CAPITAL OF KORDOFAN; LOBEID. 265 by birth, who was brought as a slave to Egypt, became a mameluke of IMehemed All's, and iu a short time rose to his present high station. He is a man of very limited capacity, without the slightest education, and is entirely governed by his dependants and flatterers. Besides his ignorance, he possessed a very large share of pride, and knew how to keep up the appearance of great importance and dignity ; he passed, however, the greater part of his time in conversation with a fakeer, to whom he paid far more attention than to his other subordinates, and whose visits were far more agreeable to him than those of his oflScers. He could not write at all, could read but little, and only understood how to make the impression of his kashef* (seal). If instructions, or other orders, arrived from Cairo, his secretary, a copt, was obliged to read them aloud, and when he came to a passage which was to be kept secret, he stopped him, and ordered him to finish it in his private room ; the reports for Egypt were then laid before him to seal with his kashef : the remainder of his time he passed in smoking, and drinking coffee ; he very rarely walked in the open air, or rode. To drink twenty or thirty cups of coffee daily was to him a trifle, for as soon as a visitor arrived, he * The Kashef, or impression of the seal, is customary over the whole of the East, and a signature, although in the handwriting of the individual, does not render a document, or other paper, valid unless it be at the same time sealed with the Kashef, or initials of the writer.