And now the banks are lovely with an unwonted wealth of verdure. The young corn clothes the plain like a carpet, while the yellow-tasseled mimosa, the feathery tamarisk, the dôm and date palm, and spreading sycamore-fig, border the towing-path like garden trees beside a garden walk. Farther on still, when all this greenery is left behind and the banks have again become flat and bare, we see to our exceeding surprise what seems to be a very large grizzled ape perched on the top of a dust-heap on the western bank. The creature is evidently quite tame, and sits on its haunches in just that chilly, melancholy posture that the chimpanzee is wont to assume in his cage at the Zoological Gardens. Some six or eight Arabs, one of whom has dismounted from his camel for the purpose, are standing round and staring at him, much as the British public stand and stare at the specimen in the Regent’s Park. Meanwhile a strange excitement breaks out among our crew. They crowd to the side; they shout; they gesticulate; the captain salaams; the steersman waves his hand; all eyes are turned toward the shore. “Do you see Sheik Selîm?” cries Talhamy, breathlessly, rushing up from below. “There he is! Look at him! That is Sheik Selîm!” And so we find out that it is not a monkey but a man--and not only a man, but a saint. Holiest of the holy, dirtiest of the dirty, white-pated, white-bearded, withered, bent, and knotted up, is the renowned Sheik Selîm--he who, naked and unwashed, has sat on that same spot every day through summer heat and winter cold for the last fifty years; never providing himself with food or water; never even lifting his hand to his mouth; depending on charity not only for his food but for his feeding! He is not nice to look at, even by this dim light, and at this distance; but the sailors think him quite beautiful, and call aloud to him for his blessing as we go by. “It is not by our own will that we sail past, O father!” they cry. “Fain would we kiss thy hand; but the wind blows and the mérkeb (boat) goes, and we have no power to stay!” But Sheik Selîm neither lifts his head nor shows any sign of hearing, and in a few minutes the mound on which he sits is left behind in the gloaming.