[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. So much by way of excuse.
I therefore considered myself as well qualified for the work as if I
had taken out a buono per l'estero diploma at Padua, and not more
likely to do active harm than most of the regularly graduated young
surgeons who start to "finish" themselves upon the frame of the British
soldier.

After a month's hard work at Alexandria, I prepared to assume the
character of a wandering Darwaysh; after