ROUTE TO CALIM. 
441 
missing, having been taken away by the servant of the Gacheef of 
Semenoud. We were obliged to employ others in their stead, who 
were so awkward, that it was six when we began our march j and 
then we were forced to stop several times before we were out of 
town, from the baggage falling off. The night was dark, and the 
road so bad from the large fissures in the ground, that we deter- 
mined to stop at the first village; but took the precaution of send- 
ing the baggage-camels in advance, that we might not be taken for 
a party of plundering Arabs, and be fired upon. We at length 
reached a miserable assemblage of mud huts, the backs of which 
were outw^ards, and formed a kind of wall. The harvest was lying 
around, among the heaps of which we pitched our tents. 
May 15." — Early in the morning the Schech brought us hot bread, 
with sweet and sour milk, and humbly requested to know if I in- 
sisted on his paying one thousand paras also, which he said my 
interpreter had demanded. I assured him that nothing could be 
more contrary to my orders than such a demand; that I w^as 
rejoiced he had applied to me, and that 1 would punish the servant 
who made it, by dismissing him from my service ; which I did. 
When a great man formerly travelled m Egypt, it was always the 
custom of the country for the Schechs to present money to his people. 
When the British were here, the dragomans of the army attempted 
to continue the practice, as they had done to an enormous extent 
under the French; but it was instantly checked by severely flogging 
them at the head of the corps. My interpreter thought he might be 
guilty of a similar imposition, though I positively prohibited it, 
but I fear he had previously succeeded in other places. In three 
hours we reached the village, where we had orders for the camels 
VOL. III. 3 L 
