With bows, and benedictions, and many wishes that Allah might make it the officials’ fate to become pilgrims, we left the office, and returned towards Al-Azhar.  When we had nearly reached the Mosque, Shaykh Mohammed lagged behind, and made the sign.  I drew near the Afghan, and asked for his hand.  He took the hint, and muttering, “It is no matter!"-"It is not necessary!"-"By Allah it is not required!” extended his fingers, and brought the “musculus guineorum” to bear upon three dollars.

Poor man!  I believe it was his necessity that consented to be paid for the doing a common act of Moslem charity; he had a wife and children, and the calling of an Alim[FN#22] is no longer worth much in Egypt.

My departure from Cairo was hastened by an accident.  I lost my reputation by a little misfortune that happened in this wise.

[p.132]At Haji Wali’s room in the Caravanserai, I met a Yuzbashi, or captain of Albanian Irregulars, who was in Egypt on leave from Al-Hijaz.  He was a tall, bony, and broad-shouldered mountaineer, about forty years old, with the large bombe brow, the fierce eyes, thin lips, lean jaws, and peaky chin of his race.  His mustachios were enormously long and tapering, and the rest of his face, like his head, was close shaven.  His Fustan[FN#23] was none of the cleanest; nor was the red cap, which he wore rakishly pulled over his frowning forehead, quite free from stains.  Not permitted to carry the favourite pistols, he contented himself with sticking his right hand in the empty belt, and stalking about the house with a most military mien.  Yet he was as little of a bully as carpet knight, that same Ali Agha; his body showed many a grisly scar, and one of his shin bones had been broken by a Turkish bullet, when he was playing tricks on the Albanian hills,-an accident inducing a limp, which he attempted to conceal by a heavy swagger.  When he spoke, his voice was affectedly gruff; he had a sad knack of sneering, and I never saw him thoroughly sober.

Our acquaintance began with a kind of storm, which blew over, and left fine weather.  I was showing Haji Wali my pistols with Damascene barrels when Ali Agha entered the room.  He sat down before me with a grin, which said intelligibly enough, “What business have you with weapons?"-snatched the arm out of my hand, and began to inspect it as a connoisseur.  Not admiring this procedure, I wrenched it away from him, and, addressing myself to Haji Wali, proceeded quietly with my dissertation.  The captain of Irregulars and I then looked at each other.  He cocked his cap on one side, in token of excited pugnacity.  I twirled my moustachios to display a kindred emotion.  Had he been armed, and in Al-Hijaz,