174 LIFE. WITH THE HAM RAN ARABS. 



than even watching for lions by moonlight, and though 

 we have long waited her coming we are not now likely to 

 take much further advantage of her presence with us. 



The Arabs frequently get small wounds, which they 

 always corne in a party to have dressed, and in Vivian 

 and Albert I have two most willing assistants. Albert 

 is quite an authority on the eye, for he spent one winter 

 in Egypt with an Italian oculist, and at the expiration 

 of their travels together received from him a very flatter- 

 ing testimonial as to his knowledge of the external 

 diseases of the eye, and also a complete case of eye in- 

 struments. This oculist, Albert says, having made him- 

 self very notorious in Cairo by some successful opera- 

 tions there, determined upon taking advantage of his 

 rapidly spreading fame in the country, and started up 

 the Nile with Albert in a ' dahabeeah,' laden with small 

 bottles, and having a good supply of sulphate of zinc. 

 Thus fitted out, he drove such a thriving trade in that most 

 invaluable of eye lotions to Egyptians, whilst making a 

 short stay at all the towns bordering the Nile, that the 

 stock of zinc became exhausted, and then the curative 

 powers of bottled eau de Nil were allowed full play, and 

 with the same satisfactory results in a pecuniary sense, 

 according to his assistant's account. The charge for 

 each consultation was a dollar, and as the patient had to 

 present this amount before one was granted him, there 

 was no chance of an accumulation of bad debts. Albert 



