Tuesday Evening._--Have begun a sketch which interests me more than the others; it is taken amongst the tombs and shrines on the hills south of the town towards Phylæ. As my evening's work was drawing to a close, I heard a shuffling of feet a little behind me, and, turning round, saw, in the full fire of sunset, what appeared to me at first to be a procession of golden apes with dark blue robes, light blue lips, and nose-rings; on closer inspection they turned out to be Nubian women going home to their village. Hosseyn, _qui a le mot pour rire_, apparently, engaged in conversation with them, and convulsed them with laughter; the flashes of teeth were very funny to see. At last he gave them a few halfpence, and desired them to sing; whereon they set up a series of the most uncouth howls I ever heard; one baboon in particular got up and, using a flat date basket as a tambourine, accompanied her vocal performance with hops and jumps that would have done honour to any inmate of the monkey-house in the Zoological Gardens. The twilight, walking home, was lovely. The earth was in colour like a lion's skin; the sky of a tremulous violet, fading in the zenith to a mysterious sapphire tint. "Dolce color d'oriental zaffiro." Slew another sheep--"Allah hou akbar!" (without which formula in the killing a good Muslim must not touch the meat): this sheep is no empty formality, for the unfortunate sailors would never see meat without it; they live on bread and occasional beans. This is the fourth night of the moolid, which is to last the whole week! At this very moment the tambourines of the dervishes are driving me nearly wild with their diabolic din. _Wednesday, 28th._--Got on indifferently with my sketches; only one of them interests me much. The morning was almost cool and really delightful, but the heat was as great as ever in the daytime. I have always been unable to see the extraordinary difference which is said to exist between the length of the twilight in the north, and in southern countries; I could have read large print to-night three-quarters of an hour after sunset. Habit is everything, no doubt, as we are reminded by Herodotus, _à propos_ of a certain people who ate their dead relatives instead of burning them; but I wonder whether I should ever get accustomed to the aching, straining, creaking complaint of the water-wheel far and near, morning, noon and night, morning, noon and night; I can _just_ fancy its becoming attaching as the clacking of a mill.