There my acquaintance with Vice stopped, until Egypt, the land of so much, promised new opportunities. It would not be opium here, but hashish, a more lurid drug. Concealed in walking-sticks, it gave delicious dreams. So I was glad of a chance of accompanying the police of Alexandria upon a raid. Their moral tone was superior to the Missionary's, but they had no better luck. Advancing stealthily upon a fragile door they burst it open and we rushed in. We were in a passage, open to the stars. Right and left of it, and communicating with one another, were sheds which the police explored with their heavy shoulders and large feet. In one of them they found a tired white horse. A corporal climbed into the manger. "They often secrete bowls here," he said. At the end of the passage we came upon human life. A family was asleep by the light of a lamp—not suspiciously asleep, but reasonably disturbed by our irruption. The civil father was ordered to arise and carry the lamp about, and by its light we found a hollow reed, at which the police sniffed heavily. Traces of hashish adhered to it, they pronounced. That was all. They were delighted with the find, for it confirmed their official faith—that the city they controlled was almost pure but not quite. Too much or too little would have discredited them.
A few weeks later an Egyptian friend offered to take me round the native quarters of the same town. We did interesting things—saw a circumcision procession, listened to an epic recitation—and as the evenining closed he asked me whether I should like to include a Den. He thought he knew of one. Having laid his hand on his fore-
