I went with my friend Kaffar away further into the heart of Nubia.
"I cannot speak highly of the rank and file of the people there.

They are mostly degraded and uncultured, lacking"-- here he bowed to the ladies--"that delightful polish which characterizes those who live in the West.

Still I found some relics of the wisdom of the ancients.

One of the sheiks of a village that lay buried among palm trees was deeply versed in the things I longed to know, and with him I took up my abode.
"Abou al Phadre was an old man, and not one whom the ladies would love--that is, for his face, for it was yellow and wrinkled; his eyes, too, were almost buried in their cavernous sockets, and shaded by bushy white eyebrows.

Those who love the higher powers, however, and can respect the divine power of knowledge, would have knelt at Abou's feet.
"This wonderful man had a daughter born to him in his old age, born, too, with the same love for truth, the same thirst for a knowledge of things unseen to the ordinary eye.