est maiden who shrank from all profane company.

I now know all about Sheykh Seleem, and why he sits naked on the river
bank; from very high authority--a great Sheykh to whom it has been
revealed. He was entrusted with the care of some of the holy she camels,
like that on which the Prophet rode to Jerusalem in one night, and which
are invisible to all but the elect, and he lost one, and now he is God's
prisoner till she is found.

A letter from aunt Charley all about her own and Rainie's country life,
school feasts etc., made me quite cry, and brought before me--oh, how
vividly--the difference between East and West, not quite _all_ to the
advantage of home however, though mostly. What is pleasant here is the
primitive ways. Three times since I have been here lads of most
respectable families of Luxor have come to ask hospitality, which
consists in a place on the deck of the boat, and liberty to dip their
bread in the common dish with my slave boy and Achmet. The bread they
brought with them, 'bread and shelter' were not asked, as they slept _sub
dio_. In England I must have refused the hospitality, on account of
_gene_ and expense. The chief object to the lads was the respectability
of being under my eye while away from their fathers, as a satisfaction to
their families; and while they ate and slept like beggars, as we should
say, they read their books and chatted with me, when I was out on the
deck, on perfectly equal terms, only paying the respect proper to my age.
I thought of the 'orphanages and institutions' and all the countless
difficulties of that sort, and wondered whether something was not to be
said for this absence of civilization in knives, forks, beds, beer, and
first and second tables above all. Of course climate has a good deal to
do with the facility with which widows and orphans are absorbed here.

Goodbye dearest Mutter: to-day is post day, and Reis Mohammed is about to
trudge into town in such a dazzling white turban and such a grand black
robe. His first wife, whom he was going to divorce for want of children,
has brought him a son, and we jeer him a little about what he may find in
Luxor from the second, and wish him a couple of dozen.

October 15, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

CAIRO,
_October_ 15, 1866.