An agreement was finally entered into: Ahmud was to pay the sheik nine pounds and ten shillings to take the boat up and down the cataracts, exclusive of backsheesh. Out of this the governor received two pounds and ten shillings as his commission. This making arrangements for ascending the cataracts is the most serious drawback to the pleasure of a Nile voyage. True, the dragoman undertakes this, but the howadjii are present and witnesses of the altercations, the loud talking, and the great noise and confusion attendant upon it. We being such distinguished travellers on paper, and the governor being impressed with that fact, our contract was entered into with less confusion than is usually incident to this arrangement. Four sheiks or chiefs of the cataract control the proceedings. This office is hereditary, and formerly they were despotic in the exercise of their power. Twenty English or American sailors could take a boat up the cataract in one-third the time it took nearly two hundred natives to perform that office for us. But no dragoman would dare incur the enmity of these powerful sheiks by attempting the ascent without their permission. Their power is somewhat curtailed now by orders from the viceroy, so that instead of, as heretofore, extorting as much as possible from the frightened dragoman, their prices are regulated by a fixed tariff—so much for every hundred ardebs. We are now fairly started on the ascent; it is early in the morning, and a light breeze is blowing from the north. The head sheik is on board. What an appropriate name he has! Surely his father was a prophet and foresaw the future life of his son—Mohammed Nogood! Not the slightest particle of good did he do. He squatted on a mat, smoked his pipe, and took no heed of what passed around him. Old Nogood, as we called him, was with us for three days, and during that time he never opened his mouth unless to grumble, and never raised his hand except to remove the pipe from his mouth, being too lazy even to light it; a sailor performed that onerous duty for him.