here they had lived.
Cotton rotting in all directions and the dry tops crackling under the
bows of the boat. When we stopped to buy milk, the poor woman exclaimed:
'Milk! from where? Do you want it out of my breasts?' However, she took
our saucepan and went to get some from another family. No one refuses it
if they have a drop left, for they all believe the murrain to be a
punishment for churlishness to strangers--by whom committed no one can
say. Nor would they fix a price, or take more than the old rate. But
here everything has doubled in price.

Never did a present give such pleasure as Mme. De Leo's bracelet. De Leo
came quite overflowing with gratitude at my having remembered such a
trifle as his attending me and coming three times a day! He thinks me
looking better, and advises me to stay on here till I feel it cold. Mr.
Thayer's underling has been doing Levantine rogueries, selling the
American protege's claims to the Egyptian Government, and I witnessed a
curious phase of Eastern life. Omar, when he found him in _my_ house,
went and ordered him out. I was ill in bed, and knew nothing till it was
done, and when I asked Omar how he came to do it, he told me to be civil
to him if I saw him as it was not for me to know what he was; that was
his (Omar's) business. At the same time Mr. Thayer's servant sent him a
telegram so insolent that it amounted to a kicking. Such is the Nemesis
for being a rogue here. The servants know you, and let you feel it. I
was quite 'flabbergasted' at Omar, who is so reverential to me and to the
Rosses, and who I fancied trembled before every European, taking such a
tone to a man in the position of a 'gentleman.' It is a fresh proof of
the feeling of actual equality among men that lies at the bottom of such
great inequality of position. Hekekian Bey has seen a Turkish Pasha's
shins kicked by his own servants, who were cognizant of his misdeeds.
Finally, on Thursday we got the keys of the house, and Omar came with two
_ferashes_ and shovelled out the Levantine dirt, and scoured and
scrubbed; and on Friday afternoon (yesterday) we came in. Zeyneb has
been very good ever since she has been with us, she will soon be a
complete 'dragowoman,' for she is learning Arabic from Omar and English
from us fast. In Janet's house she only heard a sort of 'lingua franca'
of Greek, Italian, Nubian and English. She asked me 'How piccolo bint?'
(How's the little girl?) a fine specimen of