AND LOWER EGYPT. 85 



The great reputation which I had acquired as a 

 J)hysician extended far and wide. A Scheick of 

 Arabian Bedouins, encamped in the environs of 

 Manfelout^ wrote to the Kiaschef oi Siout \o entreat 

 him to engage me to visit his camp. I promised to 

 go if they would furnish me with horses. Two days 

 after the Bedouins brought me some which were 

 very beautiful, and we departed under the guidance 

 of these same Arabs in the afternoon. We directed 

 our course to the north-north-west, and arrived at 

 night at a village, of which the Sheick el Belled, 

 previously apprized by our conductors, received us 

 very kindly. Near this village I saw a great many 

 percnopters. I have observed that the colour of 

 the plumage of these birds was not the same in all 

 the individuals. Some, and these the most nume- 

 rous, are of a dirty white, others of an ash gray, and 

 the upper part of the body and the wings of some 

 are of a blackish hue. 



The following day, at ten o'clock in the morn- 

 ing, we entered the Bedouin camp, where I was 

 expected, A great number of tents were erected 

 on the sand at the foot of the chain of mountains 

 parallel to the western shore of the Nile, in the 

 neighbourhood of a village called Tetaliiy and at 

 the distance of about four leagues from Manfelout, 

 The Scheick was employed in settling some ac- 

 counts with his secretaries ; I had to wait some 



G 3 time 



