I Found Time For A Short Excursion To A Country Village On The Banks Of The Canal; Nor Was An

Opportunity of seeing "Al-nahl," the "Bee-dance;" neglected, for it would be some months before my eyes might dwell

On such a pleasant spectacle again. "Delicias videam, Nile jocose, tuas!"

Careful of graver matters, I attended the mosque, and visited the venerable localities in which modern Alexandria abounds. Pilgrimaging Moslems are here

[p.12]shown the tomb of Al-nabi Daniyal (Daniel the Prophet), discovered upon a spot where the late Sultan Mahmud dreamed that he saw an ancient man at prayer.[FN#18] Sikandar al-Rumi, the Moslem Alexander the Great, of course left his bones in the place bearing his name, or, as he ought to have done so, bones have been found for him. Alexandria also boasts of two celebrated Walis-holy men. One is Mohammed al-Busiri, the author of a poem called Al-Burdah, universally read by the world of Islam, and locally recited at funerals and on other solemn occasions. The other is Abu Abbas al-Andalusi, a sage and saint of the first water, at whose tomb prayer is never breathed in vain.

It is not to be supposed that the people of Alexandria could look upon my phials and pill-boxes without a yearning for their contents. An Indian doctor, too, was a novelty to them; Franks they despised,-but a man who had come so far from East and West! Then there was something infinitely seducing in the character of a magician, doctor, and fakir, each admirable of itself, thus combined to make "great medicine." Men, women, and children besieged my door, by which means I could see the people face to face, and especially the fair sex, of which Europeans, generally speaking, know only the worst specimens. Even respectable natives, after witnessing a performance of "Mandal" and the Magic mirror[FN#19], opined that the stranger was a holy man, gifted

[p.13]with supernatural powers, and knowing everything. One old person sent to offer me his daughter in marriage; he said nothing about dowry,-but I thought proper to decline the honour. And a middle-aged lady proffered me the sum of one hundred piastres, nearly one pound sterling, if I would stay at Alexandria, and superintend the restoration of her blind left eye.

But the reader must not be led to suppose that I acted "Carabin" or "Sangrado" without any knowledge of my trade. From youth I have always been a dabbler in medical and mystical study. Moreover, the practice of physic is comparatively easy amongst dwellers in warm latitudes, uncivilised peoples, where there is not that complication of maladies which troubles more polished nations. And further, what simplifies extremely the treatment of the sick in these parts is the undoubted periodicity of disease, reducing almost all to one type-ague.[FN#20] Many of the complaints of tropical climates, as medical men well know, display palpably intermittent symptoms little known to colder countries; and speaking from individual experience, I may safely assert that in all cases of suffering, from a wound to ophthalmia, this phenomenon has forced itself upon my notice.

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