[p.230] Yambu’ road, accompanied us to Al-Madinah, lived there, and journeyed to Meccah with the Syrian pilgrimage; yet he had not once come to visit me or to see his brother, the boy Mohammed. When gently reproached for this omission, he declared it to be his way—that he never called upon strangers until sent for. He was a perfect Saudawi (melancholist) in mind, manners, and personal appearance, and this class of humanity in the East is almost as uncomfortable to the household as the idiot of Europe. I was frequently obliged to share my meals with him, as his mother—though most filially and reverentially entreated—would not supply him with breakfast two hours after the proper time, or with a dinner served up forty minutes before the rest of the household. Often, too, I had to curb, by polite deprecation, the impetuosity of the fiery old Kabirah’s tongue. Thus Abdullah and I became friends, after a fashion. He purchased several little articles required, and never failed to pass hours in my closet, giving me much information about the country; deploring the laxity of Meccan morals, and lamenting that in these evil days his countrymen had forfeited their name at Cairo and at Constantinople. His curiosity about the English in India was great, and I satisfied it by praising, as a Moslem would, their politike, their evenhanded justice, and their good star. Then he would inquire into the truth of a fable extensively known on the shores of the Mediterranean and of the Red Sea. The English, it is said, sent a mission to Mohammed, inquiring into his doctrines, and begging that the heroic Khalid bin Walid[FN#4] might be sent to proselytise them. Unfortunately,