[P.77] Pasha; and the following extracts from my journal will show the
general result of what passed between us on those different occasions: -
Q. Sheikh Ibrahim, I hope you are well.
A. Perfectly well, and most happy to have the honour of seeing you
again.
Q. You have travelled much since I saw you at Cairo. How far did you
advance into the negro country?
To this question I replied, by giving a short account of my journey in
Nubia.
Q. Tell me, how are the Mamelouks at Dongola?
I related what the reader will find in my Nubian Travels.
Q. I understand that you treated with two of the Mamelouk Beys at Ibrim;
was it so?
The word treated (if the dragoman rightly translated the Turkish word),
startled me very much; for the Pasha, while he was in Egypt, had heard
that, on my journey towards Dongola, I had met two Mamelouk Beys at
Derr; and as he still suspected that the English secretly favoured the
Mamelouk interest, he probably thought that I had been the bearer of
some message to them from government. I therefore assured him that my
meeting with the two Beys was quite accidental that the unpleasant
reception which I experienced at Mahass was on their account; and that I
entertained fears of their designs against my life.
