1904] Auberon Herbert in Egypt 83 



in the valleys, as he had proposed to walk from Helouan and the 

 valleys are so intricate here that I was sure he would not find us. 

 At half past two I also went in search of him on my mare and rode 

 almost to Helouan and then back up the main valley and I was 

 just on the point of giving it up when I heard a shout behind me. 

 Auberon had been found, having wandered away up another valley, 

 Wady Melag, and presently he appeared with Salem, as extraor- 

 dinary a figure as one well could see. He was clad in grey 

 flannels, without a coat, and was carrying a lantern in one hand and 

 a staff in the other, with a wallet full of stones strapped to his 

 back, like the pictures of Christian with his bundle of sins in the 

 4 Pilgrim's Progress.' I had the greatest difficulty in getting him to 

 mount the camel, though it was already late and the road along the 

 edge of the valley is a dangerous one to be in after dark and I was 

 anxious to be back at the tent. However, at last he mounted and we 

 arrived just at nightfall, and he stopped to dine with us and set to 

 like a famished man, which he was, for he had been wandering in 

 the valleys since eleven and had brought nothing with him but some 

 coffee and milk in a bottle. He stayed on with us talking after- 

 wards, interestingly on many subjects, including that of Herbert 

 Spencer, whose influence over him as a young man he described as 

 immense. Spencer had given him for the first time solid ground on 

 which to stand, though he had since gone further than Spencer in 

 certain directions. On one subject, however, he talked as it seemed 

 to me not quite sanely, namely the stones he was carrying in his 

 wallet. He turned these out for us to examine. They were quite 

 common bits of limestone, flakes from the cliffs with which all the 

 valleys about here are strewn, but he insisted in seeing in them carved 

 faces of grotesque personages, with big noses and helmets, and de- 

 clared them to be the work of primitive men who had formerly in- 

 habited the valleys. He chose me out a few of the smaller ones 

 and made them over to me with much earnestness to examine at my 

 leisure, handing me also the small sum of five piastres as a present 

 to those who had found him in the valley. Then taking up his 

 wallet and his stick and lighting his lantern he set out, in spite of 

 all remonstrances, in the direction he had come. I sent Suliman with 

 him as far as the Sudd, but he would not allow him to go a yard 

 further, saying it would spoil his night's walk. It appears to be his 

 habit to spend his nights in the neighbourhood of Helouan with his 

 lantern looking for these stones, and he told me he had been accosted 

 in the dark on one occasion and nearly attacked by a man with a 

 nabut. I think he runs great risks, for the hills are frequented by 

 convicts escaped from the prison at Toura, and I told him so, and as 

 he nevertheless persisted in his midnight tramp, I made him write on 



