any doubts existed, they were quelled when
a little boy who exclaimed "bakshish," got for
answer, "Matish!"—I have nothing for you.

Lodged in an old house, our hadji lost no
time in securing the services of a shaykh; a
sort of reverend Moslem grinder, with whom
he plunged into the intricacies of the Faith;
revived his recollections of religious
ablution; read the Koran, and again became an
adept in the art of prostration. His leisure
hours were employed in attending bazaars,
and in shopping.

Being versed in medicine, as well as magic,
and mesmerism, our pilgrim assumed the
character of a dervish and doctor, and took a
third-class passage on the Little Astmalie
steamer, plying on the canal between
Alexandria and Cairo. On board this boat he made
the acquaintance of Khudabakhsh, a shawl-
merchant from Lahore; who, after trading in
London and Paris, and taking a pilgrimage to
wash away the sins of civilised lands, had
settled at Cairo. He was a gentleman with a
sooty complexion, lank black hair, with an
eternal smile and treacherous eyes. He also
made a friend of a very worthy fellow, one
Hadji Wali.

Arrived at Bulac, or Old Cairo, the Indian
merchant insisted that the dervish should
make his house his home; and there he spent
a fortnight; until, quite wearied out with the
civilisation tricks of his host, and with the
perpetual sociality; the peculiarity of Eastern
life, which never leaves a guest alone one
moment, even when sleeping. Therefore,
from the Indian's country house our British
dervish moved to a wakálah, or caravanserai;
where, for the unusually high charge (it
being the pilgrim season) of about fourpence
a-day, paid in advance for a month, he got
possession of two rooms, with a covered
verandah, looking on a hollow square. The
staircases were high, narrow, exceedingly
dirty, and dark at night; with a goat or
donkey tethered on the different landings.
At these lodgings the pilgrim again met with
Hadji Wali, who became his fast friend; and,
by his advice after a long deliberation about
choice of nations, he became a Pathan, "born
of Affghan parents in India, educated at
Rangoon, and sent out to wander, according to the
custom of men of that race." His knowledge
of Persian, Hindoostani, and Arabic were
sufficient to pass muster; any trifling
inaccuracies being charged on his long residence
at Rangoon. This was an important step; for it
seems that, in the East, as in the West, the
first question put to the traveller is, What is thy
name, and the second, Whence comest thou?
He assumed the polite pliant manner of an
Indian physician, and the dress of a small
effendi (gentleman) still representing himself
as a dervish, and frequenting the places
where dervishes congregated.

Having thus settled his position, our
pilgrim began to practise, gratuitously, on poor
people; until, his fame spreading, he rose
to be called in to great dignitaries, their
seraglios, and female slaves, on whom he
practised with great success, not drugs only,
but charms, after the modes of animal
magnetisers. Thus he acquired the character of
the Sahib Nafas, or minor saint. After many
trials of candidates for his service, the
pilgrim at last settled on an Indian boy,
Shaykh Nur, who was anxious to return
to his parents at Mecca. Having a swarthy
skin and chubby features, the youth was
always taken for an Abyssinian slave,
which favoured his master's disguise. He
served well, was amenable to discipline, and
so entirely dependent, that he was less likely
to watch too closely the proceedings of the
disguised traveller. At the same time, brave
at Cairo, he was a coward at El-Medinah;
despised by the Arabs for his effeminacy, and
at all times unable to keep his hands from
picking and stealing.

The next care at Cairo was to obtain a
shaykh or theological teacher, such as the
dervish has read with in Alexandria, under
pretence that the Indian doctor wanted to read
Arabic works on medicine. His Caireen
teacher was Shaykh Mohammed-el- Attar, or
the Druggist; a gentleman who had once
known better days as a preacher in one of
Mohammed Ali's mosques; but, having been
dismissed, was obliged to fall back upon "A
hole pierced in the wall of a house, about five
feet long and six feet deep, divided into two
compartments separated by a thin partition
of wood, communicating by a kind of arch
cut in the boards—the inner box a storehouse,
as a pile of empty old baskets shows.
In the front was displayed the stock in trade
—a matting full of Persian tobacco, and pipe
bowls of red clay, a palm-leaf bag containing
vile coffee and large lumps of coarse whitey-
brown sugar wrapped in browner paper. On
the shelves and ledges were rows of well-
thumbed wooden boxes, labelled, with the
greatest carelessness, pepper for rhubarb,
arsenic for wash-clay, and sulphate of iron
where sal ammoniac should be. There also
was a square case containing, under lock and
key, small change, choice articles of
commerce, damaged perfumes, bad antimony for
the eyes, and pernicious rouge. Dangling
close above a pair of ill-poised scales, to hooks
over the shop-front, were suspended reeds
for pipes, tallow candles, dirty wax tapers;
instead of plate-glass windows, a ragged net
keeps away flies and thieves, when the master
went out to recite in the mosque his daily
Ya Sin." When the pupil climbed up the
little shop for the purpose of receiving
a lesson, Shaykh Mohammed was quite
at his ease; reading when he liked, and
generally beginning each lecture with some
such preamble as this: "Ayna aywar aywa.
Even so, even so, even so, we take refuge
with Allah from the stoned fiend. In the
name of Allah the compassionate, the
merciful; and the blessings of Allah upon our