Letters from Egypt Part 17

April 29, 1865: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR, _April_ 29, 1865.

DEAREST MUTTER,

Since I wrote last I have received the box with the cheese quite fresh (and very good it tastes), and the various things. Nothing called forth such a shout of joy from me as your photo of the village pothouse. How green and fresh and tidy! Many Mashallah's have been uttered over the _beyt-el-fellaheen_ (peasant's house) of England. The railings, especially, are a great marvel. I have also heard from Janet that Ross has bought me a boat for 200 which is to take four of his agents to a.s.souan and then come back for me. So all my business is settled, and, _Inshallah_! I shall depart in another three or four weeks.

The weather is quite cool and fresh again but the winds very violent and the dust pours over us like water from the dried up land, as well as from the Goomeh mountain. It is miserably uncomfortable, but my health is much better again-spite of all.

The Hakeem business goes on at a great rate. I think on an average I have four sick a day. Sometimes a dozen. A whole gipsy camp are great customers-the poor souls will bring all manner of gifts it goes to my heart to eat, but they can't bear to be refused. They are astounded to hear that people of their blood live in England and that I knew many of their customs-which are the same here.

Kursheed Agha came to take final leave being appointed to Keneh. He had been at Gau and had seen Fadil Pasha sit and make the soldiers lay sixty men down on their backs by ten at a time and _chop_ them to death with the pioneers' axes. He estimated the people killed-men, women, and children at 1,600-but Mounier tells me it was over 2,000. Sheykh Ha.s.san agreed exactly with Kursheed, only the Arab was full of horror and the Circa.s.sian full of exultation. His talk was exactly what we all once heard about 'Pandies,' and he looked and talked and laughed so like a fine young English soldier, that I was ashamed to call him the kelb (dog) which rose to my tongue, and I bestowed it on Fadil Pasha instead. I must also say in behalf of my own countrymen that they _had_ provocation while here there was none. Poor Haggee Sultan lies in chains at Keneh.

One of the best and kindest of men! I am to go and take secret messages to him, and money from certain men of religion to bribe the Moudir with.

The Shurafa who have asked me to do this are from another place, as well as a few of the Abu-l-Hajjajieh. A very great Shereef indeed from lower Egypt, said to me the other day, 'Thou knowest if I am a Muslim or no.

Well, I pray to the most Merciful to send us Europeans to govern us, and to deliver us from these wicked men.' We were all sitting after the funeral of one of the Shurafa and I was sitting between the Shereef of Luxor and the Imam-and this was said before thirty or forty men, all Shurafa. No one said 'No,' and many a.s.sented aloud.

The Shereef asked me to lend him the New Testament, it was a pretty copy and when he admired it I said, 'From me to thee, oh my master the Shereef, write in it as we do in remembrance of a friend-the gift of a Nazraneeyeh who loves the Muslimeen.' The old man kissed the book and said 'I will write moreover-to a Muslim who loves all such Christians'-and after this the old Sheykh of Abou Ali took me aside and asked me to go as messenger to Haggee Sultan for if one of them took the money it would be taken from them and the man get no good by it.

Soldiers are now to be quartered in the Saeed-a new plague worse than all the rest. Do not the cawa.s.ses already rob the poor enough? They fix their own price in the market and beat the sakkas as sole payment. What will the soldiers do? The taxes are being illegally levied on lands which are _sheragi_, _i.e._ totally unwatered by the last Nile and therefore exempt _by law_-and the people are driven to desperation. I feel sure there will be more troubles as soon as there arises any other demagogue like Achmet et-Tayib to incite the people and now every Arab sympathises with him. Janet has written me the Cairo version of the affair cooked for the European taste-and monstrous it is. The Pasha accuses some Sheykh of the Arabs of having gone from Upper Egypt to India to stir up the Mutiny against us! _Pourquoi pas_ to conspire in Paris or London? It is too childish to talk of a poor Saeedee Arab going to a country of whose language and whereabouts he is totally ignorant, in order to conspire against people who never hurt him. You may suppose how Yussuf and I talk by ourselves of all these things. He urged me to try hard to get my husband here as Consul-General-a.s.suming that he would feel as I do. I said, my master is not young, and to a just man the wrong of such a place would be a martyrdom. 'Truly thou hast said it, but it is a martyr we Arabs want; shall not the reward of him who suffers daily vexation for his brethren's sake be equal to that of him who dies in battle for the faith? If thou wert a man, I would say to thee, take the labour and sorrow upon thee, and thine own heart will repay thee.' He too said like the old Sheykh, 'I only pray for Europeans to rule us-now the fellaheen are really worse off than any slaves.' I am sick of telling of the daily oppressions and robberies. If a man has a sheep, the Moodir comes and eats it, if a tree, it goes to the n.a.z.ir's kitchen.

My poor sakka is beaten by the cawa.s.ses in sole payment of his skins of water-and then people wonder my poor friends tell lies and bury their money.

I now know everybody in my village and the 'cunning women' have set up the theory that my eye is lucky; so I am asked to go and look at young brides, visit houses that are building, inspect cattle, etc. as a bringer of good luck-which gives me many a curious sight.

I went a few days ago to the wedding of handsome Sheykh Ha.s.san the Abab'deh, who married the butcher's pretty little daughter. The group of women and girls lighted by the lantern which little Achmet carried up for me was the most striking thing I have seen. The bride-a lovely girl of ten or eleven all in scarlet, a tall dark slave of Ha.s.san's blazing with gold and silver necklaces and bracelets, with long twisted locks of coal black hair and such glittering eyes and teeth, the wonderful wrinkled old women, and the pretty, wondering, yet fearless children were beyond description. The mother brought the bride up to me and unveiled her and asked me to let her kiss my hand, and to look at her, I said all the usual _Bismillah Mashallah's_, and after a time went to the men who were eating, all but Ha.s.san who sat apart and who begged me to sit by him, and whispered anxious enquiries about his _aroosah's_ looks. After a time he went to visit her and returned in half an hour very shy and covering his face and hand and kissed the hands of the chief guests. Then we all departed and the girl was taken to look at the Nile, and then to her husband's house. Last night he gave me a dinner-a very good dinner indeed, in his house which is equal to a very poor cattle shed at home.

We were only five. Sheykh Yussuf, Omar, an elderly merchant and I.

Ha.s.san wanted to serve us but I made him sit.

The merchant, a well-bred man of the world who has enjoyed life and married wives everywhere-had arrived that day and found a daughter of his dead here. He said he felt very miserable-and everyone told him not to mind and consoled him oddly enough to English ideas. Then people told stories. Omar's was a good version of the man and wife who would not shut the door and agreed that the first to speak should do it-very funny indeed. Yussuf told a pretty tale of a Sultan who married a Bint el-Arab (daughter of the Bedawee) and how she would not live in his palace, and said she was no fellaha to dwell in houses, and scorned his silk clothes and sheep killed for her daily, and made him live in the desert with her.

A black slave told a prosy tale about thieves-and the rest were more long than pointed.

Ha.s.san's Arab feelings were hurt at the small quant.i.ty of meat set before me. (They can't kill a sheep now for an honoured guest.) But I told him no greater honour could be paid to us English than to let us eat lentils and onions like one of the family, so that we might not feel as strangers among them-which delighted all the party. After a time the merchant told us his heart was somewhat dilated-as a man might say his toothache had abated-and we said 'Praise be to G.o.d' all round.

A short time ago my poor friend the Maohn had a terrible 'tile' fall on his head. His wife, two married daughters and nine miscellaneous children arrived on a sudden, and the poor man is now tasting the pleasures which Abraham once endured between Sarah and Hagar. I visited the ladies and found a very ancient Sarah and a daughter of wonderful beauty. A young man here-a Shereef-has asked me to open negotiations for a marriage for him with the Maohn's grand daughter a little girl of eight-so you see how completely I am 'one of the family.'

My boat has not yet made its appearance. I am very well indeed now, in spite, or perhaps because of, the great heat. But there is a great deal of sickness-chiefly dysentery. I never get less than four new patients a day and my 'practice' has become quite a serious business. I spent all day on Friday in the Abab'deh quarters where Sheykh Ha.s.san and his slave Rahmeh were both uncommonly ill. Both are 'all right' now. Rahmeh is the nicest negro I ever knew, and a very great friend of mine. He is a most excellent, honest, sincere man, and an Effendi (_i.e._ writes and reads) which is more than his master can do. He has seen all the queer people in the interior of Africa.

The Sheykh of the Bishareen-eight days' journey from a.s.souan has invited me and promises me all the meat and milk I can eat, they have nothing else. They live on a high mountain and are very fine handsome people.

If only I were strong I could go to very odd places where Frangees are not. Read a very stupid novel (as a story) called '_le Secret du Bonheur_'-it gives the truest impression of the manners of Arabs that I have read-by Ernest Feydeau. According to his book _achouat_ (we are brothers). The 'caressant' ways of Arabs are so well described.

It is the same here. The people come and pat and stroke me with their hands, and one corner of my brown abbaieh is faded with much kissing. I am hailed as _Sitt Betaana_ 'Our own Lady,' and now the people are really enthusiastic because I refused the offer of some cawa.s.ses as a guard which a Bimbashee made me. As if I would have such fellows to help to bully my friends. The said Bimbashee (next in rank to a Bey) a coa.r.s.e man like an Arnoout, stopped here a day and night and played his little Turkish game, telling me to beware-for the Ulema hated all Franks and set the people against us-and telling the Arabs that Christian Hakeems were all given to poison Muslims. So at night I dropped in at the Maohn's with Sheykh Yussuf carrying my lantern-and was loudly hailed with a _Salaam Aleykee_ from the old Shereef himself-who began praising the Gospel I had given him, and me at the same time. Yussuf had a little reed in his hand-the _kalem_ for writing, about two feet long and of the size of a quill. I took it and showed it to the Bimbashee and said-'Behold the _neboot_ wherewith we are all to be murdered by this Sheykh of the Religion.' The Bimbashee's bristly moustache bristled savagely, for he felt that the 'Arab dogs' and the Christian _khanzeereh_ (feminine pig) were laughing at it together.

Another steam boat load of prisoners from Gau has just gone up. A little comfort is derived here from the news that, 'Praise be to G.o.d, Moussa Pasha (Governor of the Soudan) is dead and gone to h.e.l.l.' It must take no trifle to send him there judging by the quiet way in which Fadil Pasha is mentioned.

You will think me a complete rebel-but I may say to you what most people would think 'like my nonsense'-that one's pity becomes a perfect pa.s.sion, when one _sits among the people_-as I do, and sees it all; least of all can I forgive those among Europeans and Christians who can help to 'break these bruised reeds.' However, in Cairo and more still in Alexandria, all is quite different. There, the same system which has been so successfully copied in France prevails. The capital is petted at the expense of the fellaheen. Prices are regulated in Cairo for meat and bread as they are or were in Paris, and the 'dangerous cla.s.ses' enjoy all sorts of exemptions. Just like France! The Cairenes eat the bread and the fellaheen eat the stick.

The people here used to dislike Mounier who arrived poor and grew rich and powerful, but they all bless him now and say at El-Moutaneh a man eats his own meat and not the courbash of the Moudir-and Mounier has refused soldiers (as I refused them on my small account) and 'Please G.o.d,' he will never repent it. Yussuf says 'What the Turkish Government fears is not for _your_ safety, but lest we should learn to love you too well,' and it is true. Here there is but one voice. 'Let the Franks come, let us have the laws of the Christians.'

In Cairo the Franks have dispelled this _douce illusion_ and done the Turk's work as if they were paid for it. But here come only travellers who pay with money and not with stick-a degree of generosity not enough to be adored.

I perceive that I am a bore-but you will forgive my indignant sympathy with the kind people who treat me so well. Yussuf asked me to let the English papers know about the Gau business. An Alim ed Deen ul-Islam would fain call for help to the Times! Strange changes and signs of the times-these-are they not so?

I went to Church on Good Friday with the Copts. The scene was very striking-the priest dressed like a beautiful Crusader in white robes with crimson crosses. One thing has my hearty admiration. The few children who are taken to Church are allowed to play! Oh my poor little Protestant fellow Christians, can you conceive a religion so delightful as that which permits Peep-bo behind the curtain of the sanctuary! I saw little Butrus and Scendariah at it all church time-and the priest only patted their little heads as he carried the sacrament out to the Hareem.

Fancy the parson kindly patting a noisy boy's head, instead of the beadle whacking him! I am entirely reconciled to the Coptic rules.

May, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

NILE BOAT, _URANIA_, _May_, 1865.

Happy as I was in the prospect of seeing you all and miserable as poor Upper Egypt has become, I could not leave without a pang. Our Bairam was not gay. There was horse riding for Sheykh Gibreel (the cousin of Abu'l Haggag) and the scene was prettier than ever I saw. My old friend Yunis the Shereef insisted on showing me that at eighty-five he could still handle a horse and throw a Gereed 'for Sheykh Gibreel and the Lady' as he said. Then arrived the Mufettish of Zenia with his gay attendants and filled the little square in front of the Cadi's castellated house where we were sitting. The young Sheykh of Salamieh rode beautifully and there was some excellent Neboot play (sort of very severe quarterstaff peculiar to the Fellaheen).

Next day was the great dinner given by Mohammed and Mustapha outside Mohammed's house opposite Sheykh Gibreel's tomb-200 men ate at his gate.

I went to see it and was of course asked to eat. 'Can one like thee eat the Melocheea of the Fellaheen?' So I joined a party of five round a little wooden tray, tucked up my sleeve and ate-dipping the bread into the Melocheea which is like very sloppy spinach but much nicer. Then came the master and his servants to deal the pieces of meat out of a great basket-sodden meat-and like Benjamin my piece was the largest, so I tore off a bit and handed it to each of my companions, who said 'G.o.d take thee safe and happy to thy place and thy children and bring thee back to us in safety to eat the meat of the festival together once more.'

The moon rose clear and bright behind the one tall palm tree that overhangs the tomb of Sheykh Gibreel. He is a saint of homely tastes and will not have a dome over him or a cover for his tomb, which is only surrounded by a wall breast-high, enclosing a small square bit of ground with the rough tomb on one side. At each corner was set up a flag, and a few dim lanterns hung overhead. The 200 men eating were quite noiseless-and as they rose, one by one washed their hands and went, the crowd melted away like a vision. But before all were gone, came the Bulook, or sub-magistrate-a Turkish Jack in office with the manners of a Zouave turned parish beadle. He began to sneer at the _melocheea_ of the fellaheen and swore he could not eat it if he sat before it 1,000 years.

Hereupon, Omar began to 'chaff' him. 'Eat, oh Bulook Pasha and if it swells thy belly the Lady will give thee of the physick of the English to clean thy stomach upwards and downwards of all thou hast eaten of the food of the fellaheen.' The Bulook is notorious for his exactions-his 'eating the people'-so there was a great laugh. Poor Omar was very ill next day-and every one thought the Bulook had given him the eye.

Then came the Mufettish in state to pay his _devoirs_ to the Sheykh in the tomb. He came and talked to Mustapha and Yussuf and enumerated the people taken for the works, 200 from Luxor, 400 from Carnac, 310 from Zenia, 320 from Byadyeh, and 380 from Salamieh-a good deal more than half the adult men to go for sixty days leaving their fields uncultivated and their Hareem and children hungry-for they have to take all the food for themselves.

I rose sick at heart from the Mufettish's harsh voice, and went down to listen to the Moonsheeds chanting at the tomb and the Zikheers' strange sobbing, Allah, Allah.

I leaned on the mud wall watching the slender figures swaying in the moonlight, when a tall, handsome fellah came up in his brown s.h.i.+rt, felt _libdeh_ (scull cap), with his blue cotton _melaya_ tied up and full of dried bread on his back. The type of the Egyptian. He stood close beside me and prayed for his wife and children. 'Ask our G.o.d to pity them, O Sheykh, and to feed them while I am away. Thou knowest how my wife worked all night to bake all the wheat for me and that there is none left for her and the children.' He then turned to me and took my hand and went on, 'Thou knowest this lady, oh Sheykh Gibreel, take her happy and well to her place and bring her back to us-_el Fathah, yah Beshoosheh_!' and we said it together. I could have laid my head on Sheykh Gibreel's wall and howled. I thanked him as well as I could for caring about one like me while his own troubles were so heavy. I shall never forget that tall athletic figure and the gentle brown face, with the eleven days' moon of Zulheggeh, and the shadow of the palm tree.

That was my farewell. 'The voice of the miserable is with thee, shall G.o.d not hear it?'

Next day Omar had a sharp attack of fever and was delirious-it lasted only two days but left him very weak and the anxiety and trouble was great-for my helping hands were as awkward as they were willing.

In a few days arrived the boat Urania. She is very nice indeed. A small saloon, two good berths-bath and cabinet, and very large _kasneh_ (stern cabin). She is dirty, but will be extremely comfortable when cleaned and painted. On the 15th we sailed. Sheykh Yussuf went with me to Keneh, Mustapha and Seyd going by land-and one of Hajjee Sultan's disciples and several Luxor men were deck pa.s.sengers. The Shereef gave me the bread and jars of b.u.t.ter for his grandsons in Gama'l Azhar, and came to see me off. We sat on the deck outside as there was a crowd to say good-bye and had a lot of Hareem in the cabin. The old Shereef made me sit down on the carpet close to him and then said 'we sit here like two lovers'-at eighty-five _even_ an Arab and a Shereef may be "_gaillard_"-so I cried, 'Oh Shereef, what if Omar tells my master the secret thou hast let out-it is not well of thee.' There was a great laugh which ended in the Shereef saying 'no doubt thy master is of the best of the people, let us say the _Fathah_ for him,' and he called on all the people '_El Fathah_ for the master of the lady!' I hope it has benefited you to be prayed for at Luxor.

I had written so far and pa.s.sed Minieh when I fell ill with pleurisy-I've lots more to tell of my journey but am too weak after two weeks in bed (and unable to lie down from suffocation)-but I am _much_ better now. A man from the Azhar is reading the Koran for me outside-while another is gone with candles to Seyeedele Zeynet 'the fanatics!'

June 16, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

CAIRO, _June_ 16, 1865.

DEAREST ALICK,