“'Anything you like.'.rdquo;
“'Christ, on whom be peace, raised men from the dead.'.rdquo;
“'So will I.' This took place before the king and the chief-justice. 'Let the head of the chief-justice be cut off,' said the pretended prophet, 'and I will restore him to life.'.rdquo;
“'Oh,' cried the chief-justice, 'I believe that the man is a real prophet. Anyone who does not believe can have his head cut off, and try it.'.rdquo;
“A woman also claimed to be a prophetess. 'But,' said the Khalif Haroun e' Rasheed, 'Mohammed declared that he was the last man who should be a prophet.'.rdquo;
“'He didn't say that a woman shouldn't be,' the woman she answer.”
The people vary in manners and habits here from village to village, much more than we supposed they would. Walking this morning for a couple of miles through the two villages of Maharraka—rude huts scattered under palm-trees—we find the inhabitants, partly Arab, partly Barabra, and many negro slaves, more barbaric than any we have seen; boys and girls, till the marriageable age, in a state of nature, women neither so shy nor so careful about covering themselves with clothing as in other places, and the slaves wretchedly provided for. The heads of the young children are shaved in streaks, with long tufts of hair left; the women are loaded with tawdry necklaces, and many of them, poor as they are, sport heavy hoops of gold in the nose, and wear massive silver bracelets.
The slaves, blacks and mulattoes, were in appearance like those seen formerly in our southern cotton-fields. I recall a picture, in abolition times, representing a colored man standing alone, and holding up his arms, in a manner beseeching the white man, passing by, to free him. To-day I saw the picture realized. A very black man, standing nearly naked in the midst of a bean-field, raised up both his arms, and cried aloud to us as we went by. The attitude had all the old pathos in it. As the poor fellow threw up his arms in a wild despair, he cried “Backsheesh, backsheesh, O! howadji!”
For the first time we found the crops in danger. The country was overrun with reddish-brown locusts, which settled in clouds upon every green thing; and the people in vain attempted to frighten them from their scant strip of grain. They are not, however, useless. The attractive women caught some, and, pulling off the wings and legs, offered them to us to eat. They said locusts were good; and I suppose they are such as John the Baptist ate. We are not Baptists.
As we go down the river we take in two or three temples a day, besides these ruins of humanity in the village,—-Dakkeh, Gerf Hossâyn, Dendoor. It is easy to get enough of these second-class temples. That at Gerf Hossâyn is hewn in the rock, and is in general arrangement like Ipsambool—it was also made by Rameses II.—but is in all respects inferior, and lacks the Colossi. I saw sitting in the adytum four figures whom I took to be Athos, Parthos, Aramis, and D'Artignan—though this edifice was built long before the day of the “Three Guardsmen.”