y--'It is but the fulfilment of
prophecy! When I was a little child, I was taught that in this year great
things would commence, which would require three years for their
completion!' Surely she drew a beautiful conclusion," adds Mrs Poole, "and
under circumstances of painful feelings to one strictly attached to the
laws of her religion." But the allusion appears to have been a belief long
current in the East, that a mysterious combination was involved in the
number 1260, (the year of the Hejra which has just closed,) portending
"the beginning of the end" of Islam, if not of the world; and of which
this infringement of Moslem supremacy appeared to be the first
manifestation.[21]

The advantages of the English costume were strongly evinced on Mrs Poole's
presentation, by her friend Mrs Siedler, to the haughty Nezleh Hanum, the
widowed daughter of Mohammed Ali, in her apartments at the
Kasr-ed-Dubarah, a palace in the midst of Ibrahim Pasha's plantations on
the banks of the Nile, which is the usual residence of the ladies of the
Pasha's family. Mrs Dawson Damer has drawn a sufficiently unamiable
picture of this princess, whose cruelty to her attendants she represents
as emulating that displayed in his public character by her late husband,
the Defterdar Mohammed Bey.[22] But nothing but the _patte de velours_ was
seen by the English stranger, who, though Nezleh Hanum was severely
indisposed at the time of her visit, was, by her express command, shown
into her bedroom, and received "with the sweetest smile imaginable;" while
the youngest son of the Pasha, Mohammed Ali Bey, a boy nine years old, sat
on a cushion at his sister's feet, conversing with the visitor in French;
his mother, and other ladies, sitting on Mrs Poole's left hand. The day
happened to be the fourth of the festival of the Great Beiram, when it was
customary for those ladies who had the privilege of the _entree_, to pay
their respects to the princess. But to not one of those who presented
themselves at this levee, did Nezleh Hanum deign to address a word in
acknowledgment of their salutation, as they silently advanced, with
downcast eyes, to kiss her hand or the hem of her robe, and then as
silently withdrew, without once raising their eyes to her face. "This
etiquette, I an informed, is not only observed during her illness, but at
all times: and here I felt peculiarly the advantage of being an
Englishwoman; for she kept up with me a lively conversation, and