Your letter of the 10 December most luckily came on to Edfoo by the
American Consul-General, who overtook us there in his steamer and gave me
a lunch. Maurice was as usual up to his knees in a distant swamp trying
to shoot wild geese. Now we are up close to Assouan, and there are no
more marshes; but _en revanche_ there are quails and _kata_, the
beautiful little sand grouse. I eat all that Maurice shoots, which I
find very good for me; and as for Maurice he has got back his old round
boyish face; he eats like an ogre, walks all day, sleeps like a top,
bathes in the morning and has laid on flesh so that his clothes won't
button. At Esneh we fell in with handsome Hassan, who is now Sheykh of
the Abab'deh, as his elder brother died. He gave us a letter to his
brother at Syaleh, up in Nubia; ordering him to get up a gazelle hunt for
Maurice, and I am to visit his wife. I think it will be pleasant, as the
Bedaween women don't veil or shut up, and to judge by the men ought to be
very handsome. Both Hassan and Abu Goord, who was with him, preached the
same sermon as my learned friend Abdurrachman had done at Luxor. 'Why,
in God's name, I left my son without a wife?' They are sincerely shocked
at such indifference to a son's happiness.
ASSOUAN,
10 _Ramadan_.
I have no almanach, but you will be able to know the date by your own red
pocketbook, which determined the beginning of Ramadan at Luxor this year.
They received a telegram fixing it for Thursday, but Sheykh Yussuf said
that he was sure the astronomers in London knew best, and made it Friday.
To-morrow we shall make our bargain, and next day go up the
Cataract--Inshallah, in safety. The water is very good, as Jesus the
black pilot tells me. He goes to the second Cataract and back, as I
intend to stay nearly two months in Nubia. The weather here is perfect
now, we have been lucky in having a lovely mild winter hitherto. We are
very comfortable with a capital crew, who are all devoted to Maurice.
The Sheykh of the Abab'deh has promised to join us if he can, when he has
convoyed some 400 Bashibazouks up to Wady Halfa, who are being sent up
because the English are in Abyssinia.