I wish you all, ‘may the year be good to thee’ as we say here—­and now for my history.  We left Cairo on the 5th Decr.  I was not well.  No wind as usual, and we were a week getting to Benisonef where the Stamboolee Greek lady who was so kind to me last summer in my illness came on board with a very well-bred Arab lady.  I was in bed, and only stayed a few hours.  On to Minieh another five or six days—­walked about and saw the preparations for the Pasha’s arrival.  Nothing so flat as these affairs here.  Not a creature went near the landing-place but his own servants, soldiers, and officials.  I thought of the arrival of the smallest of German princes, which makes ten times the noise.  Next on to Siout.  Ill again, and did not land or see anyone.  On to Girgeh, where we only stayed long enough to deliver money and presents which I had been begged to take for some old sailors of mine to their mothers and wives there.

Between Siout and Girgeh an Abyssinian slave lad came and wanted me to steal him; he said his master was a Copt and ill-used him, and the lady beat him.  But Omar sagely observed to the sailors, who were very anxious to take him, that a bad master did not give his slave such good clothes and even a pair of shoes—­quel luxe!—­and that he made too much of his master being a Copt; no doubt he was a lazy fellow, and perhaps had run away with other property besides himself.  Soon after I was sitting on the pointed prow of the boat with the Reis, who was sounding with his painted pole (vide antique sculptures and paintings), and the men towing, when suddenly something rose to the surface close to us:  the men cried out Beni Adam! and the Reis prayed for the dead.  It was a woman:  the silver bracelets glittered on the arms raised and stiffened in the agony of death, the knees up and the beautiful Egyptian breasts floated above the water.  I shall never forget the horrid sight.  ’God have mercy on her,’ prayed my men, and the Reis added to me, ’let us also pray for her father, poor man:  you see, no robber has done this (on account of the bracelets).  We are in the Saeed now, and most likely she has blackened her father’s face, and he has been forced to strangle her, poor man.’  I said ‘Alas!’ and the Reis continued, ’ah, yes, it is a heavy thing, but a man must whiten his face, poor man, poor man.  God have mercy on him.’  Such is Saeedee point d’honneur.  However, it turned out she was drowned bathing.

Above Girgeh we stopped awhile at Dishne, a large village.  I strolled up alone, les mains dans les poches, ‘sicut meus est mos:’  and was soon accosted with an invitation to coffee and pipes in the strangers’ place, a sort of room open on one side with a column in the middle, like two arches of a cloister, and which in all the villages is close to the mosque:  two or three cloaks were pulled off and spread on the ground for me to sit on, and the milk which I asked for, instead