April 15.—­I continue to get better slowly, and in a few days will go down to Alexandria.  Omar is gone to Boulak to inquire the cost of a boat, as I am not fond of the railroad, and have a good deal of heavy baggage, cooking utensils, etc., which the railway charges enormously for.  The black slave girl, sent as a present to the American Consul-General, is as happy as possible, and sings quaint, soft little Kordofan songs all day.  I hope you won’t object to my bringing her home.  She wails so terribly when Omar tells her she is not my slave, for fear I should leave her, and insists on being my slave.  She wants to be a present to Rainie, the little Sitt, and laughs out so heartily at the thought of her.  She is very quiet and gentle, poor little savage, and the utter slavishness of the poor little soul quite upsets me; she has no will of her own.  Now she has taken to talking, and tells all her woes and how batal (bad) everyone was at Khartoum; and then she rubs her little black nose on my hand, and laughs so merrily, and says all is quyis keteer (very good) here, and she hugs herself with delight.  I think Rainie will like her very much.

I am going to visit an old Muslim French painter’s family.  He has an Arab wife and grown-up daughters, and is a very agreeable old man with a store of Arab legends; I am going to persuade him to write them and let me translate them into English.  The Sultan goes away to-day.  Even water to drink has been brought from Constantinople; I heard that from Hekekian Bey, who formerly owned the eunuch who is now Kislar Aghasy to the Sultan himself.  Hekekian had the honour of kissing his old slave’s hand.  If anyone tries to make you believe any bosh about civilization in Egypt, laugh at it.  The real life and the real people are exactly as described in the most veracious of books, the ‘Thousand and One Nights’; the tyranny is the same, the people are not altered—­and very charming people they are.  If I could but speak the language I could get into Arab society here through two or three different people, and see more than many Europeans who have lived here all their lives.  The Arabs are keenly alive to the least prejudice against them, but when they feel quite safe on that point they rather like the amusement of a stranger.

Omar devised a glorious scheme, if I were only well and strong, of putting me in a takterrawan and taking me to Mecca in the character of his mother, supposed to be a Turk.  To a European man, of course, it would be impossible, but an enterprising woman might do it easily with a Muslim confederate.  Fancy seeing the pilgrimage!  In a few days I shall go down to Alexandria, if it makes me ill again I must return to Europe or go to Beyrout.  I can’t get a boat under 12 pounds; thus do the Arabs understand competition; the owner of boats said so few were wanted, times were bad on account of the railway, etc., he must have double what he used to charge.  In vain Omar argued that that was not the way to get employment.  ‘Maleesh!’ (Never mind!), and so I must go by rail.  Is not that Eastern?  Up the river, where there is no railroad, I might have had it at half that rate.  All you have ever told me as most Spanish in Spain is in full vigour here, and also I am reminded of Ireland at every turn; the same causes produce the same effects.