upon which an imperious wave of the arm directed me to return to the dragoman, who had the effrontery to ask me four pounds sterling for a Persian passport.  I offered one.  He derided my offer, and I went away perplexed.  On my return to Cairo some months afterwards, he sent to say that had he known me as an Englishman, I should have had the document gratis,-a civility for which he was duly thanked.

At last my Shaykh Mohammed hit upon the plan.  “Thou art,” said he, “an Afghan; I will fetch hither the principal of the Afghan college at the Azhar, and he, if

[p.130]thou make it worth his while,” (this in a whisper) “will be thy friend.”  The case was looking desperate; my preceptor was urged to lose no time.

Presently Shaykh Mohammed returned in company with the principal, a little, thin, ragged-bearded, one-eyed, hare-lipped divine, dressed in very dirty clothes, of nondescript cut.  Born at Maskat of Afghan parents, and brought up at Meccah, he was a kind of cosmopolite, speaking five languages fluently, and full of reminiscences of toil and travel.  He refused pipes and coffee, professing to be ascetically disposed:  but he ate more than half my dinner, to reassure me, I presume, should I have been fearful that abstinence might injure his health.  We then chatted in sundry tongues.  I offered certain presents of books, which were rejected (such articles being valueless), and the Shaykh Abd al-Wahhab having expressed his satisfaction at my account of myself, told me to call for him at the Azhar Mosque next Morning.

Accordingly at six P.M.  Shaykh Mohammed and Abdullah Khan,[FN#21]-the latter equipped in a gigantic sprigged-muslin turband, so as to pass for a student of theology,-repaired to Al-Azhar.  Passing through the open quadrangle, we entered the large hall which forms the body of the Mosque.  In the northern wall was a dwarf door, leading by breakneck stairs to a pigeon-hole, the study of the learned Afghan Shaykh.  We found him ensconced behind piles of musty and greasy manuscripts, surrounded by scholars and scribes, with whom he was cheapening books.  He had not much business to transact; but long before he was ready, the stifling atmosphere drove us out of the study, and we repaired to the hall.  Presently the Shaykh joined us, and we all rode on to the citadel, and waited in a Mosque till the office hour struck.  When the doors were opened we went into the

[p.131]"Diwan,” and sat patiently till the Shaykh found an opportunity of putting in a word.  The officials were two in number; one an old invalid, very thin and sickly-looking, dressed in the Turco-European style, whose hand was being severely kissed by a troop of religious beggars, to whom he had done some small favours; the other was a stout young clerk, whose duty it was to engross, and not to have his hand kissed.

My name and other essentials were required, and no objections were offered, for who holier than the Shaykh Abd al-Wahhab ibn Yunus al-Sulaymani?  The clerk filled up a printed paper in the Turkish language, apparent1y borrowed from the European method for spoiling the traveller; certified me, upon the Shaykh’s security, to be one Abdullah, the son of Yusuf (Joseph), originally from Kabul, described my person, and, in exchange for five piastres, handed me the document.  I received it with joy.