Letters from Egypt Part 12

We stopped at El-Moutaneh, and had a good dinner in the Mouniers'

handsome house, and they gave me a loaf of sugar. Mme. Mounier described Rachel's stay with them for three months at Luxor, in my house, where they then lived. She hated it so, that on embarking to leave she turned back and spat on the ground, and cursed the place inhabited by savages, where she had been _ennuyee a mort_. Mme. Mounier fully sympathized with her, and thought no _femme aimable_ could live with Arabs, who are not at all _galants_. She is Levantine, and, I believe, half Arab herself, but hates the life here, and hates the Muslims. As I write this I laugh to think of _galanterie_ and _Arab_ in one sentence, and glance at 'my brother' Yussuf, who is sleeping on a mat, quite overcome with the Simoom (which is blowing) and the fast which he is keeping to-day, as the eve of the _Eed-el-Kebir_ (great festival). This is the coolest place in the village. The gla.s.s is only 95 now (eleven a.m.) in the darkened divan.

The Kadee, and the Maohn, and Yussuf came together to visit me, and when the others left he lay down to sleep. Omar is sleeping in the pa.s.sage, and Sally in her room. I alone don't sleep-but the Simoom is terrible.

Arthur runs about all day, sight-seeing and drawing, and does not suffer at all from the heat. I can't walk now, as the sand blisters my feet.

_Tuesday_, _May_ 17.-Yesterday the Simoom was awful, and last night I slept on the terrace, and was very hot. To-day the north wind sprang up at noon and revived us, though it is still 102 in my divan. My old 'great-grandfather' has come in for a pipe and coffee; he was Belzoni's guide, and his eldest child was born seven days before the French under Bonaparte marched into Luxor. He is superbly handsome and erect, and very talkative, but only remembers old times, and takes me for Mme.

Belzoni. He is grandfather to Mahommed, the guard of this house, and great-grandfather to my little Achmet. His grandsons have married him to a tidy old woman to take care of him; he calls me 'My lady grand-daughter,' and Omar he calls 'Mustapha,' and we salute him as 'grandfather.' I wish I could paint him; he is so grand to look at. Old Mustapha had a son born yesterday-his tenth child. I must go and wish him joy, after which I will go to Arthur's boat and have a bathe; the sailors rig me out a capital awning. We had a good boat, and a capital crew; one man Mahommed, called Alatee (the singer), sang beautifully, to my great delight, and all were excellent fellows, quiet and obliging; only his servant was a lazy beast, dirty and conceited-a Copt, spoiled by an Italian education and Greek a.s.sociates, thinking himself very grand because he was a Christian. I wondered at the patience and good-nature with which Omar did all his work and endured all his insolence. There was one stupendous row at a.s.souan, however. The men had rigged out a sort of tent for me to bathe in over the side of the boat, and Ramadan caught the Copt trying to peep in, and half strangled him. Omar called him 'dog,' and asked him if he was an infidel, and Macarius told him I was a Christian woman, and not _his Hareem_. Omar lost his temper, and appealed to the old reis and all the sailors, 'O Muslims, ought not I to cut his throat if he had defiled the n.o.ble person of the lady with his pig's eyes? G.o.d forgive me for mentioning her in such a manner.' Then they all cursed him for a pig and an infidel, and threatened to put him ash.o.r.e and leave him for his vile conduct towards n.o.ble _Hareem_. Omar sobbed with pa.s.sion, saying that I was to him like the 'back of his mother,' and how 'dare Macarius take my name in his dirty mouth,' etc.

The Copt tried to complain of being beaten afterwards, but I signified to him that he had better hold his tongue, for that I understood Arabic, upon which he sneaked off.

May 23, 1864: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR, _Monday_, _May_ 23, 1864.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I meant to have written to you by Arthur Taylor, who left for Cairo yesterday morning, but the Simoom made me so stupid that I could hardly finish a letter to Alick. So I begin one to-day to recount the wonders of the season here. I went over to Mustapha's island to spend the day in the tent, or rather the hut, of dourrah-stalks and palm-branches, which he has erected there for the thres.h.i.+ng and winnowing. He had invited me and 'his wors.h.i.+p' the Maohn to a picnic. Only imagine that it _rained_!

all day, a gentle slight rain, but enough to wet all the desert. I laughed and said I had brought English weather, but the Maohn shook his head and opined that we were suffering the anger of G.o.d. Rain in summer-time was quite a terror. However, we consoled ourselves, and Mustapha called a nice little boy to recite the 'n.o.ble Koran' for our amus.e.m.e.nt, and out of compliment to me he selected the chapter of the family of Amran (the history of Jesus), and recited it with marvellous readiness and accuracy. A very pleasant-mannered man of the Shourafa of Gurneh came and joined us, and was delighted because I sent away a pipe which Abdurachman brought me (it is highly improper to smoke while the Koran is being read or recited). He thanked me for the respect, and I told him I knew he would not smoke in a church, or while I prayed; why should I? It rather annoys me to find that they always expect from us irreverence to their religion which they would on no account be guilty of to ours. The little boy was a _fellah_, the child of my friend Omar, who has lost all his cattle, but who came as pleasant and smiling as ever to kiss my hand and wait upon me. After that the Maohn read the second chapter, 'the Cow,' in a rather nasal, quavering chant. I perceived that no one present understood any of it, except just a few words here and there-not much more than I could follow myself from having read the translation. I think it is not any nearer spoken Arabic than Latin is to Italian. After this, Mustapha, the Maohn, Omar, Sally and I, sat down round the dinner-tray, and had a very good dinner of lamb, fowls and vegetables, such as bahmias and melucheeah, both of the mallow order, and both excellent cooked with meat; rice, stewed apricots (mish-mish), with nuts and raisins in it, and cuc.u.mbers and water-melons strewed the ground. One eats all _durcheinander_ with bread and fingers, and a spoon for the rice, and green limes to squeeze over one's own bits for sauce.

We were very merry, if not very witty, and the Maohn declared, '_Wallahi_! the English are fortunate in their customs, and in the enjoyment of the society of learned and excellent _Hareemat_;' and Omar, lying on the rushes, said: 'This is the happiness of the Arab. Green trees, sweet water, and a kind face, make the "garden"' (paradise), an Arab saying. The Maohn joked him as to how a 'child of Cairo' could endure _fellah_ life. I was looking at the heaps of wheat and thinking of Ruth, when I started to hear the soft Egyptian lips utter the very words which the Egyptian girl spake more than a thousand years ago: 'Behold my mother! where she stays I stay, and where she goes I will go; her family is my family, and if it pleaseth G.o.d, nothing but the Separator of friends (death) shall divide me from her.' I really could not speak, so I kissed the top of Omar's turban, Arab fas.h.i.+on, and the Maohn blessed him quite solemnly, and said: 'G.o.d reward thee, my son; thou hast honoured thy lady greatly before thy people, and she has honoured thee, and ye are an example of masters and servants, and of kindness and fidelity;' and the brown labourers who were lounging about said: 'Verily, it is true, and G.o.d be praised for people of excellent conduct.' I never expected to feel like Naomi, and possibly many English people might only think Omar's unconscious repet.i.tion of Ruth's words rather absurd, but to me they sounded in perfect harmony with the life and ways of this country and these people, who are so full of tender and affectionate feelings, when they have not been crushed out of them. It is not humbug; I have seen their actions. Because they use grand compliments, Europeans think they are never sincere, but the compliments are not meant to deceive, they only profess to be forms. Why do the English talk of the beautiful sentiment of the Bible and pretend to feel it so much, and when they come and see the same life before them they ridicule it.

[Picture: Omar, 1864, from a photograph]

_Tuesday_.-We have a family quarrel going on. Mohammed's wife, a girl of eighteen or so, wanted to go home on Bairam day for her mother to wash her head and unplait her hair. Mohammed told her not to leave him on that day, and to send for a woman to do it for her; whereupon she cut off her hair, and Mohammed, in a pa.s.sion, told her to 'cover her face' (that is equivalent to a divorce) and take her baby and go home to her father's house. Ever since he has been mooning about the yard and in and out of the kitchen very glum and silent. This morning I went into the kitchen and found Omar cooking with a little baby in his arms, and giving it sugar. 'Why what is that?' say I. 'Oh don't say anything. I sent Achmet to fetch Mohammed's baby, and when he comes here he will see it, and then in talking I can say so and so, and how the man must be good to the _Hareem_, and what this poor, small girl do when she big enough to ask for her father.' In short, Omar wants to exercise his diplomacy in making up the quarrel. After writing this I heard Mohammed's low, quiet voice, and Omar's boyish laugh, and then silence, and went to see the baby and its father. My kitchen was a pretty scene. Mohammed, in his ample brown robes and white turban, lay asleep on the floor with the baby's tiny pale face and little eyelids stained with kohl against his coffee-brown cheek, both fast asleep, baby in her father's arms. Omar leant against the _fournaise_ in his house-dress, a white s.h.i.+rt open at the throat and white drawers reaching to the knees, with the red tarboosh and red and yellow _kufyeh_ (silk handkerchief) round it turban-wise, contemplating them with his great, soft eyes. The two young men made an excellent contrast between Upper and Lower Egypt. Mohammed is the true Arab type-coffee-brown, thin, spare, sharp-featured, elegant hands and feet, bright glittering small eyes and angular jaw-not a handsome Arab, but _bien characterise_. Omar, the colour of new boxwood or old ivory, pale, with eyes like a cow, full lips, full chin and short nose, not the least negro, but perfectly Egyptian, the eyes wide apart-unlike the Arab-moustache like a woman's eyebrow, curly brown hair, bad hands and feet and not well made, but graceful in movement and still more in countenance, very inferior in beauty to the pure Arab blood which prevails here, but most sweet in expression. He is a true _Akh-ul-Benat_ (brother of girls), and truly chivalrous to _Hareem_. How astonished Europeans would be to hear Omar's real opinion of their conduct to women.

He mentioned some Englishman who had divorced his wife and made her frailty public. You should have seen him spit on the floor in abhorrence. Here it is quite blackguard not to forfeit the money and take all the blame in a divorce.

_Friday_.-We have had better weather again, easterly wind and pretty cool, and I am losing the cough and languor which the damp of the Simoom brought me. Sheykh Yussuf has just come back from Keneh, whither he and the Kadee went on their donkeys for some law business. He took our saddle bags at Omar's request, and brought us back a few pounds of sugar and some rice and tobacco (isn't it like Fielding's novels?). It is two days' journey, so they slept in the mosque at Koos half way. I told Yussuf how Suleyman's child has the smallpox and how Mohammed only said it was _Min Allah_ (from G.o.d) when I suggested that his baby should be vaccinated at once. Yussuf called him in and said: 'Oh man, when thou wouldst build a house dost thou throw the bricks in a heap on the ground and say the building thereof is from G.o.d, or dost thou use the brains and hands which G.o.d has given thee, and then pray to Him to bless thy work?

In all things do the best of thy understanding and means, and then say _Min Allah_, for the end is with Him!' There is not a pin to choose in fatalism here between Muslim and Christian, the lazy, like Mohammed and Suleyman (one Arab the other Copt), say _Min Allah_ or any form of dawdle you please; but the true Muslim doctrine is just what Yussuf laid down-'do all you can and be resigned to whatever be the result.' _Fais ce que dois advienne qui pourra_ is good doctrine. In fact, I am very much puzzled to discover the slightest difference between Christian and Muslim morality or belief-if you exclude certain dogmas-and in fact, very little is felt here. No one attempts to apply different standards of morals or of piety to a Muslim and a Copt. East and West is the difference, not Muslim and Christian. As to that difference I could tell volumes. Are they worse? Are they better? Both and neither. I am, perhaps, not quite impartial, because I am _sympathique_ to the Arabs and they to me, and I am inclined to be 'kind' to their virtues if not 'blind' to their faults, which are visible to the most inexperienced traveller. You see all our own familiar 'bunk.u.m' (excuse the vulgarity) falls so flat on their ears, bravado about 'honour,' 'veracity,' etc., etc., they look blank and bored at. The schoolboy morality as set forth by Maurice is current here among grown men. Of course we tell lies to Pashas and Beys, why shouldn't we? But shall I call in that ragged sailor and give him an order to bring me up 500 in cash from Cairo when he happens to come? It would not be an unusual proceeding. I sleep every night in a _makaab_ (sort of verandah) open to all Luxor, and haven't a door that has a lock. They bother me for backsheesh; but oh how poor they are, and how rich must be a woman whose very servants drink sugar to their coffee! and who lives in the _Kasr_ (palace) and is respectfully visited by Ali Bey-and, come to that, Ali Bey would like a present even better than the poorest fellah, who also loves to give one.

When I know, as I now do thoroughly, all Omar's complete integrity-without any sort of mention of it-his self-denial in going ragged and shabby to save his money for his wife and child (a very great trial to a good-looking young Arab), and the equally unostentatious love he has shown to me, and the delicacy and real n.o.bleness of feeling which come out so oddly in the midst of sayings which, to our ideas, seem very shabby and time-serving, very often I wonder if there be anything as good in the civilized West. And as Sally most justly says, 'All their goodness is quite their own. G.o.d knows there is no one to teach anything but harm!'

_Tuesday_.-Two poor fellows have just come home from the Suez Ca.n.a.l work with gastric fever, I think. I hope it won't spread. The wife of one said to me yesterday, 'Are there more _Sittat_ (ladies) like you in your village?' 'Wallah,' said I, 'there are many better, and good doctors, Alhamdullillah!' 'Alhamdullillah,' said she, 'then the poor people don't want you so much, and by G.o.d you must stay here for _we_ can't do without you, so write to your family to say so, and don't go away and leave us.'

_Thursday_, _June_ 2,-A steamer has just arrived which will take this letter, so I can only say good-bye, my dearest Mutter, and G.o.d bless you.

I continue very fairly well. The epidemic here is all but over; but my medical fame has spread so, that the poor souls come twenty miles (from Koos) for physic. The constant phrase of 'Oh our sister, G.o.d hath sent thee to look to us!' is so sad. _Such_ a little help is a wonder to my poor fellaheen. It is not so hot as it was I think, except at night, and I now sleep half the night outside the house. The cattle are all dead; perhaps five are left in all Luxor. _Allah kereem_! (G.o.d is merciful) said fellah Omar, 'I have one left from fifty-four.' The grain is unthreshed, and b.u.t.ter three s.h.i.+llings a pound! We get nothing here but by post; no papers, no nothing. I suppose the high Nile will bring up boats. Now the river is down at its lowest, and now I really know how Egyptians live.

June 12, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR, _Sunday_, _June_ 12, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

Three letters have I received from you within a few days, for the post of the Saeed is not that of the Medes and Persians. I have had an abominable toothache, which quite floored me, and was aggravated by the Oriental custom, namely, that all the _beau monde_ of Thebes _would_ come and sit with me, and suggest remedies, and look into my mouth, and make quite a business of my tooth. Sheykh Yussuf laid two fingers on my cheek and recited verses from the Koran, I regret to say with no effect, except that while his fingers touched me the pain ceased. I find he _is_ celebrated for soothing headaches and other nervous pains, and I daresay is an unconscious mesmeriser. The other day our poor Maohn was terrified by a communication from Ali Bey (Moudir of Keneh) to the effect that he had heard from Alexandria that someone had reported that the dead cattle had lain about the streets of Luxor and that the place was pestilential.

The British mind at once suggested a counter-statement, to be signed by the most respectable inhabitants. So the Cadi drew it up, and came and read it to me, and took my deposition and witnessed my signature, and the Maohn went his way rejoicing, in that 'the words of the Englishwoman'

would utterly defeat Ali Bey. The truth was that the worthy Maohn worked really hard, and superintended the horrible dead cattle business in person, which is some risk and very unpleasant. To dispose of three or four hundred dead oxen every day with a limited number of labourers is no trifle, and if a travelling Englishman smells one a mile off he calls us 'lazy Arabs.' The beasts could not be buried deep enough, but all were carried a mile off from the village. I wish some of the dilettanti who stop their noses at us in our trouble had to see or to do what I have seen and done.

_June_ 17.-We have had four or five days of such fearful heat with a Simoom that I have been quite knocked up, and literally could not write.

Besides, I sit in the dark all day, and am now writing so-and at night go out and sit in the verandah, and can't have candles because of the insects. I sleep outside till about six a.m., and then go indoors till dark again. This fortnight is the hottest time. To-day the drop falls into the Nile at its source, and it will now rise fast and cool the country. It has risen one cubit, and the water is green; next month it will be blood colour. My cough has been a little troublesome again, I suppose from the Simoom. The tooth does not ache now. _Alhamdulillah_!

for I rather dreaded the _muzeyinn_ (barber) with his _tongs_, who is the sole dentist here. I was amused the other day by the entrance of my friend the Maohn, attended by Osman Effendi and his cawa.s.s and pipe-bearer, and bearing a saucer in his hand, wearing the look, half sheepish, half c.o.c.ky, with which elderly gentlemen in all countries announce what he did, _i.e._, that his black slave-girl was three months with child and longed for olives, so the respectable magistrate had trotted all over the bazaar and to the Greek corn-dealers to buy some, but for no money were they to be had, so he hoped I might have some and forgive the request, as I, of course, knew that a man must beg or even steal for a woman under these circ.u.mstances. I called Omar and said, 'I trust there are olives for the honourable Hareem of Seleem Effendi-they are needed there.' Omar instantly understood the case, and 'Praise be to G.o.d a few are left; I was about to stuff the pigeons for dinner with them; how lucky I had not done it.' And then we belaboured Seleem with compliments. 'Please G.o.d the child will be fortunate to thee,' say I.

Omar says, 'Sweeten my mouth, oh Effendim, for did I not tell thee G.o.d would give thee good out of this affair when thou boughtest her?' While we were thus rejoicing over the possible little mulatto, I thought how shocked a white Christian gentleman of our Colonies would be at our conduct to make all this fuss about a black girl-'_he_ give her sixpence'

(under the same circ.u.mstances I mean) 'he'd see her d---d first,' and my heart warmed to the kind old Muslim sinner (?) as he took his saucer of olives and walked with them openly in his hand along the street. Now the black girl is free, and can only leave Seleem's house by her own good will and probably after a time she will marry and he will pay the expenses. A man can't sell his slave after he has made known that she is with child by him, and it would be considered unmanly to detain her if she should wish to go. The child will be added to the other eight who fill the Maohn's quiver in Cairo and will be exactly as well looked on and have equal rights if he is as black as a coal.

A most quaint little half-black boy a year and a half old has taken a fancy to me and comes and sits for hours gazing at me and then dances to amuse me. He is Mahommed our guard's son by a jet-black slave of his and is brown-black and very pretty. He wears a bit of iron wire in one ear and iron rings round his ankles, and that is all-and when he comes up little Achmet, who is his uncle, 'makes him fit to be seen' by emptying a pitcher of water over his head to rinse off the dust in which of course he has been rolling-that is equivalent to a clean pinafore. You would want to buy little Said I know, he is so pretty and so jolly. He dances and sings and jabbers baby Arabic and then sits like a quaint little idol cross-legged quite still for hours.

I am now writing in the kitchen, which is the coolest place where there is any light at all. Omar is diligently spelling words of six letters, with the wooden spoon in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth, and Sally is lying on her back on the floor. I won't describe our costume. It is now two months since I have worn stockings, and I think you would wonder at the fellaha who 'owns you,' so deep a brown are my face, hands and feet. One of the sailors in Arthur's boat said: 'See how the sun of the Arabs loves her; he has kissed her so hotly that she can't go home among English people.'

_June_ 18.-I went last night to look at Karnac by moonlight. The giant columns were overpowering. I never saw anything so solemn. On our way back we met the Sheykh-el-Beled, who ordered me an escort of ten men home. Fancy me on my humble donkey, guarded most superfluously by ten tall fellows, with oh! such spears and venerable matchlocks. At Mustapha's house we found a party seated before the door, and joined it.

There was a tremendous Sheykh-el-Islam from Tunis, a Maghribee, seated on a carpet in state receiving homage. I don't think he liked the heretical woman at all. Even the Maohn did not dare to be as 'politeful' as usual to me, but took the seat above me, which I had respectfully left vacant next to the holy man. Mustapha was in a stew, afraid not to do the respectful to me, and fussing after the Sheykh. Then Yussuf came fresh from the river, where he had bathed and prayed, and then you saw the real gentleman. He salaamed the great Sheykh, who motioned to him to sit before him, but Yussuf quietly came round and sat _below_ me on the mat, leaned his elbow on my cus.h.i.+on, and made more demonstration of regard for me than ever, and when I went came and helped me on my donkey. The holy Sheykh went away to pray, and Mustapha hinted to Yussuf to go with him, but he only smiled, and did not stir; he had prayed an hour before down at the Nile. It was as if a poor curate had devoted himself to a rank papist under the eye of a scowling Shaftesbury Bishop. Then came Osman Effendi, a young Turk, with a poor devil accused in a distant village of stealing a letter with money in it addressed to a Greek money-lender.

The discussion was quite general, the man, of course, denying all. But the n.a.z.ir had sent word to beat him. Then Omar burst out, 'What a shame to beat a poor man on the mere word of a Greek money-lender who eats the people; the n.a.z.ir shouldn't help him.' There was a Greek present who scowled at Omar, and the Turk gaped at him in horror. Yussuf said, with his quiet smile, 'My brother, thou art talking English,' with a glance at me; and we all laughed, and I said, 'Many thanks for the compliment.'

All the village is in good spirits; the Nile is rising fast, and a star of most fortunate character has made its appearance, so Yussuf tells me, and portends a good year and an end to our afflictions. I am much better to-day, and I think I too feel the rising Nile; it puts new life into all things. The last fortnight or three weeks have been very trying with the Simoom and intense heat. I suppose I look better for the people here are for ever praising G.o.d about my amended looks. I am too hot, and it is too dark to write more.

June 26, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR, _June_ 26, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

I have just paid a singular visit to a political _detenu_ or exile rather. Last night Mustapha came in with a man in great grief who said his boy was very ill on board a cangia just come from Cairo and going to a.s.souan. The watchman on the river-bank had told him that there was an English Sitt 'who would not turn her face from anyone in trouble' and advised him to come to me for medicine, so he went to Mustapha and begged him to bring him to me, and to beg the cawa.s.s (policeman) in charge of El-Bedrawee (who was being sent to Fazoghlou in banishment) to wait a few hours. The cawa.s.s (may he not suffer for his humanity) consented. He described his boy's symptoms and I gave him a dose of castor oil and said I would go to the boat in the morning. The poor fellow was a Cairo merchant but living at Khartoum, he poured out his sorrow in true Eastern style. 'Oh my boy, and I have none but he, and how shall I come before his mother, a Habbesheeyeh, oh Lady, and tell her "thy son is dead"?' So I said, '_Allah kereem ya Seedee_, and _Inshallah tayib_,' etc., etc., and went this morning early to the boat. It was a regular old Arab cangia lumbered up with corn, sacks of matting, a live sheep, etc., and there I found a sweet graceful boy of fifteen or so in a high fever. His father said he had visited a certain Pasha on the way and evidently meant that he had been poisoned or had the evil eye. I a.s.sured him it was only the epidemic and asked why he had not sent for the doctor at Keneh. The old story! He was afraid, 'G.o.d knows what a government doctor might do to the boy.' Then Omar came in and stood before El-Bedrawee and said, 'Oh my master, why do we see thee thus? Mashallah, I once ate of thy bread when I was of the soldiers of Said Pasha, and I saw thy riches and thy greatness, and what has G.o.d decreed against thee?' So El-Bedrawee who is (or was) one of the wealthiest men of Lower Egypt and lived at Tantah, related how Effendina (Ismail Pasha) sent for him to go to Cairo to the Citadel to transact some business, and how he rode his horse up to the Citadel and went in, and there the Pasha at once ordered a cawa.s.s to take him down to the Nile and on board a common cargo boat and to go with him and take him to Fazoghlou. Letters were given to the cawa.s.s to deliver to every Moudir on the way, and another despatched by hand to the Governor of Fazoghlou with orders concerning El-Bedrawee. He begged leave to see his son once more before starting, or any of his family.

'No, he must go at once and see no one.' But luckily a fellah, one of his relations had come after him to Cairo and had 700 in his girdle; he followed El-Bedrawee to the Citadel and saw him being walked off by the cawa.s.s and followed him to the river and on board the boat and gave him the 700 which he had in his girdle. The various Moudirs had been civil to him, and friends in various places had given him clothes and food. He had not got a chain round his neck or fetters, and was allowed to go ash.o.r.e with the cawa.s.s, for he had just been to the tomb of Abou-l-Hajjaj and had told that dead Sheykh all his affliction and promised, if he came back safe, to come every year to his _moolid_ (festival) and pay the whole expenses (_i.e._ feed all comers). Mustapha wanted him to dine with him and me, but the cawa.s.s could not allow it, so Mustapha sent him a fine sheep and some bread, fruit, etc. I made him a present of some quinine, rhubarb pills, and sulphate of zinc for eye lotion. Here you know we all go upon a more than English presumption and believe every prisoner to be innocent and a victim-as he gets no trial he _never_ can be proved guilty-besides poor old El-Bedrawee declared he had not the faintest idea what he was accused of or how he had offended Effendina.

I listened to all this in extreme amazement, and he said, 'Ah! I know you English manage things very differently; I have heard all about your excellent justice.'

He was a stout, dignified-looking fair man, like a Turk, but talking broad Lower Egypt fellah talk, so that I could not understand him, and had to get Mustapha and Omar to repeat his words. His father was an Arab, and his mother a Circa.s.sian slave, which gave the fair skin and reddish beard. He must be over fifty, fat and not healthy; of course he is _meant_ to die up in Fazoghlou, especially going at this season. He owns (or owned, for G.o.d knows who has it now) 12,000 feddans of fine land between Tantah and Samanhoud, and was enormously rich. He consulted me a great deal about his health, and I gave him certainly very good advice.

I cannot write in a letter which I know you will show what drugs a Turkish doctor had furnished him with to 'strengthen' him in the trying climate of Fazoghlou. I wonder was it intended to kill him or only given in ignorance of the laws of health equal to his own?

After a while the pretty boy became better and recovered consciousness, and his poor father, who had been helping me with trembling hands and swimming eyes, cried for joy, and said, 'By G.o.d the most high, if ever I find any of the English, poor or sick or afflicted up in Fazoghlou, I will make them know that I Abu Mahommed never saw a face like the pale face of the English lady bent over my sick boy.' And then El-Bedrawee and his fellah kinsman, and all the crew blessed me and the Captain, and the cawa.s.s said it was time to sail. So I gave directions and medicine to Abu Mahommed, and kissed the pretty boy and went out. El-Bedrawee followed me up the bank, and said he had a request to make-would I pray for him in his distress. I said, 'I am not of the Muslimeen,' but both he and Mustapha said, _Maleysh_ (never mind), for that it was quite certain I was not of the _Mushkireen_, as they hate the Muslimeen and their deeds are evil-but blessed be G.o.d, many of the English begin to repent of their evil, and to love the Muslims and abound in kind actions.

So we parted in much kindness. It was a strange feeling to me to stand on the bank and see the queer savage-looking boat glide away up the stream, bound to such far more savage lands, and to be exchanging kind farewells quite in a homely manner with such utter 'aliens in blood and faith.' 'G.o.d keep thee Lady, G.o.d keep thee Mustapha.' Mustapha and I walked home very sad about poor El-Bedrawee.

_Friday_, _July_ 7.-It has been so 'awfully' hot that I have not had pluck to go on with my letter, or indeed to do anything but lie on a mat in the pa.s.sage with a minimum of clothes quite indescribable in English.

_Alhamdulilah_! laughs Omar, 'that I see the clever English people do just like the lazy Arabs.' The worst is not the positive heat, which has not been above 104 and as low as 96 at night, but the horrible storms of hot wind and dust which are apt to come on at night and prevent one's even lying down till twelve or one o'clock. Thebes is bad in the height of summer on account of its expanse of desert, and sand and dust. The Nile is pouring down now gloriously, and _really_ red as blood-more crimson than a Herefords.h.i.+re lane-and in the distance the reflection of the pure blue sky makes it deep violet. It had risen five cubits a week ago; we shall soon have it all over the land here. It is a beautiful and inspiriting sight to see the n.o.ble old stream as young and vigorous as ever. No wonder the Egyptians wors.h.i.+pped the Nile: there is nothing like it. We have had all the plagues of Egypt this year, only the lice are commuted for bugs, and the frogs for mice; the former have eaten me and the latter have eaten my clothes. We are so ragged! Omar has one s.h.i.+rt left, and has to sleep without and wash it every night. The dust, the drenching perspiration, and the hard-fisted was.h.i.+ng of Mahommed's slave-women destroys everything.

Mustapha intends to give you a grand _fantasia_ if you come, and to have the best dancing girls down from Esneh for you; but I am consternated to hear that you can't come till December. I hoped you would have arrived in Cairo early in November, and spent a month there with me, and come up the river in the middle of December when Cairo gets very cold.

I remain very well in general health, but my cough has been troublesome again. I do not feel at all like breathing cold damp air again. This depresses me very much as you may suppose. You will have to divorce me, and I must marry some respectable Kadee. I have been too 'lazy Arab,' as Omar calls it, to go on with my Arabic lessons, and Yussuf has been very busy with law business connected with the land and the crops. Every harvest brings a fresh settling of the land. Wheat is selling at 1 the ardeb {188} here _on the thres.h.i.+ng-floor_, and barley at one hundred and sixteen piastres; I saw some Nubians pay Mustapha that. He is in comic perplexity about saying _Alhamdulillah_ about such enormous gains-you see it is rather awkward for a Muslim to thank G.o.d for dear bread-so he compounds by very lavish almsgiving. He gave all his fellaheen clothes the other day-forty calico s.h.i.+rts and drawers. Do you remember my describing an Arab _emancipirtes Fraulein_ at Siout? Well, the other day I saw as I thought a nice-looking lad of sixteen selling corn to my opposite neighbour, a Copt. It was a girl. Her father had no son and is infirm, so she works in the field for him, and dresses and does like a man. She looked very modest and was quieter in her manner than the veiled women often are.

I am so glad to hear such good accounts of my Rainie and Maurice. I can hardly bear to think of another year without seeing them. However it is fortunate for me that 'my lines have fallen in pleasant places,' so long a time at the Cape or any Colony would have become intolerable. Best love to Janet, I really can't write, it's too hot and dusty. Omar desires his salaam to his great master and to that gazelle Sittee Ross.