We leave for Medinet el-Fayoum on horrendous donkeys, provided with even more horrendous saddles.

Flat countryside - uniformly green carpet sometimes enlivened by a bunch of palm trees hiding a village - huge quantities of fava beans - it seems this vegetables takes revenge for it’s being declared forbidden. Lunch by a fountain in the village of El-Agegh - another bigger village where Maxime gets lost.

Strange tombs. Ruined tombs, which resemble ovens; rags, whitened bones can be seen in the soil, like a galantine sausage cut in two. Camp of the Bedouins - beautiful girls in the countryside - dogs howling around the torn tents. We cross a small expanse of desert - countryside again cultivated.

At Medinet Al-Fayoum “Favorisca” [if you please] for the coffee. Convent. Two Germans with no pants, in frock coats smelling the raki. Face of a Janissary soldier. Saba Cahil. Small lively man, looks like the Père Ravier. His friend and host, a Priest, looks a bit like Potier. Drinking small glasses, with sweets - in the evening we talk about saint Anthony, Arius, Saint Athanasius. The area’s elders come look at us. In his Divan, hanging on the wall: a view of Quilleboeuf, one of Gaville, landscapes of the Rouen area. [places near where Flaubert lives in France]. Those ugly lithographs come from Mr Drovetti. After dinner, small glasses again, canticle to the Virgin, sung at the top of our voices.

The young boy of Saba Cahil - presenting the pipe with tremendous grace. For his sins, the padre ordered, as penance, that he should clean his room with his tongue! - I spend the night scratching and listening to the dogs barking.