CHAPTER I.. To Alexandria.

TO ALEXANDRIA.

A few Words concerning what induced me to a Pilgrimage.

IN the autumn of 1852, through the medium of my excellent friend, the late General Monteith, I offered my services to the Royal Geographical Society of London, for the purpose of removing that opprobrium to modern adventure, the huge white blot which in our maps still notes the Eastern and the Central regions of Arabia. Sir Roderick I. Murchison, Colonel P. Yorke and Dr. Shaw, a deputation from that distinguished body, with their usual zeal for discovery and readiness to encourage the discoverer, honoured me by warmly supporting, in a personal interview with the then Chairman of the then Court of Directors to the then Honourable East India Company, my application for three years' leave of absence on special duty from India to Maskat. But they were unable to prevail upon the said Chairman, the late Sir James Hogg, who,[FN#1] remembering the fatalities which of late years have befallen sundry soldier-travellers in the East, refused his sanction, alleging as a reason[FN#1]

What remained for me but to prove, by trial, that what might be perilous to other travellers was safe to me? The "experimentum crucis" was a visit to Al-Hijaz, at once the most difficult and the most dangerous point by which a European can enter Arabia. I had intended, had the period of leave originally applied for been granted, to land at Maskat-a favourable starting-place-and there to apply myself, slowly and surely, to the task of spanning the deserts. But now I was to hurry, in the midst of summer, after a four years' sojourn in Europe, during which many things Oriental had faded away from my memory, and-after passing through the ordeal of Egypt, a country where the police is curious as in Rome or Milan-to begin with the Moslem's Holy Land, the jealously guarded and exclusive Harim. However, being liberally supplied with the means of travel by the Royal Geographical Society; thoroughly tired of "progress" and of "civilisation;" curious to see with my eyes what others are content to "hear with ears," namely, Moslem inner life in a really Mohammedan country; and longing, if truth be told, to set foot on that mysterious spot which no vacation tourist has yet described, measured, sketched and photographed, I resolved to resume my old character of a Persian wanderer,[FN#2] a "Darwaysh," and to make the attempt.

I have entitled this account of my summer's tour through Al-Hijaz, a Personal Narrative, and I have laboured to make its nature correspond with its name, simply because "it is the personal that interests mankind." Many may not follow my example;[FN#5] but some

On the evening of April 3, 1853, I left London for Southampton. By the advice of a brother officer, Captain (now Colonel) Henry Grindlay, of the Bengal Cavalry,-little thought at that time the adviser or the advised how valuable was the suggestion!-my Eastern dress was called into requisition before leaving town, and all my "impedimenta" were taught to look exceedingly Oriental. Early the next day a "Persian Prince," accompanied by Captain Grindlay, embarked on board the Peninsular and Oriental Company's magnificent screw steamer "Bengal."

Our voyage over the "summer sea" was eventless. In a steamer of two or three thousand tons you discover

"There we lay All the day, In the Bay of Biscay, O!"

The sight of glorious Trafalgar[FN#7]| excites none of the sentiments with which a tedious sail used to invest it. "Gib" is, probably, better known to you, by Theophile Gautier and Eliot Warburton, than the regions about Cornhill; besides which, you anchor under the Rock exactly long enough to land and to breakfast. Malta, too, wears an old familiar face, which bids you order a dinner and superintend the iceing of claret (beginning of Oriental barbarism), instead of galloping about on donkey-back through fiery air in memory of St. Paul and White-Cross Knights. But though our journey might be called monotonous, there was nothing to complain of. The ship was in every way comfortable; the cook, strange to say, was good, and the voyage lasted long enough, and not too long. On the evening of the thirteenth day after our start, the big-trowsered pilot, so lovely in his deformities to western eyes, made his appearance, and the good screw "Bengal" found herself at anchor off the Headland of Clay.[FN#8]

Having been invited to start from the house of a kind friend, John W. Larking, I disembarked with him, and

Wonderful was the contrast between the steamer and that villa on the Mahmudiyah canal! Startling the sudden change from presto to adagio life! In thirteen days we had passed from the clammy grey fog, that atmosphere

And this is the Arab's Kayf. The savouring of animal existence; the passive enjoyment of mere sense; the pleasant languor, the dreamy tranquillity, the airy castle-building, which in Asia stand in lieu of the vigorous, intensive, passionate life of Europe. It is the result of a lively, impressible, excitable nature, and exquisite sensibility of nerve; it argues a facility for voluptuousness unknown to northern regions, where happiness is placed in the exertion of mental and physical powers; where Ernst ist das Leben; where niggard earth commands ceaseless sweat of face, and damp chill air demands perpetual excitement, exercise, or change, or adventure, or dissipation, for want of something better. In the East, man wants but rest and shade: upon the banks of a bubbling stream, or under the cool shelter of a perfumed tree, he is perfectly happy, smoking a pipe, or sipping a cup of coffee, or drinking a glass of sherbet, but above all things deranging body and mind as little as possible; the trouble of conversations, the displeasures of memory, and the vanity of thought being the most unpleasant interruptions to his Kayf. No wonder that "Kayf" is a word untranslatable in our mother-tongue![FN#12]

"Laudabunt alii claram Rhodon aut Mytelenen."

Let others describe the once famous Capital of

Careful of graver matters, I attended the mosque, and visited the venerable localities in which modern Alexandria abounds. Pilgrimaging Moslems are here

It is not to be supposed that the people of Alexandria could look upon my phials and pill-boxes without a yearning for their contents. An Indian doctor, too, was a novelty to them; Franks they despised,-but a man who had come so far from East and West! Then there was something infinitely seducing in the character of a magician, doctor, and fakir, each admirable of itself, thus combined to make "great medicine." Men, women, and children besieged my door, by which means I could see the people face to face, and especially the fair sex, of which Europeans, generally speaking, know only the worst specimens. Even respectable natives, after witnessing a performance of "Mandal" and the Magic mirror[FN#19], opined that the stranger was a holy man, gifted

But the reader must not be led to suppose that I acted "Carabin" or "Sangrado" without any knowledge of my trade. From youth I have always been a dabbler in medical and mystical study. Moreover, the practice of physic is comparatively easy amongst dwellers in warm latitudes, uncivilised peoples, where there is not that complication of maladies which troubles more polished nations. And further, what simplifies extremely the treatment of the sick in these parts is the undoubted periodicity of disease, reducing almost all to one type-ague.[FN#20] Many of the complaints of tropical climates, as medical men well know, display palpably intermittent symptoms little known to colder countries; and speaking from individual experience, I may safely assert that in all cases of suffering, from a wound to ophthalmia, this phenomenon has forced itself upon my notice. So much by way of excuse. I therefore considered myself as well qualified for the work as if I had taken out a buono per l'estero diploma at Padua, and not more likely to do active harm than most of the regularly graduated young surgeons who start to "finish" themselves upon the frame of the British soldier.

After a month's hard work at Alexandria, I prepared to assume the character of a wandering Darwaysh; after

I LEAVE ALEXANDRIA.

THE thorough-bred wanderer's idiosyncracy I presume to be a composition of what phrenologists call "inhabitiveness" and "locality" equally and largely developed. After a long and toilsome march, weary of the way, he drops into the nearest place of rest to become the most domestic of men. For a while he smokes the "pipe of permanence"[FN#1] with an infinite zest; he delights in various siestas during the day, relishing withal deep sleep during the dark hours; he enjoys dining at a fixed dinner hour, and he wonders at the demoralisation of the mind which cannot find means of excitement in chit-chat or small talk, in a novel or a newspaper. But soon the passive fit has passed away; again a paroxysm of ennui coming on by slow degrees, Viator loses appetite, he walks about his room all night, he yawns at conversations, and a book acts upon him as a narcotic. The man wants to wander, and he must do so, or he shall die.

After about a month most pleasantly spent at Alexandria, I perceived the approach of the enemy, and as nothing hampered my incomings and outgoings, I surrendered. The world was "all before me," and there was pleasant excitement in plunging single-handed into its chilling depths. My Alexandrian Shaykh, whose heart

Before my departure, however, there was much to be done.

The land of the Pharaohs is becoming civilised, and unpleasantly so: nothing can be more uncomfortable than its present middle state, between barbarism and the reverse. The prohibition against carrying arms is rigid as in Italy; all "violence" is violently denounced; and beheading

Through ignorance which might have cost me dear but for friend Larking's weight with the local authorities, I had neglected to provide myself with a passport in England, and it was not without difficulty, involving much unclean dressing and an unlimited expenditure of broken English, that I obtained from H.B.M's Consul at Alexandria a certificate, declaring me to be an Indo-British subject named Abdullah, by profession a doctor, aged thirty, and not distinguished-at least so the frequent blanks seemed to denote-by any remarkable conformation of eyes, nose, or cheek. For this I disbursed a dollar. And here let me record the indignation with which I did it. That mighty Britain-the mistress of the seas-the ruler of one-sixth of mankind-should charge five shillings to pay for the shadow of her protecting wing! That I cannot speak my modernised "civis sum Romanus" without putting my hand into my pocket, in order that these officers of the Great Queen may not take too ruinously from a revenue of seventy millions! O the meanness of our magnificence! the littleness of our greatness!

My new passport would not carry me without the Zabit or Police Magistrate's counter-signature, said H.B.M.'s Consul. Next day I went to the Zabit, who referred me to the Muhafiz (Governor) of Alexandria, at whose gate I had the honour of squatting at least three hours, till a more compassionate clerk vouchsafed the information that the proper place to apply to was the Diwan Kharijiyah (the Foreign Office). Thus a second day was utterly lost. On the morning of the third I started, as directed, for the Palace, which crowns the Headland of Clay. It is a huge and couthless shell of building in parallelogrammic form, containing all kinds of public offices in glorious confusion, looking with their glaring

The first person I addressed was a Kawwas[FN#6] or police officer, who, coiled comfortably up in a bit of shade fitting his person like a robe, was in full enjoyment of the Asiatic "Kayf." Having presented the consular certificate and briefly stated the nature of my business, I ventured to inquire what was the right course to pursue for a visa.

They have little respect for Darwayshes, it appears, at Alexandria.

M'adri-"Don't know," growled the man of authority, without moving any thing but the quantity of tongue absolutely necessary for articulation.

Now there are three ways of treating Asiatic officials,-by bribe, by bullying, or by bothering them with a dogged perseverance into attending to you and your concerns. The latter is the peculiar province of the poor; moreover, this time I resolved, for other reasons, to be patient. I repeated my question in almost the same words. Ruh! "Be off," was what I obtained for all reply. But this time the questioned went so far as to open his eyes. Still I stood twirling the paper in my hands, and looking very humble and very persevering, till a loud Ruh ya Kalb! "Go, O dog!" converted into a responsive curse the little speech I was preparing about

After which satisfactory scene,-for satisfactory it was in one sense, proving the complete fitness of the Darwaysh's costume,-I tried a dozen other promiscuous sources of information,-policemen, grooms, scribes, donkey-boys, and idlers in general. At length, wearied of patience, I offered a soldier some pinches of tobacco, and promised him an Oriental sixpence if he would manage the business for me. The man was interested by the tobacco and the pence; he took my hand, and inquiring the while he went along, led me from place to place, till, mounting a grand staircase, I stood in the presence of Abbas Effendi, Naib or deputy to the Governor.

It was a little, whey-faced, black-bearded Turk, coiled up in the usual conglomerate posture upon a calico-covered diwan, at the end of a long, bare, large- windowed room. Without deigning even to nod the head, which hung over his shoulder with transcendent listlessness and affectation of pride, in answer to my salams and benedictions, he eyed me with wicked eyes, and faintly ejaculated "Min ent[FN#8]?" Then hearing that I was a Darwaysh and doctor-he must be an Osmanli Voltairean, that little Turk-the official snorted a contemptuous snort. He condescendingly added, however, that the proper source to seek was "Taht," which, meaning simply "below," conveyed to an utter stranger rather imperfect information from a topographical point of view.

At length, however, my soldier guide found out that

Like myself they had waited some hours, but they were not so patient under disappointment: they bluntly told the angry official that he and his master were a pair of idlers, and the curses that rumbled and gurgled in their hairy throats as they strode towards the door sounded like the growling of wild beasts.

Thus was another day truly orientally lost. On the morrow, however, I obtained permission, in the character of Dr. Abdullah, to visit any part of Egypt I pleased, and to retain possession of my dagger and pistols.

And now I must explain what induced me to take so much trouble about a passport. The home reader naturally inquires, Why not travel under your English name?

For this reason. In the generality of barbarous countries you must either proceed, like Bruce, preserving the "dignity of manhood," and carrying matters with a high hand, or you must worm your way by timidity and

Then I had to provide myself with certain necessaries for the way. These were not numerous. The silver-mounted dressing-bag is here supplied by a rag containing a Miswak[FN#11] or tooth-stick, a bit of soap and a comb, wooden, for bone and tortoiseshell are not, religiously speaking, correct. Equally simple was my wardrobe; [p.24]a change or two of clothing. It is a great mistake to carry too few clothes, and those who travel as Orientals should always have at least one very grand suit for use on critical occasions. Throughout the East a badly dressed man is a pauper, and, as in England, a pauper-unless he belongs to an order having a right to be poor-is a scoundrel. The only article of canteen description was a Zemzemiyah, a goat-skin water-bag, which, especially when new, communicates to its contents a ferruginous aspect and a wholesome, though hardly an attractive, flavour of tanno-gelatine. This was a necessary; to drink out of a tumbler, possibly fresh from pig-eating lips, would have entailed a certain loss of reputation. For bedding and furniture I had a coarse Persian rug-which, besides being couch, acted as chair, table, and oratory-a cotton-stuffed chintz-covered pillow, a blanket in case of cold, and a sheet, which did duty for tent and mosquito curtains in nights of heat.[FN#12] As shade is a convenience not always procurable, another necessary was a huge cotton umbrella of Eastern make, brightly yellow, suggesting the idea of an overgrown marigold. I had also a substantial housewife, the gift of a kind relative, Miss Elizabeth Stisted; it was a roll of canvas, carefully soiled, and garnished with needles and thread, cobblers' wax, buttons, and other such articles. These things were most useful in lands where tailors abound not; besides which, the sight of a man darning his coat or patching his slippers teems with pleasing ideas of humility. A dagger,[FN#13] a brass inkstand and pen-holder

A pair of common native Khurjin, or saddle-bags, contained my wardrobe; the bed was readily rolled up into a bundle; and for a medicine chest[FN#17] I bought a pea-green box with red and yellow flowers, capable of standing falls from a camel twice a day.

Thus were we lapsing into the real good old East-Indian style of doing business. Thus Anglo-Indicus orders his first clerk to execute some commission; the senior, having "work" upon his hands, sends a junior; the junior finds the sun hot, and passes on the word to a "peon;" the "peon" charges a porter with the errand; and the porter quietly sits or doses in his place, trusting that Fate will bring him out of the scrape, but firmly resolved, though the shattered globe fall, not to stir an inch.

The reader, I must again express a hope, will pardon the length of these descriptions,-my object is to show him how business is carried on in these hot countries. Business generally. For had I been, not Abdullah the Darwaysh, but a rich native merchant, it would have been

At length, about the end of May (1853) all was ready. Not without a feeling of regret I left my little room among the white myrtle blossoms and the rosy oleander flowers with the almond smell. I kissed with humble ostentation my good host's hand in presence of his servants-he had become somewhat unpleasantly anxious, of late, to induce in me the true Oriental feeling, by a slight administration of the bastinado-I bade adieu to my patients, who now amounted to about fifty, shaking hands with all meekly and with religious equality of attention; and, mounted in a "trap" which looked like a cross between a wheel-barrow and a dog-cart, drawn by a kicking, jibbing, and biting mule, I set out for the steamer, the "Little Asthmatic."

THE NILE STEAMBOAT-THE "LITTLE ASTHMATIC."

IN the days of the Pitts we have invariably a "Relation" of Egyptian travellers who embark for a place called "Roseet" on the "River Nilus." Wanderers of the Brucean age were wont to record their impressions of voyage upon land subjects observed between Alexandria and Cairo. A little later we find every one inditing rhapsodies about, and descriptions of, his or her Dahabiyah (barge) on the canal. After this came the steamer. And after the steamer will come the railroad, which may disappoint the author tourist, but will be delightful to that sensible class of men who wish to get over the greatest extent of ground with the least inconvenience to themselves and others. Then shall the Mahmudiyah-ugliest and most wearisome of canals-be given up to cotton boats and grain barges, and then will note-books and the headings of chapters clean ignore its existence.

I saw the canal at its worst, when the water was low; and I have not one syllable to say in its favour. Instead of thirty hours, we took three mortal days and nights to reach Cairo, and we grounded with painful regularity four or five times between sunrise and sunset. In the scenery on the banks sketchers and describers have left you nought to see. From Pompey's Pillar to the Maison Carree, Kariom and its potteries, Al-Birkah[FN#1] of the night birds, Bastarah

To me there was double dulness in the scenery: it seemed to be Sind over again-the same morning mist and noon-tide glare; the same hot wind and heat clouds, and fiery sunset, and evening glow; the same pillars of dust and "devils" of sand sweeping like giants over the plain; the same turbid waters of a broad, shallow stream studded with sand-banks and silt-isles, with crashing earth slips and ruins nodding over a kind of cliff, whose base the stream gnaws with noisy tooth. On the banks, saline ground sparkled and glittered like hoar-frost in the sun; and here and there mud villages, solitary huts, pigeon-towers, or watch turrets, whence litt1e brown boys shouted and slung stones at the birds, peeped out from among bright green patches of palm-tree, tamarisk, and mimosa, of maize, tobacco, and sugar-cane. Beyond the narrow tongue of land on the river banks lay the glaring, yellow Desert, with its low hills and sand slopes, bounded by innumerable pyramids of Nature's architecture. The boats, with their sharp bows, preposterous sterns, and lateen sails, might have belonged to the Indus. So might the chocolate-skinned, blue-robed peasantry; the women carrying progeny on their hips, with the eternal waterpot on their heads; and the men sleeping in the shade or following the plough, to which probably Osiris first put hand. The lower animals, like the higher, were the same; gaunt, mange-stained camels, muddy buffaloes, scurvied donkeys, sneaking jackals, and fox-like dogs. Even the feathered creatures were perfectly familiar to my eye-

I had taken a third-class or deck-passage, whereby the evils of the journey were exasperated. A roasting sun pierced the canvas awning like hot water through a gauze veil, and by night the cold dews fell raw and thick as a Scotch mist. The cooking was abominable, and the dignity of Darwaysh-hood did not allow me to sit at meat with Infidels or to eat the food which they had polluted. So the Pilgrim squatted apart, smoking perpetually, with occasional interruptions to say his prayers and to tell his beads upon the mighty rosary; and he drank the muddy water of the canal out of a leathern bucket, and he munched his bread and garlic[FN#4] with a desperate sanctimoniousness.

The "Little Asthmatic" was densely crowded, and discipline not daring to mark out particular places, the scene on board of her was motley enough. There were two Indian officers, who naturally spoke to none but each other, drank bad tea, and smoked their cigars exclusively

"Je n'ai pas connu mon pere Ce respectable vieillard. Je suis ne trois ans trop tard," &.;

Whilst another trolled out:

"Qu'est ce que je vois? Un canard en robe de chambre!"

Two fellow-passengers were destined to play an important part in my comedy of Cairo. Just after we had started, a little event afforded us some amusement. On the bank appeared a short, crummy, pursy kind of man, whose efforts to board the steamer were notably ridiculous. With attention divided between the vessel and a carpet-bag carried by his donkey boy, he ran along the sides of the canal, now stumbling into hollows, then climbing heights, then standing shouting upon the projections with the fierce sun upon his back, till everyone thought his breath was completely gone. But no! game to the backbone, he would have perished miserably rather than lose his fare: "patience and perseverance," say the wise, "got a wife for his Reverence." At last he was taken on board, and presently he lay down to sleep. His sooty complexion, lank black hair, features in which appeared beaucoup de finesse, that is to say, abundant rascality, an eternal smile and treacherous eyes, his gold[FN#6] ring, dress

My second friend, Haji Wali, I will introduce to the reader in a future chapter; and my two expeditions to Midian have brought him once more into notice.[FN#7]

Long conversations in Persian and Hindustani abridged the tediousness of the voyage, and when we arrived at Bulak, the polite Khudabakhsh insisted upon my making his house my home. I was unwilling to accept the man's civility, disliking his looks; but he advanced cogent reasons for changing my mind. His servant cleared my luggage through the custom-house, and a few minutes after our arrival I found myself in his abode near the Azbakiyah Gardens, sitting in a cool Mashrabiyah[FN#8] that gracefully projected over a garden, and sipping the favourite glass of pomegranate syrup.

As the Wakalahs or Caravanserais were at that time full of pilgrims, I remained with Khudabakhsh ten days or a fortnight. But at the end of that time my patience was thoroughly exhausted. My host had become a civilised man, who sat on chairs, who ate with a fork, who talked European politics, and who had learned to admire, if not to understand, liberty-liberal ideas! and was I not flying from such things? Besides which, we English have a

The very essence of Oriental hospitality, however, is this family style of reception, which costs your host neither coin nor trouble. I speak of the rare tracts in which the old barbarous hospitality still lingers. You make one more at his eating tray, and an additional mattress appears in the sleeping-room. When you depart, you leave if you like a little present, merely for a memorial, with your entertainer; he would be offended if you offered it him openly as a remuneration, and you give

But of all Orientals, the most antipathetical companion to an Englishman is, I believe, an East-Indian. Like the fox in the fable, fulsomely flattering at first, he gradually becomes easily friendly, disagreeably familiar, offensively rude, which ends by rousing the "spirit of the British lion." Nothing delights the Hindi so much as an opportunity of safely venting the spleen with which he regards his victors.[FN#11] He will sit in the presence of a

"The land where, girt by friend or foe, A man may say the thing he will,"-

he pursues the same course in other lands where it is exceedingly misplaced. His doctrines of liberty and

"In rice strength, In an Indian manliness,[FN#13]"

say the Arabs. And the Persians apply the following pithy tale to their neighbours. "Brother," said the leopard to the jackal, "I crave a few of thy cast-off hairs; I want them for medicine;[FN#14] where can I find them?" "Wa'llahi!" replied the jackal, "I don't exactly know-I seldom change my coat-I wander about the hills. Allah is bounteous,[FN#15] brother! hairs are not so easily shed."

Woe to the unhappy Englishman, Pasha, or private soldier, who must serve an Eastern lord! Worst of all, if the master be an Indian, who, hating all Europeans,[FN#16] [p.40]adds an especial spite to Oriental coarseness, treachery, and tyranny. Even the experiment of associating with them is almost too hard to bear. But a useful deduction may be drawn from such observations; and as few have had greater experience than myself, I venture to express my opinion with confidence, however unpopular or unfashionable it may be.

I am convinced that the natives of India cannot respect a European who mixes with them familiarly, or especially who imitates their customs, manners, and dress. The tight pantaloons, the authoritative voice, the pococurante manner, and the broken Hindustani impose upon them-have a weight which learning and honesty, which wit and courage, have not. This is to them the master's attitude: they bend to it like those Scythian slaves that faced the sword but fled from the horsewhip. Such would never be the case amongst a brave people, the Afghan for instance; and for the same reason it is not so, we read, with "White Plume," the North American Indian. "The free trapper combines in the eye of an Indian (American) girl, all that is dashing and heroic in a warrior of her own race, whose gait and garb and bravery he emulates, with all that is gallant and glorious in the white man." There is but one cause for this phenomenon; the "imbelles Indi" are still, with few exceptions,[FN#17] a cowardly and slavish people, who would raise themselves by depreciating those superior to them in the scale of creation. The Afghans and American aborigines, being chivalrous races, rather exaggerate the valour of their foes, because by so doing they exalt their own.[FN#18]

LIFE IN THE WAKALAH.

THE "Wakalah," as the Caravanserai or Khan is called in Egypt, combines the offices of hotel, lodging-house, and store. It is at Cairo, as at Constantinople, a massive pile of buildings surrounding a quadrangular "Hosh" or court-yard. On the ground-floor are rooms like caverns for merchandise, and shops of different kinds-tailors, cobblers, bakers, tobacconists, fruiterers, and others. A roofless gallery or a covered verandah, into which all the apartments open, runs round the first and sometimes the second story: the latter, however, is usually exposed to the sun and wind. The accommodations consist of sets of two or three rooms, generally an inner one and an outer; the latter contains a hearth for cooking, a bathing-place, and similar necessaries. The staircases are high, narrow, and exceedingly dirty; dark at night, and often in bad repair; a goat or donkey is tethered upon the different landings; here and there a fresh skin is stretched in process of tanning, and the smell reminds the veteran traveller of those closets in the old French

This is not a tempting picture, yet is the Wakalah a most amusing place, presenting a succession of scenes which would delight lovers of the Dutch school-a rich exemplification of the grotesque, and what is called by artists the "dirty picturesque."

I could find no room in the Wakalah Khan Khalil, the Long's, or Meurice's of native Cairo; I was therefore obliged to put up with the Jamaliyah, a Greek quarter, swarming with drunken Christians, and therefore about as fashionable as Oxford Street or Covent Garden. Even for this I had to wait a week. The pilgrims were flocking to Cairo, and to none other would the prudent hotel keepers open their doors, for the following sufficient reasons. When you enter a Wakalah, the first thing you have to do is to pay a small sum, varying from two to five shillings, for the Miftah (the key). This is generally equivalent to a month's rent; so the sooner you leave the house the better for it. I was obliged to call myself a Turkish pilgrim in order to get possession of two most comfortless rooms, which I afterwards learned were celebrated for making travellers ill; and I had to pay eighteen piastres for the key and eighteen ditto per mensem for

But I was fortunate enough in choosing the Jamaliyah Wakalah, for I found a friend there. On board the steamer a fellow-voyager, seeing me sitting alone and therefore as he conceived in discomfort, placed himself by my side and opened a hot fire of kind inquiries. He was a man about forty-five, of middle size, with a large round head closely shaven, a bull-neck, limbs sturdy as a Saxon's, a thin red beard, and handsome features beaming with benevolence. A curious dry humour he had, delighting in "quizzing," but in so quiet, solemn, and quaint a way that before you knew him you could scarcely divine his drift.

"Thank Allah, we carry a doctor!" said my friend more than once, with apparent fervour of gratitude, after he had discovered my profession. I was fairly taken in by the pious ejaculation, and some days elapsed before the drift of his remark became apparent.

"You doctors," he explained, when we were more intimate, "what do you do? A man goes to you for ophthalmia: it is a purge, a blister, and a drop in the eye! Is it for fever? well! a purge and kinakina (quinine). For dysentery? a purge and extract of opium. Wa'llahi! I am as good a physician as the best of you," he would add with a broad grin, "if I only knew the Dirham-birhams,[FN#1]-drams and drachms,-and a few break-jaw Arabic names of diseases."

Haji Wali[FN#2] therefore emphatically advised me to

When we lived under the same roof, the Haji and I became fast friends. During the day we called on each other frequently, we dined together, and passed the evening in a Mosque, or some other place of public pastime. Coyly at first, but less guardedly as we grew bolder, we smoked the forbidden weed "Hashish,[FN#3]" conversing lengthily the while about that world of which I had seen so much. Originally from Russia, he also had been a traveller, and in his wanderings he had cast off most of the prejudices of his people. "I believe in Allah and his Prophet, and in nothing else," was his sturdy creed; he rejected alchemy, jinnis and magicians, and truly he had a most unoriental distaste for tales of wonder. When I entered the Wakalah, he constituted himself my cicerone, and especially guarded me against the cheating of trades-men. By his advice I laid aside the Darwaysh's gown, the large blue pantaloons, and the short shirt; in fact all connection with Persia and the Persians. "If you persist in being an 'Ajami," said the Haji, "you will get yourself into trouble; in Egypt you will be cursed; in Arabia you will be beaten because you are a heretic; you will pay the treble of what other travellers do, and if you fall sick you may die by the roadside." After long deliberation about

Haji Wali, by profession a merchant at Alexandria, had accompanied Khudabakhsh, the Indian, to Cairo on law-business. He soon explained his affairs to me, and as his case brought out certain Oriental peculiarities in a striking light, with his permission I offer a few of its details.

My friend was defendant in a suit instituted against him in H.B.M.'s Consular Court, Cairo, by one Mohammed Shafi'a, a scoundrel of the first water. This man lived, and lived well, by setting up in business at places where his name was not known; he enticed the unwary by artful displays of capital; and, after succeeding in getting credit, he changed residence, carrying off all he could lay hands upon. But swindling is a profession of personal danger in uncivilised countries, where law punishes pauper debtors by a short imprisonment; and where the cheated prefer to gratify their revenge by the cudgel or the knife. So Mohammed Shafi'a, after a few narrow escapes, hit upon a prime expedient. Though known to be a native of Bokhara-he actually signed himself so in his letters, and his appearance at once bespoke his origin,-he determined to protect himself by a British passport. Our officials are sometimes careless enough in distributing these documents, and by so doing they expose themselves to a certain loss of reputation at Eastern courts[FN#5]; still Mohammed Shafi'a

Presently an unlucky adventure embroiled this worthy British subject with Faraj Yusuf, the principal merchant of Jeddah, and also an English protege. Fearing so powerful an adversary, Mohammed Shafi'a packed up his spoils and departed for Egypt. Presently he quarrels with his former partner, thinking him a soft man, and claims from him a debt of L165. He supports his pretensions by a document and four witnesses, who are ready to swear that the receipt in question was "signed, sealed, and delivered" by Haji Wali. The latter adduces his books to show that accounts have been settled, and can prove that the witnesses in question are paupers, therefore, not legal; moreover, that each has received from the plaintiff two dollars, the price of perjury.

Arrived at Cairo, Mohammed Shafi'a applied himself stoutly to the task of bribing all who could be useful to him, distributing shawls and piastres with great generosity. He secured the services of an efficient lawyer; and, determining to enlist heaven itself in his cause, he passed the Ramazan ostentatiously; he fasted, and he slaughtered sheep to feed the poor.

Meanwhile Haji Wali, a simple truth-telling man, who could never master the rudiments of that art which teaches man to blow hot and to blow cold with the same breath, had been persuaded to visit Cairo by Khudabakhsh, the wily Indian, who promised to introduce him to influential persons, and to receive him in his house till he could provide himself with a lodging at the Wakalah. But Mohammed Shafi'a, who had once been in partnership with the Indian, and who possibly knew more than was fit to meet the public ear, found this out; and, partly by begging, partly by bullying, persuaded Khudabakhsh to transfer the influential introductions to himself. Then the Hakim[FN#6] Abdullah-your humble servant-appears upon the scene: he has travelled in Feringistan, he has seen many men and their cities, he becomes an intimate and an adviser of the Haji, and he finds out evil passages in Mohammed Shafi'a's life. Upon which Khudabakhsh ashamed, or rather afraid of his duplicity, collects his Indian friends. The Hakim Abdullah draws up a petition

One would suppose that such a document would have elicited some inquiry.But Haji Wali was a Persian protege, and proceedings between the Consulates had commenced before the petition was presented. The pseudo-British subject, having been acknowledged as a real one, must be supported. Consuls, like kings, may err, but must not own to error. No notice was taken of the Indian petition; worse still, no inquiry into the slave-affair was set on foot[FN#7]; and it was discovered that the passport having been granted by a Consul-General could not with official etiquette be resumed by a Consul.[FN#8]

Such is a brief history, but too common, of a case in which the subject of an Eastern state has to contend against British influence. It is doubtless a point of honour to defend our proteges from injustice, but the higher principle should rest upon the base of common honesty. The worst part of such a case is, that the injured party has no redress.

"Fiat injustitia, ruat coelum,"

is the motto of his "natural protectors," who would violate every law to gratify the false pride of a petty English official. And, saving the rare exceptions where rank or wealth command consideration, with what face, to use the native phrase, would a hapless Turk appeal to the higher powers, our ministers or our Parliament?

After lodging myself in the Wakalah, my first object was to make a certain stir in the world. In Europe your travelling doctor advertises the loss of a diamond ring, the gift of a Russian autocrat; or he monopolises a whole column in a newspaper, feeing perhaps a title for the use of a signature; the large brass plate, the gold-headed cane, the rattling chariot, and the summons from the sermon complete the work. Here, there is no such Royal

There is a discomfort in such proceedings, a reasonable,

To resume. When the mob has raised you to fame, patients of a better class will slowly appear on the scene. After some coquetting about "etiquette," whether you are to visit them, or they are to call upon you, they make up their minds to see you, and to judge with their eyes whether you are to be trusted or not; whilst you, on your side, set out with the determination that they shall at once cross the Rubicon,-in less classical phrase, swallow your drug. If you visit the house, you insist upon the patient's servants attending you; he must also provide and pay an ass for your conveyance, no matter if it be only to the other side of the street. Your confidential man accompanies you, primed for replies to the "fifty searching questions" of the "servants' hall." You are lifted off the saddle tenderly, as nurses dismount their charges, when you arrive at the gate; and you waddle upstairs with dignity. Arrived at the sick room, you salute those present with a general "Peace be upon you!" to which they respond, "And upon thee be the peace and the mercy of Allah, and his blessing!" To the invalid you say, "There is nothing the matter, please Allah, except the health;" to which the proper answer-for here every

"The world is a carcass, and they who seek it are dogs."

And you refuse to treat the second disorder, which conduct may bring the refractory one to his senses. "Dat Galenus opes," however, is a Western apothegm: the utmost "Jalinus" can do for you here is to provide you with the necessaries and comforts of life. Whatever you prescribe must be solid and material, and if you accompany it with something painful, such as rubbing to scarification with a horse-brush, so much the better. Easterns, like our peasants in Europe, wish the doctor to "give them the value of their money." Besides which, rough measures act beneficially upon their imagination. So the Hakim of the King of Persia cured fevers by the bastinado; patients are beneficially baked in a bread-oven at Baghdad; and an Egyptian at Alexandria, whose quartan resisted the strongest appliances of European physic, was effectually healed by the actual cautery, which a certain Arab Shaykh applied to the crown of his head. When you administer with your own hand the remedy-half-a-dozen huge bread pills, dipped in a solution of aloes or cinnamon water, flavoured with assafoetida, which in the case of the dyspeptic rich often suffice, if they will but

"A.[FN#11]

"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful, and blessings and peace be upon our Lord the Apostle, and his family, and his companions one and all! But afterwards let him take bees-honey and cinnamon and album graecum, of each half a part, and of ginger a whole part, which let him pound and mix with the honey, and form boluses, each bolus the weight of a Miskal, and of it let him use every day a Miskal on the saliva.[FN#12] Verily its effects are wonderful. And let him abstain from flesh, fish, vegetables, sweetmeats, flatulent food, acids of all descriptions, as well as the major ablution, and live in perfect quiet. So shall he be cured by the help of the King, the Healer.[FN#13] And The Peace.[FN#14]"

The diet, I need scarcely say, should be rigorous; nothing has tended more to bring the European system of medicine into contempt among Orientals than our inattention to this branch of the therapeutic art. When an Hindi or a Hindu "takes medicine," he prepares himself for it by diet and rest two or three days before adhibition, and as gradually, after the dose, he relapses into his usual habits; if he break through the regime it is concluded that fatal results must ensue. The ancient Egyptians we learn from Herodotus devoted a certain number of days in each month to the use of alteratives, and the

When the prescription is written out, you affix an impression of your ring seal to the beginning and to the end of it, that no one may be able to add to or take from its contents. And when you send medicine to a patient of rank, who is sure to have enemies, you adopt some similar precaution against the box or the bottle being opened. One of the Pashas whom I attended,-a brave soldier who had been a favourite with Mohammed Ali, and therefore was degraded by his successor,-kept an impression of my ring in wax, to compare with that upon the phials. Men have not forgotten how frequently, in former times, those who became obnoxious to the State were seized with sudden and fatal cramps in the stomach. In the case of the doctor it is common prudence to adopt these precautions, as all evil consequences would be charged upon him, and he would be exposed to the family's revenge.

Cairo, though abounding in medical practitioners, can still support more; but to thrive they must be Indians, Chinese, or Maghrabis. The Egyptians are thoroughly disgusted with European treatment, which is here about as efficacious as in India-that is to say, not at all. But they are ignorant of the medicine of Hind, and therefore great is its name; deservedly perhaps, for skill in simples and dietetics. Besides which the Indian

The Haji repaid me for my docility by vaunting me everywhere as the very phoenix of physicians. My first successes were in the Wakalah; opposite to me there lived an Arab slave dealer, whose Abyssinians constantly fell sick. A tender race, they suffer when first transported to Egypt from many complaints, especially consumption, dysentery and varicose veins. I succeeded in curing one girl. As she was worth at least fifteen pounds, the gratitude of her owner was great, and I had to dose half a dozen others in order to cure them of the pernicious and price-lowering habit of snoring. Living in rooms opposite these slave girls, and seeing them at all hours of the day and night, I had frequent opportunities of studying them. They were average specimens of the steato-pygous Abyssinian breed, broad-shouldered, thin-flanked, fine-limbed, and with haunches of a prodigious size. None of them had handsome features, but the short curly hair that stands on end being concealed under a kerchief, there was something pretty in the brow, eyes, and upper part of the nose, coarse and sensual in the pendent lips, large jowl and projecting mouth, whilst the whole had a combination of piquancy with sweetness. Their style of flirtation was peculiar.

"How beautiful thou art, O Maryam!-what eyes!-what-"

"We are of one faith-of one creed-formed to form each other's happiness."

"Then why don't you buy me?"

"Conceive, O Maryam, the blessing of two hearts-"

"Then why don't you buy me?"

and so on. Most effectual gag to Cupid's eloquence! Yet was not the plain-spoken Maryam's reply without its moral. How often is it our fate, in the West as in the East, to see in bright eyes and to hear from rosy lips an implied, if not an expressed, "Why don't you buy me?" or, worse still, "Why can't you buy me?"

All I required in return for my services from the slave-dealer, whose brutal countenance and manners were truly repugnant, was to take me about the town, and explain to me certain mysteries in his craft, which knowledge might be useful in time to come. Little did he suspect who his interrogator was, and freely in his unsuspiciousness he entered upon the subject of slave hunting in the Somali country, and Zanzibar, of all things the most interesting to me. I have, however, nothing new to report concerning the present state of bondsmen in Egypt. England has already learned that slaves are not necessarily the most wretched and degraded of men. Some have been bold enough to tell the British public that, in the generality of Oriental countries,[FN#19] the serf fares far

Servants are most troublesome things to all Englishmen in Egypt, but especially to one travelling as a respectable native, and therefore expected to have slaves. After much deliberation, I resolved to take a Berberi,[FN#21]

Perhaps the reader may be curious to see the necessary expenses of a bachelor residing at Cairo. He must observe, however, in the following list that I was not a strict economist, and, besides that, I was a stranger in the country: inhabitants and old settlers would live as well for little more than two-thirds the sum.

------------------------------------------Piastres.Faddah. House rent at 18 piastres per mensem---------0-------24 Servant at 80 piastres per------do.----------2-------26

Breakfast for 10 eggs----------------------0--------5 self and Coffee-----------------------0-------10 servant. Water melon (now 5 piastres)-1--------0 Two rolls of bread-----------0-------10

2 lbs. of meat---------------2-------20 Two rolls of bread-----------0-------10 Dinner. Vegetables-------------------0-------20 Rice-------------------------0--------5 Oil and clarified butter-----1--------0

A skin of Nile water---------1--------0 Sundries. Tobacco[FN#25]---------------1--------0 Hammam (hot bath)------------3-------20 Oil and clarified butter-----1--------2 - - Total-------------------------------12-------50

Equal to about two shillings and sixpence.

It was not long before I happened to hit upon a proper teacher, in the person of Shaykh Mohammed al-Attar, or the "Druggist." He had known prosperity, having once been a Khatib (preacher) in one of Mohammed Ali's mosques. But His Highness the late Pasha had dismissed him, which disastrous event, with its subsequent train of misfortunes, he dates from the melancholy day when he took to himself a wife. He talks of her abroad as a stern and rigid master dealing with a naughty slave, though, by the look that accompanies his rhodomontade, I am convinced that at home he is the very model of "managed men." His dismissal was the reason that compelled him to fall back upon the trade of a druggist, the refuge for the once wealthy, though now destitute, Sages of Egypt.

His little shop in the Jamaliyah Quarter is a perfect gem of Nilotic queerness. A hole, about five feet long

When the Shaykh Mohammed sits with me, or I climb up into his little shop for the purpose of receiving a lesson from him, he is quite at his ease, reading when he likes, or making me read, and generally beginning each lecture with some such preamble as this[FN#34]:-

"Aywa! aywa! aywa![FN#35]"-Even so, even so, even so! we take refuge with Allah from Satan the Stoned! In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful, and the Blessings of Allah upon our Lord Mohammed, and his Family and his Companions one and all! Thus saith the author, may Almighty Allah have mercy upon him! ‘Section I. of chapter two, upon the orders of prayer,' &c."

He becomes fiercely sarcastic when I differ from him in opinion, especially upon a point of grammar, or the theology over which his beard has grown grey.

"Subhan' Allah! (Allah be glorified![FN#36]) What words are these? If thou be right, enlarge thy turband,[FN#37]" (i.e., set up as a learned man), "and throw away thy

Oriental-like, he revels in giving good counsel.

"Thou art always writing, O my brave![FN#38]" (this is said on the few occasions when I venture to make a note in my book), "what evil habit is this? Surely thou hast learned it in the lands of the Frank. Repent!"

He loathes my giving medical advice gratis.

"Thou hast two servants to feed, O my son! The doctors of Egypt never write A, B, without a reward. Wherefore art thou ashamed? Better go and sit upon the mountain[FN#39] at once" (i.e., go to the desert), "and say thy prayers day and night!"

And finally, he is prodigal of preaching upon the subject of household expenses.

"Thy servant did write down two pounds of flesh yesterday! What words are these, O he?[FN#40] Dost thou never say, ‘Guard us, Allah, from the sin of extravagance?'"

He delights also in abruptly interrupting a serious subject when it begins to weigh upon his spirits. For instance,

Now the waters of ablution being of seven different kinds, it results that-hast thou a wife?-No?-Then verily thou must buy thee a female slave, O youth! This conduct is not right, and men will say of thee-Repentance: I take refuge with Allah[FN#41]-‘of a truth his mouth watereth for the spouses of other Moslems.'"

"Fear Allah, O man!"