Letters from Egypt Part 4

CAIRO, _April_ 18, 1863.

MY DEAR TOM,

Your letter and Laura's were a great pleasure to me in this distant land.

I could not answer before, as I have been very ill. But Samaritans came with oil and wine and comforted me. It had an odd, dreary effect to hear my friend Hekekian Bey, a learned old Armenian, and De Leo Bey, my doctor, discoursing Turkish at my bedside, while my faithful Omar cried and prayed _Yah Robbeena_! _Yah Saatir_! (O Lord! O Preserver!) 'don't let her die.'

Alick is quite right that I am in love with the Arabs' ways, and I have contrived to see and know more of family life than many Europeans who have lived here for years. When the Arabs feel that one really cares for them, they heartily return it. If I could only speak the language I could see anything. Cairo _is_ the Arabian Nights; there is a little Frankish varnish here and there, but the government, the people-all is unchanged since that most veracious book was written. No words can describe the departure of the holy Mahmal and the pilgrims for Mecca. I spent half the day loitering about in the Bedaween tents admiring the glorious, free people. To see a Bedaween and his wife walk through the streets of Cairo is superb. Her hand resting on his shoulder, and scarcely deigning to cover her haughty face, she looks down on the Egyptian veiled woman who carries the heavy burden and walks behind her lord and master.

By no deed of my own have I become a slave-owner. The American Consul-General turned over to me a black girl of eight or nine, and in consequence of her reports the poor little black boy who is the slave and marmiton of the cook here has been entreating Omar to beg me to buy him and take him with me. It is touching to see the two poor little black things recounting their woes and comparing notes. I went yesterday to deposit my cooking things and boat furniture at my washerwoman's house.

Seeing me arrive on my donkey, followed by a cargo of household goods, about eight or ten Arab women thronged round delighted at the idea that I was coming to live in their quarter, and offering me neighbourly services. Of course all rushed upstairs, and my old washerwoman was put to great expense in pipes and coffee. I think, as you, that I must have the 'black drop,' and that the Arabs see it, for I am always told that I am like them, with praises of my former good looks. 'You were beautiful Hareem once.' Nothing is more striking to me than the way in which one is constantly reminded of Herodotus. The Christianity and the Islam of this country are full of the ancient wors.h.i.+p, and the sacred animals have all taken service with Muslim saints. At Minieh one reigns over crocodiles; higher up I saw the hole of aesculapius' serpent at Gebel Sheykh Hereedee, and I fed the birds-as did Herodotus-who used to tear the cordage of boats which refused to feed them, and who are now the servants of Sheykh Naooneh, and still come on board by scores for the bread which no Reis dares refuse them. Bubastis' cats are still fed in the Cadi's court at public expense in Cairo, and behave with singular decorum when 'the servant of the cats' serves them their dinner. Among G.o.ds, Amun Ra, the sun-G.o.d and serpent-killer, calls himself Mar Girgis (St. George), and is wors.h.i.+pped by Christians and Muslims in the same churches, and Osiris holds his festivals as riotously as ever at Tanta in the Delta, under the name of Seyd el Bedawee. The _fellah_ women offer sacrifices to the Nile, and walk round ancient statues in order to have children. The ceremonies at births and burials are not Muslim, but ancient Egyptian.

The Copts are far more close and reserved and backward than the Arabs, and they have been so repudiated by Europeans that they are doubly shy of us. The Europeans resent being called 'Nazranee' as a genteel Hebrew gentleman may shrink from 'Jew.' But I said boldly, '_Ana Nazraneeh_.

_Alhamdulillah_!' (I am a Nazranee. Praise be to G.o.d), and found that it was much approved by the Muslims as well as the Copts. Curious things are to be seen here in religion-Muslims praying at the tomb of Mar Girgis (St. George) and the resting-places of Sittina Mariam and Seyidna Issa, and miracles, brand-new, of an equally mixed description.

If you have any power over any artists, send them to paint here. No words can describe either the picturesque beauty of Cairo or the splendid forms of the people in Upper Egypt, and above all in Nubia. I was in raptures at seeing how superb an animal man (and woman) really is. My donkey-girl at Thebes, dressed like a Greek statue-Ward es-Sham (the Rose of Syria)-was a feast to the eyes; and here, too, what grace and sweetness, and how good is a drink of Nile water out of an amphora held to your lips by a woman as graceful as she is kindly. 'May it benefit thee,' she says, smiling with all her beautiful teeth and eyes.

'_Alhamdulillah_,' you reply; and it is worth thanking G.o.d for. The days of the beauty of Cairo are numbered. The mosques are falling to decay, the exquisite lattice windows rotting away and replaced by European gla.s.s and jalousies. Only the people and the Government remain unchanged.

Read all the pretty paragraphs about civilisation here, and then say, Bos.h.!.+

If you know anyone coming here and wanting a good servant and dragoman, recommend my dear Omar Abou el-Halaweh of Alexandria. He has been my friend and companion, as well as my cook and general servant, now for six months, and we are very sad at our approaching separation. I am to spend a day in his house with his young wife at Alexandria, and to eat his bread. He sadly wants to go with me to Europe and to see my children.

Sally, I think, is almost as fond of the Arabs as I am, and very popular.

My poor ragged crew were for ever calling out 'Yah Sara' for some a.s.sistance or other, hurt fingers or such calamities; and the quant.i.ty of doctoring I did was fearful. Sally was constantly wis.h.i.+ng for you to see all manner of things and to sketch. What a yarn I have made!

May 12, 1863: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

ALEXANDRIA, _May_ 12, 1863.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I have been here a fortnight, but the climate disagrees so much with me that I am going back to Cairo at once by the advice of the doctor of the Suez Ca.n.a.l. I cannot shake off my cough here. Mr. Thayer kindly lends me his nice little bachelor house, and I take Omar back again for the job. It is very hot here, but with a sea-breeze which strikes me like ice; strong people enjoy it, but it gives even Janet cold in the head.

She is very well, I think, and seems very happy. She is _Times_ correspondent and does it very well.

I am terribly disappointed at not being as materially better as I had hoped I should be while in Upper Egypt. I cannot express the longing I have for home and my children, and how much I feel the sort of suspense it all causes to you and to Alick, and my desire to be with you.

One must come to the East to understand absolute equality. As there is no education and no reason why the donkey-boy who runs behind me may not become a great man, and as all Muslims are _ipso facto_ equal; money and rank are looked on as mere accidents, and my _savoir vivre_ was highly thought of because I sat down with Fellaheen and treated everyone as they treat each other. In Alexandria all that is changed. The European ideas and customs have extinguished the Arab altogether, and those who remain are not improved by the contact. Only the _Bedaween_ preserve their haughty _nonchalance_. I found the Mograbee bazaar full of them when I went to buy a white cloak, and was amused at the way in which one splendid bronze figure, who lay on the shop-front, moved one leg to let me sit down. They got interested in my purchase, and a.s.sisted in making the bargain and wrapping the cloak round me Bedawee fas.h.i.+on, and they too complimented me on having 'the face of the Arab,' which means Bedaween.

I wanted a little Arab dress for Rainie, but could not find one, as at her age none are worn in the desert.

I dined one day with Omar, or rather I ate at his house, for he would not eat with me. His sister-in-law cooked a most admirable dinner, and everyone was delighted. It was an interesting family circle. A very respectable elder brother a confectioner, whose elder wife was a black woman, a really remarkable person, who speaks Italian perfectly, and gave me a great deal of information and asked such intelligent questions. She ruled the house but had no children, so he had married a fair, gentle-looking Arab woman who had six children, and all lived in perfect harmony. Omar's wife is a tall, handsome girl of his own age, with very good manners. She had been outside the door of the close little court which const.i.tuted the house _once_ since her marriage. I now begin to understand all about the _wesen_ with the women. There is a good deal of chivalry in some respects, and in the respectable lower and middle cla.s.ses the result is not so bad. I suspect that among the rich few are very happy. But I don't know them, or anything of the Turkish ways. I will go and see the black woman again and hear more, her conversation was really interesting.

May 12, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

ALEXANDRIA, _May_ 12, 1863.

DEAREST ALICK,

I only got your letter an hour ago, and the mail goes out at four. I enclose to you the letter I had written to my mother, so I need not repeat about my plans. Continue to write here, a letter comes as soon and safer. My general health is so much stronger and better-especially before I had this last severe attack-that I still hope, though it is a severe trial of patience not to throw it up and come home for good. It would be delightful to have you at Cairo now I have pots and pans and all needful for a house, but a carpet and a few mattresses, if you could camp with me _a l'Arabe_.

How you would revel in old Masr el-Kahira, peep up at lattice windows, gape like a _gasheem_ (green one) in the bazaar, go wild over the mosques, laugh at portly Turks and dignified Sheykhs on their white donkeys, drink sherbet in the streets, ride wildly about on a donkey, peer under black veils at beautiful eyes and feel generally intoxicated!

I am quite a good cicerone now of the glorious old city. Omar is in raptures at the idea that the Sidi el Kebir (the Great Master) might come, and still more if he brought the 'little master.' He plans meeting you on the steamboat and bringing you to me, that I may kiss your hand first of all. Mashallah! How our hearts would be dilated!

May 21, 1863: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

MASR EL-KAHIRA, CAIRO, _May_ 21, 1863.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I came here on Sat.u.r.day night. To-day is Wednesday, and I am already much better. I have attached an excellent donkey and his master, a delightful youth called Ha.s.san, to my household for fifteen piastres (under two s.h.i.+llings) a day. They live at the door, and Ha.s.san cleans the stairs and goes errands during the heat of the day, and I ride out very early, at six or seven, and again at five. The air is delicious now. It is very hot for a few hours, but not stifling, and the breeze does not chill one as it does at Alexandria. I live all day and all night with open windows, and plenty of fresh warm air is the best of remedies. I can do no better than stay here till the heat becomes too great. I left little Zeyneb at Alexandria with Janet's maid Ellen who quite loves her, and begged to keep her 'for company,' and also to help in their removal to the new house. She clung about me and made me promise to come back to her, but was content to stop with Ellen, whose affection she of course returns. It was pleasant to see her so happy, and how she relished being 'put to bed' with a kiss by Ellen or Sally.

Her Turkish master, whom she p.r.o.nounces to have been _batal_ (bad), called her Salaam es-Sidi (the Peace of her Master); but she said that in her own village she used to be Zeyneb, and so we call her. She has grown fatter and, if possible, blacker. Mahbrooka (Good Fortune), the elder wife of Hegab, the confectioner, was much interested in her, as her fate had been the same. She was bought by an Italian who lived with her till his death, when she married Hegab. She is a pious Muslimeh, and invoked the intercession of Seyidna Mohammad for me when I told her I had no intention of baptizing Zeyneb by force, as had been done to her.

The fault of my lodging here is the noise. We are on the road from the railway and there is no quiet except in the few hot hours, when nothing is heard but the cool tinkle of the Sakka's bra.s.s cup as he sells water in the street, or perchance _erksoos_ (liquorice-water), or caroub or raisin sherbet. The _erksoos_ is rather bitter and very good. I drink it a good deal, for drink one must; a gulleh of water is soon gone. A gulleh is a wide-mouthed porous jar, and Nile water drunk out of it without the intervention of a gla.s.s is delicious. Omar goes to market every morning with a donkey-I went too, and was much amused-and cooks, and in the evening goes out with me if I want him. I told him I had recommended him highly, and hoped he would get good employment; but he declares that he will go with no one else so long as I come to Egypt, whatever the difference of wages may be. 'The bread I eat with you is sweet'-a pretty little unconscious ant.i.thesis to Dante. I have been advising his brother Hajjee Ali to start a hotel at Thebes for invalids, and he has already set about getting a house there; there is _one_. Next winter there will be steamers twice a week-to a.s.souan! Juvenal's distant Syene, where he died in banishment. My old washerwoman sent me a fervent entreaty through Omar that I would dine with her one day, since I had made Cairo delightful with my presence. If one will only devour these people's food, they are enchanted; they like that much better than a present. So I will honour her house some day. Good old Hannah, she is divorced for being too fat and old, and replaced by a young Turk whose family sponge on Hajjee Ali and are condescending. If I could afford it, I would have a sketch of a beloved old mosque of mine, falling to decay, and with three palm-trees growing in the middle of it. Indeed, I would have a book full, for all is exquisite, and alas, all is going. The old Copt quarter is _entame_, and hideous, shabby French houses, like the one I live in, are being run up; and in this weather how much better would be the Arab courtyard, with its mastabah and fountain!

There is a quarrel now in the street; how they talk and gesticulate, and everybody puts in a word; a boy has upset a cake-seller's tray, '_Naal Abu'k_!' (Curses on your father) he claims six piastres damages, and everyone gives an opinion _pour ou contre_. We all look out of the window; my opposite neighbour, the pretty Armenian woman, leans out, and her diamond head-ornaments and earrings glitter as she laughs like a child. The Christian dyer is also very active in the row, which, like all Arab rows, ends in nothing; it evaporates in fine theatrical gestures and lots of talk. Curious! In the street they are so noisy, but get the same men in a coffee-shop or anywhere, and they are the quietest of mankind. Only one man speaks at a time, the rest listen, and never interrupt; twenty men don't make the noise of three Europeans.

Hekekian Bey is my near neighbour, and he comes in and we _fronder_ the Government. His heart is sore with disinterested grief for the sufferings of the people. 'Don't they deserve to be decently governed, to be allowed a little happiness and prosperity? They are so docile, so contented; are they not a good people?' Those were his words as he was recounting some new iniquity. Of course half these acts are done under pretext of improving and civilizing, and the Europeans applaud and say, 'Oh, but nothing could be done without forced labour,' and the poor Fellaheen are marched off in gangs like convicts, and their families starve, and (who'd have thought it) the population keeps diminis.h.i.+ng. No wonder the cry is, 'Let the English Queen come and take us.' You see, I don't see things quite as Ross does, but mine is another _standpunkt_, and my heart is with the Arabs. I care less about opening up the trade with the Soudan and all the new railways, and I should like to see person and property safe, which no one's is here (Europeans, of course, excepted). Ismail Pasha got the Sultan to allow him to take 90,000 feddans of uncultivated land for himself as private property, very well, but the late Viceroy Said granted eight years ago certain uncultivated lands to a good many Turks, his _employes_, in hopes of founding a landed aristocracy and inducing them to spend their capital in cultivation.

They did so, and now Ismail Pasha takes their improved land and gives them feddan for feddan of his new land, which will take five years to bring into cultivation, instead. He forces them to sign a _voluntary_ deed of exchange, or they go off to Fazogloo, a hot Siberia whence none return. The Sultan also left a large sum of money for religious inst.i.tutions and charities-Muslim, Jew, and Christian. None have received a foddah. It is true the Sultan and his suite plundered the Pasha and the people here; but from all I hear the Sultan really wishes to do good. What is wanted here is hands to till the ground, and wages are very high; food, of course, gets dearer, and the forced labour inflicts more suffering than before, and the population will decrease yet faster. This appears to me to be a state of things in which it is no use to say that public works must be made at any cost. The wealth will perhaps be increased, if meanwhile the people are not exterminated.

Then, every new Pasha builds a huge new palace while those of his predecessors fall to ruin. Mehemet Ali's sons even cut down the trees of his beautiful botanical garden and planted beans there; so money is constantly wasted more than if it were thrown into the Nile, for then the Fellaheen would not have to spend their time, so much wanted for agriculture, in building hideous barrack-like so-called palaces. What chokes me is to hear English people talk of the stick being 'the only way to manage Arabs' as if anyone could doubt that it is the easiest way to manage any people where it can be used with impunity.

_Sunday_.-I went to a large unfinished new Coptic church this morning.

Omar went with me up to the women's gallery, and was discreetly going back when he saw me in the right place, but the Coptic women began to talk to him and asked questions about me all the time I was looking down on the strange scene below. I believe they celebrate the ancient mysteries still. The clas.h.i.+ng of cymbals, the chanting, a humming unlike any sound I ever heard, the strange yellow copes covered with stranger devices-it was _wunderlich_. At the end everyone went away, and I went down and took off my shoes to go and look at the church. While I was doing so a side-door opened and a procession entered. A priest dressed in the usual black robe and turban of all Copts carrying a trident-shaped sort of candlestick, another with cymbals, a lot of little boys, and two young ecclesiastics of some sort in the yellow satin copes (contrasting queerly with the familiar tarboosh of common life on their heads), these carried little babies and huge wax tapers, each a baby and a taper. They marched round and round three times, the cymbals going furiously, and chanting a jig tune. The dear little tiny boys marched just in front of the priest with such a pretty little solemn, consequential air. Then they all stopped in front of the sanctuary, and the priest untied a sort of broad-coloured tape which was round each of the babies, reciting something in Coptic all the time, and finally touched their foreheads and hands with water. This is a ceremony subsequent to baptism after I don't know how many days, but the priest ties and then unties the bands. Of what is this symbolical? _Je m'y perds_. Then an old man gave a little round cake of bread, with a cabalistic-looking pattern on it, both to Omar and to me, which was certainly baked for Isis. A lot of closely-veiled women stood on one side in the aisle, and among them the mothers of the babies who received them from the men in yellow copes at the end of the ceremony. One of these young men was very handsome, and as he stood looking down and smiling on the baby he held, with the light of the torch sharpening the lines of his features, would have made a lovely picture. The expression was sweeter than St. Vincent de Paul, because his smile told that he could have played with the baby as well as have prayed for it. In this country one gets to see how much more beautiful a perfectly natural expression is than any degree of the mystical expression of the best painters, and it is so refres.h.i.+ng that no one tries to look pious. The Muslim looks serious, and often warlike, as he stands at prayer. The Christian just keeps his everyday face. When the Muslim gets into a state of devotional frenzy he does not think of making a face, and it is quite tremendous. I don't think the Copt has any such ardours, but the scene this morning was all the more touching that no one was 'behaving him or herself' at all. A little acolyte peeped into the sacramental cup and swigged off the drops left in it with the most innocent air, and no one rebuked him, and the quite little children ran about in the sanctuary-up to seven they are privileged-and only they and the priests enter it. It is a pretty commentary on the words 'Suffer the little children,' etc.

I am more and more annoyed at not being able to ask questions for myself, as I don't like to ask through a Muslim and no Copts speak any foreign language, or very very few. Omar and Ha.s.san had been at five this morning to the tomb of Sittina Zeyneb, one of the daughters of the Prophet, to 'see her' (Sunday is her day of reception), and say the Fathah at her tomb. Next Friday the great Bairam begins and every Muslim eats a bit of meat at his richer neighbour's expense. It is the day on which the pilgrims go up the sacred mount near Mecca, to hear the sermon which terminates the Haj. Yesterday I went to call on pretty Mrs.

Wilkinson, she is an Armenian of the Greek faith, and was gone to pray at the convent of Mar Girgis (St. George) to cure the pains a bad rheumatic fever has left in her hands. Evidently Mar Girgis is simply Ammon Ra, the G.o.d of the Sun and great serpent-slayer, who is still revered in Egypt by all sects, and Seyd el-Bedawee is as certainly one form of Osiris. His festivals, held twice a year at Tanta, still display the symbol of the Creator of all things. All is thus here-the women wail the dead, as on the old sculptures, all the ceremonies are pagan, and would shock an Indian Mussulman as much as his objection to eat with a Christian shocks an Arab. This country is a palimpsest, in which the Bible is written over Herodotus, and the Koran over that. In the towns the Koran is most visible, in the country Herodotus. I fancy it is most marked and most curious among the Copts, whose churches are shaped like the ancient temples, but they are so much less accessible than the Arabs that I know less of their customs.

Now I have filled such a long letter I hardly know if it is worth sending, and whether you will be amused by my commonplaces of Eastern life. I kill a sheep next Friday, and Omar will cook a stupendous dish for the poor Fellaheen who are lying about the railway-station, waiting to be taken to work somewhere. That is to be my Bairam, and Omar hopes for great benefit for me from the process.

May 25, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

CAIRO, _May_ 25, 1863.