The same lack of any co-operation is seen when robbers are about. I asked why, when a house was attacked by thieves, the other villagers did not all come out and seize the men, being ten or twenty to one. The reply was, ‘When any one hears another house being robbed, he keeps as quiet as possible, and does nothing, for fear of attracting the thieves to his own house.’ This belief in _kismet_, and lack of co-operation, tells favourably in one way--the fellah is not revengeful. No matter whether he deserves what ill befalls him, or is an innocent sufferer, he never goes about for simple vengeance, but yields, and is ready to act as if no grudge or ill-feeling rested in his mind. What might be the case in an affront to their religion or family I would not say; but in all minor matters the fellah may be dealt with regardless of an idea of revenge. The cardinal principle to remember in dealing with Egyptians is that they have no forbearance, and know no middle course. The notion of means exactly meeting an end, is outside of the fellah’s sense. If he is careless about a danger, he is so careless in many cases as to be killed; if he thinks about it, he is so afraid that he will not face it at all. If he has to make anything secure, no amount of surplus security seems too great. If he knows that you have power, he cannot be too submissive, and insists on kissing your hand, or at the least so honouring the aroma of it where it has touched his own. But if he has power himself, he gets all he can out of it; and the grasping and overbearing nature of the village shekh is too generally well known to those under him. Nothing seems to have astonished and disgusted Stanley more than the scheming of the Egyptian soldiers, whom he expected to follow him, in retreating. Yet the whole affair was characteristically Egyptian: fleeing from the Mahdists; only too glad to find anyone so foolish in their eyes as to be troubled about them; and then clumsily plotting--without any regard to time--for making the best profit they could out of the affair, by seizing whatever seemed to have come into their power. It would have been nothing to them to make away with people who were so indiscreet as to put ammunition within their grasp. The scheme seems to be the natural course of things to anyone who has watched the ways of Egypt. Peremptory orders are understood; and the more peremptorily they are enforced the more cheerfully they are obeyed, though roughness or harshness is seldom necessary: but if you do not rule, you must submit to be ruled. And the fellah has a positive dislike to having a choice of action left to him. In matters indifferent to me, I often tell them to do what they please; and that generally ends in their helplessly doing nothing, especially if they need to co-operate. At last, seeing their trouble, I give a precise order, and every one at once obeys it with thankfulness.