her no end of kisses, and
thank her for the cock robin, which pleased me quite as much as she
thought it would.

January 5, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

_Tuesday_, _January_ 5, 1864.

We left Siout this afternoon. The captain had announced that we should
start at ten o'clock, so I did not go into the town, but sent Omar to buy
food and give my letter and best salaam to Wassef. But the men of
Darfoor all went off declaring that they would stop, promising to cut off
the captain's head if he went without them. Hassan Effendi, the Turk,
was furious, and threatened to telegraph his complaints to Cairo if we
did not go directly, and the poor captain was in a sad quandary. He
appealed to me, peaceably sitting on the trunk of a palm-tree with some
poor _fellaheen_ (of whom more anon). I uttered the longest sentence I
could compose in Arabic, to the effect that he was captain, and that
while on the boat we were all bound to obey him. '_Mashallah_! one
English Hareem is worth more than ten men for sense; these Ingeleez have
only one word both for themselves and for other people:
_doghree_--_doghree_ (right is right); this Ameereh is ready to obey like
a memlook, and when she has to command--whew!'--with a most expressive
toss back of the head. The bank was crowded with poor _fellaheen_ who
had been taken for soldiers and sent to await the Pasha's arrival at
Girgeh; three weeks they lay there, and were then sent down to Soohaj
(the Pasha wanted to see them himself and pick out the men he liked);
eight days more at Soohaj, then to Siout eight days more, and meanwhile
Ismail Pasha has gone back to Cairo and the poor souls may wait
indefinitely, for no one will venture to remind the Pasha of their
trifling existence. _Wallah_, _wallah_!

While I was walking on the bank with M. and Mme. Mounier, a person came
up and saluted them whose appearance puzzled me. Don't call me a Persian
when I tell you it was an eccentric Bedawee young lady. She was eighteen
or twenty at most, dressed like a young man, but small and feminine and
rather pretty, except that one eye was blind. Her dress was handsome,
and she had women's jewels, diamonds, etc., and a European watch and
chain. Her manner was excellent, quite _ungenirt_, and not the least
impudent or swaggering, and I was told--indeed, I could hear--that her
language was b