he should
be killed, his "small stock of valuables" was to be divided between her
and his sister.

Once more Burton had the keen pleasure of putting on disguise. Richard
F. Burton ceased to be, and a muscular and powerful Mirza Abdullah, of
Bushire, took his place. "I have always wished to see," he explained to
a friend, "what others have been content to hear of." He wore long hair
and Oriental costume, and his face and limbs were stained with henna.
Accompanied by Captain Henry Grindlay of the Bengal Cavalry, he left
London for Southampton, 3rd April 1853, and thence took steamer for
Egypt, without ever a thought of Isabel Arundell's blue eye or Rapunzel
hair, and utterly unconscious of the sighs he had evoked. At Alexandria
he was the guest of Mr. John Thurburn and his son-in-law, Mr. John
Larking [108], at their residence "The Sycamores," but he slept in an
outhouse in order the better to delude the servants. He read the Koran
sedulously, howled his prayers with a local shaykh who imparted to
him the niceties of the faith, purified himself, made an ostentatious
display of piety, and gave out that he was a hakim or doctor preparing
to be a dervish. As he had some knowledge of medicine, this role was
an easy one, and his keen sense of humour made the experience enjoyable
enough. On the steamer that carried him to Cairo, he fraternized
with two of his fellow-passengers, a Hindu named Khudabakhsh and an
Alexandrian merchant named Haji Wali. Haji Wali, whose connection with
Burton lasted some thirty years [109], was a middle-aged man with a
large round head closely shaven, a bull neck, a thin red beard, handsome
features which beamed with benevolence, and a reputation for wiliness
and cupidity. Upon their arrival at Boulak, the port of Cairo.
Khudabakhsh, who lived there, invited Burton to stay with him.
Hindu-like, Khudabakhsh wanted his guest to sit, talk, smoke, and sip
sherbet all day. But this Burton could not endure. Nothing, as he
says, suits the English less than perpetual society, "an utter want of
solitude, when one cannot retire into one self an instant without being
asked some puerile questions by a companion, or look into a book without
a servant peering over one's shoulder." At last, losing all patience, he
left his host and went to a khan, where he once more met Haji Wali.
They smoked together the forbidden weed hashish, and grew confidential.
Following Haji Wali's advice, Burton, having changed his dress,