You should not make rash promises, said I to the cadi, for this one you made you never can perform; I am not going to Girgé. Ali Bey, _whose slave you are_, gave me this boat, but told me, I was not to ship either saints or cadies. There is my boat, go a-board if you dare; and you, Hagi Hassan, let me see you lift an oar, or loose a sail, either for the cadi or the saint, if I am not with them.
I went to my tent, and the Rais followed me. “Hagi Hassan, said I, there is a proverb in my country, It is better to flatter fools than to fight them: Cannot you go to the fool, and give him half-a-crown? will he take it, do you think, and abandon his journey to Girgé? afterwards leave me to settle with the cadi for his voyage thither.”
“He will take it with all his heart, he will kiss your hand for half-a-crown, says Hassan.”
“Let him have half-a-crown from me, said I, and desire him to go about his business, and intimate that I give him it in charity, at same time expect compliance with the condition.”
In the interim, a Christian Copht came into the tent: “Sir, said he, you don’t know what you are doing; the cadi is a great man, give him his present, and have done with him.”
“When he behaves better, it will be time enough for that, said I?--If you are a friend of his, advise him to be quiet, before an order comes from Cairo by a Serach, and carries him thither. Your countryman Risk would not give me the advice you do?”
Risk! says he; Do you know Risk? Is not that Risk’s writing, said I, shewing him a letter from the Bey? Wallah! (by God) it is, says he, and away he went without speaking a word farther.
The saint had taken his half-crown, and had gone away singing, it being now near dark.--The cadi went away, and the mob dispersed, and we directed a Moor to cry, That all people should, in the night-time, keep away from the tent, or they would be fired at; a stone or two were afterwards thrown, but did not reach us.
I finished my observation, and ascertained the latitude of Dendera, then packed up my instruments, and sent them on board.
Mr Norden seems greatly to have mistaken the position of this town, which, conspicuous and celebrated as it is by ancient authors, and justly a principal point of attention to modern travellers, he does not so much as describe; and, in his map, he places Dendera twenty or thirty miles to the southward of Badjoura; whereas it is about nine miles to the northward. For Badjoura is in lat. 26° 3´, and Dendera is in 26° 10´.