A day or two ago I heard a youth calling the faithful to noonday prayer, from the gallery of a minaret, with one of the finest voices I have ever heard; he was tearing his notes from the inmost depths of his chest with that eagerness of yet unconscious passion that I have often noticed in southern children, and which to me is singularly pathetic; he retained his last notes as long as his breath allowed it, and they vibrated in distinct waves like a sonorous metal set in motion: from a little distance the effect was _saisissant_. I could not see him, and the air seemed to throb with sound as well as with heat in the sultry noon. The departure of the dahabieh was celebrated with the usual Arab waste of powder, and all the echoes of the valley of the tombs across the river were aroused by the popping of many guns. All the consuls fired officially, everybody else fired unofficially. Hosseyn fired officiously--chuckling and nearly tumbling over; and the dahabieh itself, having opened the ball, fired again at intervals from a long distance as if it had forgotten somebody--they are too funny. _Thursday, 12th._--More sketching. The weather, which is a little too canicular at noon, is deliciously fresh and cool for an hour after sunrise; the Arabs, however, look much aggrieved at the severity of the cold; they sit huddled in muffled groups with a pinched look that would become a British December day. I observe that half the men in middle life have no forefinger to their right hand. They all of them mutilated themselves to avoid conscription under Said Pasha, who, however, having found them out, enlisted them all the same. A curious equality prevails here: whilst sketching two of Mustafa Aga's servants this morning, I learnt from his son that they were both his relations. One of them appears to be a particularly nice fellow, and is a perfect gentleman in his manners. _Friday, 13th._--My last day in Thebes. When I arrived here and found neither friends nor letters, I thought, caring little for the place apart from the ruins, that I should stay four or five days; to-morrow when I leave I shall have been here _nine_, and shall go with regret. Work has exercised its usual attaching influence. I have drawn in pencil a few heads that will be of use and interest to me. The subject of one of my studies (Mustafa's gardener) on receiving from Hosseyn two shillings for one hour's sitting, accused him, to his infinite disgust and anger, of having suppressed the _remaining_ eighteen shillings out of a putative pound which he conceived to be destined for him. _Excusez!_