Mounier.  He gives a fearful account of the sickness there among men and cattle—­eight and ten deaths a day; here we have had only four a day, at the worst, in a population of (I guess) some 2,000.  The Mouniers have put themselves in quarantine, and allow no one to approach their house, as Mustapha wanted me to do.  One hundred and fifty head of cattle have died at El-Moutaneh; here only a few calves are dead, but as yet no full-grown beasts, and the people are healthy again.  I really think I did some service by not showing any fear, and Omar behaved manfully.  By-the-by, will you find out whether a passaporto, as they call it, a paper granting British protection, can be granted in England.  It is the object of Omar’s highest ambition to belong as much as possible to the English, and feel safe from being forced to serve a Turk.  If it can be done by any coaxing and jobbing, pray do it, for Omar deserves any service I can render him in return for all his devotion and fidelity.  Someone tried to put it into his head that it was haraam to be too fond of us heretics and be faithful, but he consulted Sheykh Yussuf, who promised him a reward hereafter for good conduct to me, and who told me of it as a good joke, adding that he was raghil ameen, the highest praise for fidelity, the sobriquet of the Prophet.  Do not be surprised at my lack of conscience in desiring to benefit my own follower in qualunque modo; justice is not of Eastern growth, and Europeo is ‘your only wear,’ and here it is only base not to stick by one’s friends.  Omar kisses the hands of the Sidi-el-Kebeer (the great master), and desires his best salaam to the little master and the little lady, whose servant he is.  He asks if I, too, do not kiss Iskender Bey’s hand in my letter, as I ought to do as his Hareem, or whether ‘I make myself big before my master,’ like some French ladies he has seen?  I tell him I will do so if Iskender Bey will get him his warak (paper), whereupon he picks up the hem of my gown and kisses that, and I civilly expostulate on such condescension to a woman.  Yussuf is quite puzzled about European women, and a little shocked at the want of respect to their husbands they display.  I told him that the outward respect shown to us by our men was our veil, and explained how superficial the difference was.  He fancied that the law gave us the upper hand.  Omar reports yesterday’s sermon ‘on toleration,’ it appears.  Yussuf took the text of ’Thou shalt love thy brother as thyself, and never act towards him but as thou wouldest he should act towards thee.’  I forget chapter and verse; but it seems he took the bull by the horns and declared all men to be brothers, not Muslimeen only, and desired his congregation to look at the good deeds of others and not at their erroneous faith, for God is all-knowing (i.e., He only knows the heart), and if they saw aught amiss to remember that the best man need say Astafer Allah (I beg pardon of God) seven times a day.