Heaven, however, had not determined that my father should remain in an extremity of distress. The chief of the caravan became ill, and nobody knew a means of cure. His disease was a brain fever; but my father wrote a passage from the Koran on a piece of paper, and gave it to the sick man, who, with profound faith, placed it upon his head and was instantly cured. In gratitude, the chief of the caravan gave my father a camel to ride on, and placed his bales of gum upon another, so that he arrived in safety at Cairo, and sold his merchandise with a good profit. This done, he again entered the mosque of El-Azhar, and shortly afterwards married my mother. After two years of marriage, he had a son whom he called Ahmed, but who died when he was fifteen months old. He consoled himself by repeating the verses of the poet: “Dear child, star of the heaven, how short was thy time! thou wert like the stars of the last hour of the night!” Soon afterwards my father started for Tunis, taking with him his wife and mother-in-law, and was received by his brother, Mohammed, who had become a tarboosh-manufacturer. Five months afterwards I was born. It was on a Friday, three hours after the setting of the sun, in the middle of the month of Zou-l-Kadeh, in the year 1204 (1789). Three years afterwards my father, having quarrelled with his brothers, returned to Egypt, and became a humble functionary in the mosque of El-Azhar. Four years afterwards he received a letter from his half-brother, in Sennaar, to this effect: “Our father has gone to the dwelling of pardon of the very high God. He left behind him a great number of books, which have been stolen from us by a certain Ahmed, of Benzareh in the States of Tunis, whom we had received into our house. We are in a condition that rejoices our enemies and afflicts our friends. On the receipt of this letter depart, we pray thee, immediately for this place, and take us with thee. We live as you live. Salutation.”