A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

114 ARAB CREW.
and our trusty interpreter Mohammed, making
in all eighteen Mussulmans, to whose tender
mercies we have consigned ourselves for the
next six weeks.
The wind was fair when we left the Quay of
Boulac, and we should have gone on without let
or hindrance, had we not been obliged to stop
at Old Cairo to take in part of our crew, who
were to join us from thence. These men, with
their constitutional irregularity, were not forth-
coming when we anchored there, and many were
the hoarse imprecations uttered against their
dilatoriness by Reis Ali, their captain, and the
more ominous threatenings half-expressed by
Mohammed of giving them a lesson which they
would remember ever afterwards. At last, after
an hour's delay, the loiterers made their ap-
pearance, and were suffered very quietly to
climb from their boat upon the deck of the
Dahabieh ; but the moment they were all safe
there, and that the boat which had brought them
had pushed back again to Old Cairo, Mohammed,
who was lying in wait for them, armed with his
courbash, fell upon the unlucky delinquents, and
laid upon the shoulders of each just the same sort
of punishment that a sportsman is wont to inflict
upon an unruly pointer. The poor fellows took