"I mentioned last night," said Voltaire, "that I had spent some time in
Egypt up by the Nile. The story I have to tell relates to that part of
the world.

"I had sailed up the Nile, by one of the ordinary river steamers, to a
place called Aboo Simbel, close to the Second Cataract. Here the
ordinary tourist stops, and stops too at the beginning of what really
interests an imaginative mind. There are, however, some fine ruins here
which well repay one for a visit. Ah me! _One_ wishes he had lived three
or four thousand years ago when he stands among those ancient piles.
There was some wisdom then, some knowledge of the deep things of life!
However, I did not stay here. I went with my friend Kaffar away further
into the heart of Nubia.

"I cannot speak highly of the rank and file of the people there. They
are mostly degraded and uncultured, lacking"--here he bowed to the
ladies--"that delightful polish which characterizes those who live in
the West. Still I found some relics of the wisdom of the ancients. One
of the sheiks of a village that lay buried among palm trees was deeply
versed in the things I longed to know, and with him I took up my abode.

"Abou al Phadre was an old man, and not one whom the ladies would
love--that is, for his face, for it was yellow and wrinkled; his eyes,
too, were almost buried in their cavernous sockets, and shaded by bushy
white eyebrows. Those who love the higher powers, however, and can
respect the divine power of knowledge, would have knelt at Abou's feet.

"This wonderful man had a daughter born to him in his old age, born,
too, with the same love for truth, the same thirst for a knowledge of
things unseen to the ordinary eye. So much was this so, that she was