The very hazy notions about all foreign places, and the blankness of ignorance concerning surrounding Nature, is a strong reminder of mediaeval times. To say that the earth is round is flat heresy in Egypt; and even the _ulema_ of Cairo--learned in all the wisdom of Islam--walked out of the government examination room to which they had been invited when a pupil was examined in geography. To listen to a description of a round world was too atrocious an insult to them. The dim ideas of Europe--some far-off heathenish land of infidels--and the questions as to how many Muslims there are in our towns and villages, show the peasant, even when intelligent, to be much on a level with the audience of Sir John Mandeville. It is no wonder that in such ignorance there is a mighty fanaticism. Islam is all in all to the fellah: the unbelievers he looks on as a miserable minority; and it is only the unpleasant fact that they cannot be crushed at present that prevents his crushing them, and asserting the supremacy of Islam. A clever Arab once remarked to me concerning a department which was mismanaged by European direction, ‘How much better it would be to have an Arab over it!’ But on my asking where he could find a native whose corruption would not be far worse than the present rule, he could but reluctantly give in. This fanatical feeling of dislike to the Nusrani, or Nazarene, was the mainstay of Arabi’s revolt; and the very existence of such a feeling shows how dangerous it might become if fed on success. The children unintentionally reveal what is the tone and talk of the households in private; they constantly greet the European with howls of _Ya Nusrani_ (‘O Nazarene’), the full force of which title is felt when your donkey-boy urges on his beast by calling it, ‘Son of a dog! son of a pig! son of a Nazarene!’ Any abuse will do to howl at the infidel, and I have been for months shouted at across every field as _Ya khawaga mafeles!_ (‘O bankrupt foreigner’), because I preferred walking to the slow jolt of a donkey. The fact that dozens of the villagers were depending on me for good pay all the time did not seem to weigh in the youthful mind, compared with the pleasure of finding a handy insult. This temper, if not held down, might easily rise in the arrogance of its ignorance to such a height as to need a much sharper lesson than it has ever received. That a massacre of the Coptic Christians was fully anticipated by them when Arabi drove out the foreigners, is a well-known matter of history, which should not be lightly forgotten.