“Sir, with heart full of deep sympathy and eyes full of hot tears, I am Ahmed Hassan who was dismissed last week, have the honour to inform you:--I am a poor man have crowded children and a wife without state cannot find any way by which I live, that is case deserving kindness upon justice. What shall I do? Kindly I beg you sir for the sake of by God to remain me in my job.” A request for employment was worded in the following confident manner: “Petitioner, Mohammed Ahmed, your slave, begs to state that he has served the Government in Cairo twenty years, and thanks God his has done his duties most energetically. Born in a tropical country and having spent thirty years in Egypt my body has become damp and now I am very anxious to return to my own place. As you have done me so many kindnesses in the past I shall be obliged if you will recommend me for employment there, as I am poor and am well convinced that the most beloved thing to you is my welfare.” The correct address on the envelope often puzzles the native greatly. Lord Cromer once received a letter addressed simply to “The Lord, Cairo.” Sir Eldon Gorst was on one occasion addressed as “His Majesty Gorst.” Lord Edward Cecil was once the recipient of a letter addressed to “Sessel the Substitute,” he being then an Under-Secretary of State, an office which is called in Arabic “El Wakil”--i.e. “Deputy.” The native stable-boy in charge of our hospital for sick animals desired a rise in his wages, and wrote me the following petition: “We respectfully beg to lay before your kind notice. I am Abdullah Ahmed of the animals. I beg to acquainted your Excellency I had been appointed to that place according to your noble order. I beg to inform you Sir from the time in which I worked I got a great tired because I feed buffaloes, camels, she goats, cows, he horses, asses, all these animals with out sickness neither wounds. Although I say to the police officer increase my wages he say No, fool. I beg you to increase my wages and I implore God to grant you a happy life.” The above letters have been written either by the professional scribes who are generally to be found seated outside the government offices in any provincial town, or by friends of the petitioners who had learnt to write while employed as dragomans or servants in European households. Sometimes, too, a minor clerk in a Government office will not be above writing such a letter in return for a basket of vegetables, let us say, or a couple of pigeons. Such people pride themselves on their knowledge of English, and often display a keen desire to converse or correspond with one another in our language however slight their acquaintance with its intricacies may be.