and doubles the difficulty, or I would send you a Theban police report; but the Maohn is very pleasant in his manner to them, and they don’t seem frightened.  We have appointed a very small boy our bowab, or porter—­or, rather, he has appointed himself—­and his assumption of dignity is quite delicious.  He has provided himself with a huge staff, and he behaves like the most tremendous janissary.  He is about Rainie’s size, as sharp as a needle, and possesses the remains of a brown shirt and a ragged kitchen duster as turban.  I am very fond of little Achmet, and like to see him doing tableaux vivants from Murillo with a plate of broken victuals.  The children of this place have become so insufferable about backsheesh that I have complained to the Maohn, and he will assemble a committee of parents and enforce better manners.  It is only here and just where the English go.  When I ride into the little villages I never hear the word, but am always offered milk to drink.  I have taken it two or three times and not offered to pay, and the people always seem quite pleased.

Yesterday Sheykh Yussuf came again, the first time since his brother’s death; he was evidently deeply affected, but spoke in the usual way, ’It is the will of God, we must all die,’ etc.  I wish you could see Sheykh Yussuf.  I think he is the sweetest creature in look and manner I ever beheld—­so refined and so simple, and with the animal grace of a gazelle.  A high-bred Arab is as graceful as an Indian, but quite without the feline Geschmeidigkeit or the look of dissimulation; the eye is as clear and frank as a child’s.  Mr. Ruchl, the Austrian Consul here, who knows Egypt and Arabia well, tells me that he thinks many of them quite as good as they look, and said of Sheykh Yussuf, Er ist so gemuthlich.  There is a German here deciphering hieroglyphics, Herr Dummichen, a very agreeable man, but he has gone across the river to live at el-Kurneh.  He has been through Ethiopia in search of temples and inscriptions.  I am to go over and visit him, and see some of the tombs again in his company, which I shall enjoy, as a good interpreter is sadly wanted in those mysterious regions.

My chest is wonderfully better these last six or seven days.  It is quite clear that downright heat is what does me good.  Moreover, I have just heard from M. Mounier that a good donkey is en route in a boat from El-Moutaneh—­he will cost me between 4 and 5 pounds and will enable me to be about far more than I can by merely borrowing Mustapha’s horse, about which I have scruples as he lends it to other lady travellers.  Little Achmet will be my sais as well as my door-keeper, I suppose.  I wish you would speak to Layard in behalf of Mustapha A’gha.  He has acted as English Consul here for something like thirty years, and he really is the slave of the travellers.  He gives them dinners, mounts them, and does all the disagreeable