We were introduced to their Shekh, who was sick, in a corner of a hut, where he lay upon a carpet, with a cushion under his head. This chief of the Ababdé, called Nimmer, _i. e. the Tiger_ (though his furious qualities were at this time in great measure allayed by sickness) asked me much about the state of Lower Egypt. I satisfied him as far as possible, but recommended to him to confine his thoughts nearer home, and not to be over anxious about these distant countries, as he himself seemed, at that time, to be in a declining state of health.
Nimmer was a man about sixty years of age, exceedingly tormented with the gravel, which was more extraordinary as he dwelt near the Nile; for it is, universally, the disease with those who use water from draw-wells, as in the desert. But he told me, that, for the first twenty-seven years of his life, he never had seen the Nile, unless upon some plundering party; that he had been constantly at war with the people of the cultivated part of Egypt, and reduced them often to the state of starving; but now that he was old, a friend to Shekh Hamam, and was resident near the Nile, he drank of its water, and was little better, for he was already a martyr to the disease. I had sent him soap pills from Badjoura, which had done him a great deal of good, and now gave him lime-water, and promised him, on my return, to shew his people how to make it.
A very friendly conversation ensued, in which was repeated often, how little they expected I would have visited them! As this implied two things; the first, that I paid no regard to my promise when given; the other, that I did not esteem them of consequence enough to give myself the trouble, I thought it right to clear myself from these suspicions.
“Shekh Nimmer, said I, this frequent repetition that you thought I would not keep my word is _grievous_ to me. I am a Christian, and have lived now many years among you Arabs. Why did you imagine that I would not keep my word, since it is a principle among all the Arabs I have lived with, inviolably to keep theirs? When your son Ibrahim came to me at Badjoura, and told me the pain that you was in, night and day, fear of God, and desire to do good, even to them I had never seen, made me give you those medicines that have eased you. After this proof of my humanity, what was there extraordinary in my coming to see you in the way? I knew you not before; but my religion teaches me to do good to all men, even to enemies, without reward, or without considering whether I ever should see them again.”