of God) to a set of dervishes in a mosque, and I think I never heard
anything more beautiful and affecting. Ordinary Arab singing is harsh
and nasal, but it can be wonderfully moving. Since we left Minieh we
have suffered dreadfully from the cold; the chickens died of it, and the
Arabs look blue and pinched. Of course it is _my weather_ and there
never was such cold and such incessant contrary winds known. To-day was
better, and Wassef, a Copt here, lent me his superb donkey to go up to
the tomb in the mountain. The tomb is a mere cavern, so defaced, but the
view of beautiful Siout standing in the midst of a loop of the Nile was
ravishing. A green deeper and brighter than England, graceful minarets
in crowds, a picturesque bridge, gardens, palm-trees, then the river
beyond it, the barren yellow cliffs as a frame all around that. At our
feet a woman was being carried to the grave, and the boys' voices rang
out the Koran full and clear as the long procession--first white turbans
and then black veils and robes--wound along. It is all a dream to me.
You can't think what an odd effect it is to take up an English book and
read it and then look up and hear the men cry, 'Yah Mohammad.' 'Bless
thee, Bottom, how art thou translated;' it is the reverse of all one's
former life when one sat in England and read of the East. '_Und nun sitz
ich mitten drein_' in the real, true Arabian Nights, and don't know
whether 'I be I as I suppose I be' or not.

Tell Alick the news, for I have not written to any but you. I do so long
for my Rainie. The little Copt girls are like her, only pale; but they
don't let you admire them for fear of the evil-eye.



December 20, 1862: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon