It is quite heartrending about my letters. I have 'got the eye'
evidently. The black slave of the poor dragoman who died in my house is
here still, and like a dog that has lost his master has devoted himself
to me. It seems nobody's business to take him away--as the Kadee did the
money and the goods--and so it looks as if I should quietly inherit poor
ugly Khayr. He is of a degree of ugliness quite transcendent, with teeth
filed sharp 'in order to eat people' as he says, but the most
good-humoured creature and a very fair laundry-maid. It is evidently no
concern of mine to send him to be sold in Cairo, so I wait the event. If
nobody ever claims him I shall keep him at whatever wages may seem fit,
and he will subside into liberty. _Du reste_, the Maohn here says he is
legally entitled to his freedom. If the new French Consul-General will
let me stay on here I will leave my furniture and come down straight to
your hospitable roof in Alexandria _en route_ for Europe. I fear my plan
of a dahabieh of my own would be too expensive, the wages of common
boatmen now are three napoleons a month. M. Prevost Paradol, whose
company has been a real _bonne fortune_ to me, will speak to the
Consul-General. I know all Thebes would sign a round-robin in my favour
if they only knew how, for I am very popular here, and the only _Hakeen_.
I have effected some brilliant cures, and get lots of presents. Eggs,
turkeys, etc., etc., it is quite a pleasure to see how the poor people
instead of trying to sponge on one are anxious to make a return for
kindness. I give nothing whatever but my physick. These country people
are very good. A nice young Circassian Cawass sat up with a stranger, a
dying Englishman, all night because I had doctored his wife. I have also
a pupil, Mustapha's youngest boy, a sweet intelligent lad who is pining
for an education. I wish he could go to England. He speaks English very
well and reads and writes indifferently, but I never saw a boy so wild to
learn. Is it difficult to get a boy into the Abbassieh college? as it is
gratuitous I suppose it is. I quite grieve over little Ach met forced to
dawdle away his time and his faculties here.