As soon as the money was counted out, I went to our sheîkh of Saqâra, whose unmerited ill-fortune seriously discomforted me, and returned him publicly the half of his money, with the confidential assurance that the rest should be restored on the departure of the Mudhir. This was so unexpected on the part of the reverend sheikh, that he long stared at me incredulously, then kissed my hands and feet, and called me his best friend on earth,--I, who had just been at least the indirect cause of his stately beard having been mingled with the dust, and of his feet being beaten into week-enduring pain. His surprised pleasure did not, however, so much have me for its object as the unexpected sight of the money, that never fails in its magical effects on the Arab. There is in the Arab a remarkable mixture of noble pride and low avarice, which is at first quite incomprehensible to the European. His free, noble carriage and imperturbable rest seem to express nothing but a proud feeling of honour. But against the least prospect of profit this melts like wax in the sun, and the most debasing usage is of no consideration when money is at stake, but is creepingly borne. One of these two natures appears at first to be but apparent or delusive; but the contradiction comes back in every shape, in little things and great, too often not to cause the conviction that it is characteristic of the Arab, if not of the whole cast. The Egyptians had so degenerated already in the Roman æra, that Ammianus Marcellinus could say of them, “_Erubescit apud eos, si quis non infitiando tributa plurimas in corpore vibices ostendat_;” just in the same way the Fellah to-day points to his red weals with a contented smile as soon as the tax-gatherer had departed, _minus_ a few of his desired piastres, notwithstanding his instruments of torture.[27] LETTER IX. CAIRO. _April 22, 1843._