Yet I do not wonder men fail to keep honest in the midst of this splendour, where all is strife as to who shall have the Prince's favour; who shall enjoy the fruits of bribery, backsheesh, and monopoly; who shall wring from the slave and the toil-ridden fellah the coin his poor body mints at the corvee, in his own taxed fields of dourha and cucumbers.
"Is this like anything we ever dreamed at Hamley, Faith?
Yet here am I set, and here shall I stay till the skein be ravelled out.
Soon I shall go into the desert upon a mission to the cities of the South, to Dongola, Khartoum, and Darfur and beyond; for there is trouble yonder, and war is near, unless it is given to me to bring peace.

So I must bend to my study of Arabic, which I am thankful I learned long ago.

And I must not forget to say that I shall take with me on my journey that faithful Muslim Ebn Ezra.

Others I shall take also, but of them I shall write hereafter.
"I shall henceforth be moving in the midst of things which I was taught to hate.

I pray that I may not hate them less as time goes on.