HASSANEIN. 187 



handful of dust call five thousand men to the saddle, 

 that hand is lying now under his cheek, and the grim old 

 warrior sleeps with his face set toward Mecca. I remem- 

 bered a morning in the City of Victory, when Sheik Hous- 

 sein rode by Miriam into the great crowd near the Suk 

 Khalil, where Islam by myriads waited the procession of 

 the Makhmil, and where in other years no Christian face 

 dared show itself. But the slight form of the fair-faced 

 American, and her uncovered countenance, provoked only 

 silent curses, no open insult, for the Bedouin by her side 

 was the terror of desert and city alike, and no man or 

 woman dared to whisper an insult to her in his presence. 



There was Abd-el-Kader, the most polished of Oriental 

 gentlemen, who ruled with great skill and justice the 

 provinces of Upper Egypt, and who, after accompanying 

 the British army on the Abyssinian expedition, returned 

 to Cairo to die, just before I had hoped to take his hand 

 there and thank him for old kindnesses. 



There was Yusef of Luxor, sheik of the old mosque 

 that stands near the ruined temple, who is one of the 

 kindest and most devout yet humble followers of Moham- 

 med ; a man among them who reminds you of a sincere 

 and earnest country minister in America, seeking good 

 and doing good. And with him old Mustapha — Mus- 

 tapha of Luxor. Who that has been there does not know 

 him ? And as these men of Luxor came out of the forest 

 I saw a crowd of darker faces, and — why — that clear-cut 

 face, that bright keen eye, that black but comely counte- 

 nance — surely that is Hassanein ! 



All the charm of the angler's life would be lost but for 

 these hours of thought and memory. All along a brook, 

 all day on lake or river, while he takes his sport he thinks. 

 All the long evenings in camp or cottage or inn he tells 



