EGYPT, AND SYRIA. 203 
ment that might offer of preffing my requeft for permiffion to 
advance. On leaving the houfe which I had inhabited at Cobbe, 
a difpute had arifen with the owner of it, who v/anted me to 
fign a declaration that nothing had been loft during my refi- 
dence in his houfe. This, which was diredly the reverfe of the 
truth, I refufed to do ; and in confequence he called an affembly 
Fukkara or facred judges. The refult, after much conteft, 
ferved to fkreen him from the refponfibility legally attached to 
his condud:, without averting the charge, and determined me 
never to return to his roof. 
On my arrival at El Faflier, my good friend the Melek Mi- 
fellim being employed by his mafter in the South, I went under 
the protection of the Melek Ibrahim^ one of the oldeft perfcns 
in authority there, and lodged myfelf (as all ftrangers are 
obliged to lodge in the inclofure of fome of the natives) in 
the houfe of a man named Mufa, now only an inconfiderable 
officer, though one of the fons of Sultan Bokar. This Mufa 
was one of the moft upright and difmterefted men I have known 
in that country, and indeed among the Mohammedans of any 
country. Calm and dignified in his demeanour, though poor 
and deftitute of power, he never infulted, though his religion 
taught him to hate. No motive could have been firong enough 
to induce him to eat out of the fame plate with a CafFre, but he 
was pun£lilioufly obfervant of the rights of hofpitality which 
that religion alio didiated, and daily provided me with a portion 
of food from his kitchen. He often faid that, as it was a pre- 
cept of my faith to hate the Prophet, he was bound to encourage 
D D 2 the 
