Notes from Egypt

Dearest Alick,

The high winds have begun with a vengeance and a great bore they are.

I went a few days ago out to Medarnoot, and lunched in Mustapha’s tent, among his bean harvest. I was immensely amused by the man who went with me on to Medarnoot, one Sheriff, formerly an illustrious robber, now a watchman and very honest man. He rode a donkey, about the size of Stirling’s wee pony, and I laughed, and said, ‘The man should carry the ass.’ No sooner said than done, Sheriff dismounted, or rather let his beast down from between his legs, shouldered the donkey, and ran on. His way of keeping awake is original; the nights are still cold, so he takes off all his clothes, rolls them up and lays them under his head, and the cold keeps him quite lively. I never saw so powerful, active and healthy an animal. He was full of stories how he had had 1,000 stripes of the courbash on his feet and 500 on his loins at one go. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why, I stuck a knife into a cawass who ordered me to carry water-melons; I said I was not his donkey; he called me worse: my blood got up, and so!—and the Pasha to whom the cawass belonged beat me. Oh, it was all right, and I did not say “ach” once, did I?’ (addressing another). He clearly bore no malice, as he felt no shame. He has a grand romance about a city two days’ journey from here, in the desert, which no one finds but by chance, after losing his way; and where the ground is strewed with valuable anteekehs (antiquities). I laughed, and said, ‘Your father would have seen gold and jewels.’ ‘True,’ said he, ‘when I was young, men spit on a statue or the like, when they turned it up in digging, and now it is a fortune to find one.’