in a steamer with Dr. Patterson and Mr. Francis.  I dined with them one day; I wish you could have seen me carried in my armchair high up on the shoulders of four men, like a successful candidate, or more like one of the Pharaohs in an ancient bas-relief, preceded by torch bearers and other attendants and followers, my procession was quite regal.  I wish I could show you a new friend of mine, Osman Ibraheem, who studied medicine five years in Paris.  My heart warmed to him directly, because like most high-bred Arabs, he is so like Don Quixote—­only Don Quixote quite in his senses.  The sort of innocent sententiousness, and perfectly natural love of fine language and fine sentiments is unattainable to any European, except, I suppose, a Spaniard.  It is quite unlike Italian fustian or French sentiment.