Chapter XIII: Part 13

My boat is beautifully buoyant now, and has come up by the bows in fine style. I have not sailed her yet, but have doubt she will 'walk well' as the Arabs say. Omar got 10 pounds by the sale of old wood and nails, and also gave me 2000 piastres, nearly 12 pounds, which the workmen had given him as a sort of backsheesh. They all pay one, two or three piastres daily to any _wakeel_ (agent) who superintends; that is his profit, and it is enormous at that rate. I said, 'Why did you not refuse it?' But Omar replied they had pay enough after that reduction, which is always made from them, and that in his opinion therefore, it came out of the master's pocket, and was 'cheatery.' How people have been talking nonsense about Jamaica _chez vous_. I have little doubt Eyre did quite right, and still less doubt that the niggers have had enough of the sort of provocation which I well know, to account for the outbreak. Baker's effusion is a very poor business. There may be blacks like tigers (and whites too in London for that matter). I myself have seen at least five sorts of blacks (negroes, not Arabs), more unlike each other than Swedes are unlike Spaniards; and many are just like ourselves. Of course they want governing with a strong hand, like all ignorant, childish creatures. But I am fully convinced that custom and education are the only real differences between one set of men and another, their inner nature is the same all the world over.

My Reis spoke such a pretty parable the other day that I must needs write it. A Coptic Reis stole some of my wood, which we got back by force and there was some reviling of the Nazarenes in consequence from Hoseyn and Ali; but Reis Mohammed said: 'Not so; Girgis is a thief, it is true, but many Christians are honest; and behold, all the people in the world are like soldiers, some wear red and some blue; some serve on foot, others on horseback, and some in ships; but all serve one Sultan, and each fights in the regiment in which the Sultan has placed him, and he who does his duty best is the best man, be his coat red or blue or black.' I said, 'Excellent words, oh Reis, and fit to be spoken from the best of pulpits.' It is surprising what happy sayings the people here hit upon; they cultivate talk for want of reading, and the consequence is great facility of narration and illustration. Everybody enforces his ideas like Christ, in parables. Hajjee Hannah told me two excellent fairy tales, which I will write for Rainie with some Bowdlerizing, and several laughable stories, which I will leave unrecorded, as savouring too much of Boccaccio's manner, or that of the Queen of Navarre. I told Achmet to sweep the floor after dinner just now. He hesitated, and I called again: 'What manner is this, not to sweep when I bid thee?' 'By the most high God,' said the boy, 'my hand shall not sweep in thy boat after sunset, oh Lady; I would rather have it cut off than sweep thee out of thy property.' I found that you must not sweep at night, nor for three days after the departure of a guest whose return you desire, or of the master of the house. 'Thinkest thou that my brother would sweep away the dust of thy feet from the floors at Luxor,' continued Achmet, 'he would fear never to see thy fortunate face again.' If you don't want to see your visitor again you break a _gulleh_ (water-jar) behind him as he leaves the house, and sweep away his footsteps.

What a canard your papers have in Europe about a constitution here. I won't write any politics, it is all too dreary; and Cairo gossip is odious, as you may judge by the productions of Mesdames Odouard and Lott. Only remember this, there is no law nor justice but the will, or rather the caprice, of one man. It is nearly impossible for any European to conceive such a state of things as really exists. Nothing but perfect familiarity with the governed, _i.e._ oppressed, class will teach it; however intimate a man may be with the rulers he will never fully take it in. I am _a l'index_ here, and none of the people I know dare come to see me; Arab I mean. It was whispered in my ear in the street by a friend I met. Ismael Pasha's chief pleasure is gossip, and a certain number of persons, chiefly Europeans, furnish him with it daily, true or false. If the farce of the constitution ever should be acted here it will be superb. Something like the Consul going in state to ask the fellaheen what wages they got. I could tell you a little of the value of consular information; but what is the use? Europe is enchanted with the enlightened Pasha who has ruined this fine country.

I long so to see you and Rainie! I don't like to hope too much, but Inshallah, next year I shall see you all.

October 19, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

OFF BOULAK,
_October_ 19, 1866.

I shall soon sail up the river. Yesterday Seyd Mustapha arrived, who says that the Greeks are all gone, and the poor Austrian at Thebes is dead, so I shall represent Europe in my single person from Siout to, I suppose, Khartoum.

You would delight in Mabrook; a man asked him the other day after his flogging, if he would not run away, to see what he would say as he alleged, I suspect he meant to steal and sell him. 'I run away, to eat lentils like you? when _my_ Effendi gives me meat and bread every day, and _I eat such a lot_.' Is not that a delicious practical view of liberty? The creature's enjoyment of life is quite a pleasure to witness, and he really works very well and with great alacrity. If Palgrave claims him I think I must buy him.

I hear sad accounts from the Saeed: the new taxes and the new levies of soldiers are driving the people to despair and many are running away from the land, which will no longer feed them after paying all exactions, to join the Bedaween in the desert, which is just as if our peasantry turned gipsies. A man from Dishne visited me: the people there want me to settle in their village and offer me a voluntary _corvee_ if I will buy land, so many men to work for me two days a month each, I haven't a conception why. It is a place about fifty miles below Luxor, a large agricultural village.

Omar's wife Mabrookah came here yesterday, a nice young woman, and the babies are fine children and very sweet-tempered. She told me that the lion's head, which I sent down to Alexandria to go to you, was in her room when a neighbour of hers, who had never had a child, saw it, and at once conceived. The old image worship survives in the belief, which is all over Egypt, that the 'Anteeks' (antiques) can cure barrenness. Mabrookah was of course very smartly dressed, and the reckless way in which Eastern women treat their fine clothes gives them a grand air, which no Parisian Duchess could hope to imitate--not that I think it a virtue mind you, but some vices are genteel.

Last night was a great Sheykh's fete, such drumming and singing, and ferrying across the river. The Nile is running down unusually fast, and I think I had better go soon, as the mud of Cairo is not so sweet as the mud of the upper land.

October 25, 1866: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

OFF BOULAK,
_October_ 25, 1866.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I have got all ready, and shall sail on Saturday. My men have baked the bread, and received their wages to go to Luxor and bring the boat back to let. It is turning cold, but I feel none the worse for it, though I shall be glad to go. I've had a dreary, worrying time here, and am tired of hearing of all the meannesses and wickedness which constitute the _on dits_ here. Not that I hear much, but there is nothing else. I shall be best at Luxor now the winter has set in so early. You would laugh at such winter when one sits out all day under an awning in English summer clothes, and wants only two blankets at night; but all is comparative _ici bas_, and I call it cold, and Mabrook ceases to consider his clothes such a grievance as they were to him at first, and takes kindly to a rough _capote_ for the night. I have just been interrupted by my Reis and one of my men, who came in to display the gorgeous printed calico they have bought; one for his Luxor wife and the other for his betrothed up near Assouan. (The latter is about eight years old, and Hosein has dressed her and paid her expenses these five years, as is the custom up in that district.) The Reis has bought a silk head-kerchief for nine shillings, but that was in the marriage contract. So I must see, admire and wish good luck to the finery, and to the girls who are to wear it. Then we had a little talk about the prospects of letting the boat, and, Inshallah, making some money for _el gamma_, _i.e._, 'all our company,' or 'all of us together.' The Reis hopes that the _Howagat_ will not be too outrageous in their ways or given to use the stick, as the solution of every difficulty.

The young Shurafa of Abu-l-Hajjaj came from Gama'l Azhar to-day to bid me goodbye and bring their letters for Luxor. I asked them about the rumours that the Ulema are preaching against the Franks (which is always being said), but they had heard nothing of the sort, and said they had not heard of anything the Franks had done lately which would signify to the Muslims at all. It is not the Franks who press so many soldiers, or levy such heavy taxes three months in advance! I will soon write again. I feel rather like the wandering Jew and long for home and rest, without being dissatisfied with what I have and enjoy, God knows. If I _could_ get better and come home next summer.

November 21, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_November_ 21, 1866

DEAREST ALICK,

I arrived here on the morning of the 11th. I am a beast not to have written, but I caught cold after four days and have really not been well, so forgive me, and I will narrate and not apologize. We came up best pace, as the boat is a flyer now, only fourteen days to Thebes, and to Keneh only eleven. Then we had bad winds, and my men pulled away at the rope, and sang about the _Reis el-Arousa_ (bridegroom) going to his bride, and even Omar went and pulled the rope. We were all very merry, and played practical jokes on a rascal who wanted a pound to guide me to the tombs: we made him run miles, fetch innumerable donkeys, and then laughed at his beard. Such is boatmen fun. On arriving at Luxor I heard a _charivari_ of voices, and knew I was 'at home,' by the shrill pipe of the little children, _el Sitt_, _el Sitt_. Visitors all day of course, at night comes up another dahabieh, great commotion, as it had been telegraphed from Cairo (which I knew before I left, and was to be stopped). So I coolly said, 'Oh Mustapha, the Indian saint (Walee) is in thine eye, seeing that an Indian is all as one with an Englishman.' 'How did I know there was an Indian and a Walee?' etc. Meanwhile the Walee had a bad thumb, and some one told his slave that there was a wonderful English doctress, so in the morning he sent for me, and I went inside the hareem. He was very friendly, and made me sit close beside him, told me he was fourth in descent from Abd el-Kader Gylamee of Bagdad, but his father settled at Hyderabad, where he has great estates. He said he was a Walee or saint, and would have it that I was in the path of the darweeshes; gave me medicine for my cough; asked me many questions, and finally gave me five dollars and asked if I wanted more? I thanked him heartily, kissed the money politely, and told him I was not poor enough to want it and would give it in his name to the poor of Luxor, but that I would never forget that the Indian Sheykh had behaved like a brother to an English woman in a strange land. He then spoke in great praise of the 'laws of the English,' and said many more kind things to me, adding again, 'I tell thee thou art a Darweesh, and do not thou forget me.' Another Indian from Lahore, I believe the Sheykh's tailor, came to see me--an intelligent man, and a Syrian doctor; a manifest scamp. The people here said he was a _bahlawar_ (rope-dancer). Well, the authorities detained the boat with fair words till orders came from Keneh to let them go up further. Meanwhile the Sheykh came out and performed some miracles, which I was not there to see, perfuming people's hands by touching them with his, and taking English sovereigns out of a pocketless jacket, and the doctor told wonders of him. Anyhow he spent 10 pounds in one day here, and he is a regular darweesh. He and all the Hareem were poorly dressed and wore no ornaments whatever. I hope Seyd Abdurachman will come down safe again, but no one knows what the Government wants of him or why he is so watched. It is the first time I ever saw an Oriental travelling for pleasure. He had about ten or twelve in the hareem, among them his three little girls, and perhaps twenty men outside, Indians, and Arabs from Syria, I fancy.

Next day I moved into the old house, and found one end in ruins, owing to the high Nile and want of repair. However there is plenty more safe and comfortable. I settled all accounts with my men, and made an inventory in Arabic, which Sheykh Yussuf wrote for me, which we laughed over hugely. How to express a sauce-boat, a pie-dish, etc. in Arabic, was a poser. A genteel Effendi, who sat by, at last burst out in uncontrollable amazement; 'There is no God but God: is it possible that four or five Franks can use all these things to eat, drink and sleep on a journey?' (N.B. I fear the Franks will think the stock very scanty.) Whereupon master Achmet, with the swagger of one who has seen cities and men, held forth. 'Oh Effendim, that is nothing; Our Lady is almost like the children of the Arabs. One dish or two, a piece of bread, a few dates, and Peace, (as we say, there is an end of it). But thou shouldst see the merchants of Escandarieh, (Alexandria), three tablecloths, forty dishes, to each soul seven plates of all sorts, seven knives and seven forks and seven spoons, large and small, and seven different glasses for wine and beer and water.' 'It is the will of God,' replied the Effendi, rather put down: 'but,' he added, 'it must be a dreadful fatigue to them to eat their dinner.' Then came an impudent merchant who wanted to go down with his bales and five souls in my boat for nothing. But I said, 'Oh man, she is my property, and I will eat from her of thy money as of the money of the Franks.' Whereupon he offered 1 pound, but was bundled out amid general reproaches for his avarice and want of shame. So all the company said a _Fattah_ for the success of the voyage, and Reis Mohammed was exhorted to 'open his eyes,' and he should have a tarboosh if he did well.

Then I went to visit my kind friend the Maohn's wife, and tell her all about her charming daughter and grandchildren. I was, of course, an hour in the streets salaaming, etc. '_Sheerafteenee Beledna_, thou hast honoured our country on all sides.' 'Blessings come with thee,' etc.

Everything is cheaper than last year, but there is no money to buy with, and the taxes have grown beyond bearing, as a fellah said, 'a man can't (we will express it "blow his nose," if you please; the real phrase was less parliamentary, and expressive of something at once _ventose_ and valueless) without a cawass behind him to levy a tax on it.' The ha'porth of onions we buy in the market is taxed on the spot, and the fish which the man catches under my window. I paid a tax on buying charcoal, and another on having it weighed. People are terribly beaten to get next year's taxes out of them, which they have not the money to pay.

The Nubian M.P.'s passed the other day in three boats, towed by a steamer, very frightened and sullen. I fell in with some Egyptians on my way, and tried the European style of talk. 'Now you will help to govern the country, what a fine thing for you,' etc. I got such a look of rueful reproach. 'Laugh not thou at our beards O Effendim! God's mercy, what words are these? and who is there on the banks of the Nile who can say anything but _hader_ (ready), with both hands on the head, and a salaam to the ground even to a Moudir; and thou talkest of speaking before Effendina! Art thou mad, Effendim?' Of all the vexations none are more trying than the distinctions which have been inflicted on the unlucky Sheykhs el-Beled. In fear and trembling they ate their Effendina's banquet and sadly paid the bill: and those who have had the _Nishan_ (the order of the Mejeedee) have had to disburse fees whereat the Lord Chamberlain's staff's mouths might water, and now the wretched delegates to the Egyptian Chambers (God save the mark) are going down with their hearts in their shoes. The Nubians say that the Divan is to be held in the Citadel and that the road by which the Memlook Beys left it is not stopped up, though perhaps it goes underground nowadays. {315}

_November_ 27.--The first steamer full of travellers has just arrived, and with it the bother of the ladies all wanting my saddle. I forbade Mustapha to send for it, but they intimidate the poor old fellow, and he comes and kisses my hand not to get him into trouble with one old woman who says she is the relation of a Consul and a great lady in her own country. I am what Mrs. Grote called 'cake' enough to concede to Mustapha's fears what I had sworn to refuse henceforth. Last year five women on one steamer all sent for my saddle, besides other things--campstools, umbrellas, beer, etc., etc. This year I'll bolt the doors when I see a steamer coming. I hear the big people are so angry with the Indian saint because he treated them like dirt everywhere. One great man went with a Moudir to see him, and asked him to sell him a memlook (a young slave boy). The Indian, who had not spoken or saluted, burst forth, 'Be silent, thou wicked one! dost thou dare to ask me to sell thee a soul to take it with thee to hell?' Fancy the surprise of the 'distinguished' Turk. Never had he heard such language. The story has travelled all up the river and is of course much enjoyed.

Last night Sheykh Yussuf gave an entertainment, killed a sheep, and had a reading of the _Sirat er-Russoul_ (Chapter on the Prophet). It was the night of the Prophet's great vision, and is a great night in Islam. I was sorry not to be well enough to go. Now that there is no Kadee here, Sheykh Yussuf has lots of business to settle; and he came to me and said, 'Expound to me the laws of marriage and inheritance of the Christians, that I may do no wrong in the affairs of the Copts, for they won't go and be settled by the priest out of the Gospels, and I can't find any laws, except about marriage in the Gospels.' I set him up with the text of the tribute money, and told him to judge according to his own laws, for that Christians had no laws other than those of the country they lived in. Poor Yussuf was sore perplexed about a divorce case. I refused to 'expound,' and told him all the learned in the law in England had not yet settled which text to follow.

Do you remember the German story of the lad who travelled _um das Gruseln zu lernen_? Well, I, who never _gruselte_ before, had a touch of it a few evenings ago. I was sitting here quietly drinking tea, and four or five men were present, when a cat came to the door. I called 'biss, biss,' and offered milk, but pussy, after looking at us, ran away. 'Well dost thou, oh Lady,' said a quiet, sensible man, a merchant here, 'to be kind to the cat, for I dare say he gets little enough at home; _his_ father, poor man, cannot cook for his children every day.' And then in an explanatory tone to the company, 'That is Alee Nasseeree's boy Yussuf--it must be Yussuf, because his fellow twin Ismaeen is with his mule at Negadeh.' _Mir gruselte_, I confess, not but what I have heard things almost as absurd from gentlemen and ladies in Europe; but an 'extravagance' in a _kuftan_ has quite a different effect from one in a tail coat. 'What my butcher's boy who brings the meat--a cat?' I gasped. 'To be sure, and he knows well where to look for a bit of good cookery, you see. All twins go out as cats at night if they go to sleep hungry; and their own bodies lie at home like dead meanwhile, but no one must touch them, or they would die. When they grow up to ten or twelve they leave it off. Why your boy Achmet does it. Oh Achmet! do you go out as a cat at night?' 'No,' said Achmet tranquilly, 'I am not a twin--my sister's sons do.' I inquired if people were not afraid of such cats. 'No, there is no fear, they only eat a little of the cookery, but if you beat them they will tell their parents next day, "So-and-so beat me in his house last night," and show their bruises. No, they are not Afreets, they are _beni Adam_ (sons of Adam), only twins do it, and if you give them a sort of onion broth and camel's milk the first thing when they are born, they don't do it at all.' Omar professed never to have heard of it, but I am sure he had, only he dreads being laughed at. One of the American missionaries told me something like it as belonging to the Copts, but it is entirely Egyptian, and common to both religions. I asked several Copts who assured me it was true, and told it just the same. Is it a remnant of the doctrine of transmigration? However the notion fully accounts for the horror the people feel at the idea of killing a cat.

A poor pilgrim from the black country was taken ill yesterday at a village six miles from here, he could speak only a few words of Arabic and begged to be carried to the Abab'deh. So the Sheykh el-Beled put him on a donkey and sent him and his little boy, and laid him in Sheykh Hassan's house. He called for Hassan and begged him to take care of the child, and to send him to an uncle somewhere in Cairo. Hassan said, 'Oh you will get well Inshallah, etc., and take the boy with you.' 'I cannot take him into the grave with me,' said the black pilgrim. Well in the night he died and the boy went to Hassan's mat and said, 'Oh Hassan, my father is dead.' So the two Sheykhs and several men got up and went and sat with the boy till dawn, because he refused to lie down or to leave his father's corpse. At daybreak he said, 'Take me now and sell me, and buy new cloth to dress my father for the tomb.' All the Abab'deh cried when they heard it, and Hassan went and bought the cloth, and some sweet stuff for the boy who remains with him. Such is death on the road in Egypt. I tell it as Hassan's slave told it to me, and somehow we all cried again at the poor little boy rising from his dead father's side to say, 'Come now sell me to dress my father for the tomb.' These strange black pilgrims always interest me. Many take four years to Mecca and home, and have children born to them on the road, and learn a few words of Arabic.

December 5, 1866: Mrs. Ross

_To Mrs. Ross_.

LUXOR,
_December_ 5, 1866.

DEAREST JANET,

I write in answer to yours by the steamer, to go down by the same. I fancy I should be quite of your mind about Italy. I hate the return of Europe to

'The good old rule and ancient plan,
That he should take who has the power,
And he should keep who can.'

Nor can I be bullied into looking on 'might' as 'right.' Many thanks for the papers, I am anxious to hear about the Candia business. All my neighbours are sick at heart. The black boy Palgrave left with me is a very good lad, only he can't keep his clothes clean, never having been subject to that annoyance before. He has begun to be affectionate ever since I did not beat him for breaking my only looking-glass. I wish an absurd respect for public opinion did not compel him to wear a blue shirt and a tarboosh (his suit), I see it is misery to him. He is a very gentle cannibal.

I have been very unwell indeed and still am extremely weak, but I hope I am on the mend. A eunuch here who is a holy man tells me he saw my boat coming up heavily laden in his sleep, which indicates a 'good let.' I hope my reverend friend is right. If you sell any of your things when you leave Egypt let me have some blankets for the boat; if she is let to a friendly dragoman he will supply all deficiencies out of his own canteen, but if to one 'who knows not Joseph' I fear many things will be demanded by rightminded British travellers, which must be left to the Reis's discretion to buy for them. I hope all the _fattahs_ said for the success of the 'Urania's' voyage will produce a due effect. Here we rely a good deal on the favour of Abu-l-Hajjaj in such matters. The _naivete_ with which people pray here for money is very amusing--though really I don't know why one shouldn't ask for one's daily sixpence as well as one's daily bread.

An idiot of a woman has written to me to get her a place as governess in an 'European or Arabian family in the neighbourhood of Thebes!' Considering she has been six years in Egypt as she says, she must be well fitted to teach. She had better learn to make _gilleh_ and spin wool. The young Americans whom Mr. Hale sent were very nice. The Yankees are always the best bred and best educated travellers that I see here.

December 31, 1886: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_December_ 31, 1886.

DEAREST ALICK,

I meant to have sent you a long yarn by a steamer which went the other day, but I have been in my bed. The weather set in colder than I ever felt it here, and I have been very unwell for some time. Dr. Osman Ibraheem (a friend of mine, an elderly man who studied in Paris in Mohammed Ali's time) wants me to spend the summer up here and take sand baths, _i.e._ bury myself up to the chin in the hot sand, and to get a Dongola slave to rub me. A most fascinating derweesh from Esneh gave me the same advice; he wanted me to go and live near him at Esneh, and let him treat me. I wish you could see Sheykh Seleem, he is a sort of remnant of the Memlook Beys--a Circassian--who has inherited his master's property up at Esneh, and married his master's daughter. The master was one of the Beys, also a slave inheriting from his master. Well after being a terrible _Shaitan_ (devil) after drink, women, etc. Seleem has repented and become a man of pilgrimage and prayer and perpetual fasting; but he has retained the exquisite grace and charm of manner which must have made him irresistible in his _shaitan_ days, and also the beautifully delicate style of dress--a dove-coloured cloth _sibbeh_ over a pale blue silk _kuftan_, a turban like a snow-drift, under which flowed the silky fair hair and beard, and the dainty white hands under the long muslin shirt sleeve made a picture; and such a smile, and such ready graceful talk. Sheykh Yussuf brought him to me as a sort of doctor, and also to try and convert me on one point. Some Christians had made Yussuf quite miserable, by telling him of the doctrine that all unbaptized infants went to eternal fire; and as he knew that I had lost a child very young, it weighed on his mind that perhaps I fretted about this, and so he said he could not refrain from trying to convince me that God was not so cruel and unjust as the Nazarene priests represented Him, and that all infants whatsoever, as well as all ignorant persons, were to be saved. 'Would that I could take the cruel error out of the minds of all the hundreds and thousands of poor Christian mothers who must be tortured by it,' said he, 'and let them understand that their dead babies are with Him who sent and who took them.' I own I did not resent this interference with my orthodoxy, especially as it is the only one I ever knew Yussuf attempt.

Dr. Osman is a lecturer in the Cairo school of medicine, a Shereef, and eminently a gentleman. He came up in the passenger steamer and called on me and spent all his spare time with me. I liked him better than the bewitching derweesh Seleem; he is so like my old love Don Quixote. He was amazed and delighted at what he heard here about me. '_Ah Madame, on vous aime comme une soeur, et on vous respecte comme une reine; cela rejouit le coeur des honnetes gens de voir tous les prejuges oublies et detruits a ce point_.' We had no end of talk. Osman is the only Arab I know who has read a good deal of European literature and history and is able to draw comparisons. He said, '_Vous seule dans toute l'Egypte connaissez le peuple et comprenez ce qui se passe, tous les autres Europeens ne savent absolument rien que les dehors; il n'y a que vous qui ayez inspire la confiance qu'il faut pour connaitre la vente_.' Of course this is between ourselves, I tell you, but I don't want to boast of the kind thoughts people have of me, simply because I am decently civil to them.

In Egypt we are eaten up with taxes; there is not a penny left to anyone. The taxes for the whole year _eight months in advance_ have been levied, as far as they can be beaten out of the miserable people. I saw one of the poor dancing girls the other day, (there are three in Luxor) and she told me how cruel the new tax on them is. It is left to the discretion of the official who farms it to make each woman pay according to her presumed gains, _i.e._ her good looks, and thus the poor women are exposed to all the caprices and extortions of the police. This last new tax has excited more disgust than any. 'We now know the name of our ruler,' said a fellah who had just heard of it, 'he is _Mawas_ Pasha.' I won't translate--but it is a terrible epithet when uttered in a tone which gives it the true meaning, though in a general way the commonest word of abuse to a donkey, or a boy, or any other cattle. The wages of prostitution are unclean, and this tax renders all Government salaries unlawful according to strict law. The capitation tax too, which was remitted for three years on the pasha's accession to the people of Cairo, Alexandria, Damietta and Rascheed, is now called for. Omar will have to pay about 8 pounds back tax, which he had fondly imagined himself excused from. You may conceive the distress this must cause among artisans, etc., who have spent their money and forgotten it, and feel cheated out of the blessings they then bestowed on the Pasha--as to that they will take out the change in curses.

There was a meeting here the other day of the Kadee, Sheykh el-Beled, and other notables to fix the amount of tax each man was to pay towards the increased police tax; and the old Shereef at the end spoke up, and said he had heard that one man had asked me to lend him money, and that he hoped such a thing would not happen again. Everyone knew I had had heavy expenses this year, and most likely had not much money; that my heart was soft, and that as everyone was in distress it would be 'breaking my head,' and in short that he should think it unmanly if anyone tried to trouble a lone woman with his troubles. I did offer one man 2 pounds that he might not be forced to run away to the desert, but he refused it and said, 'I had better go at once and rob out there, and not turn rogue towards thee--never could I repay it.' The people are running away in all directions.

When the Moolid of the Sheykh came the whole family Abu-l-Hajjaj could only raise six hundred and twenty piastres among them to buy the buffalo cow, which by custom--strong as the laws of the Medes and Persians--must be killed for the strangers who come; and a buffalo cow is worth one thousand piastres. So the stout old Shereef (aged 87) took his staff and the six hundred and twenty piastres, and sallied forth to walk to Erment and see what God would send them; and a charitable woman in Erment did give a buffalo cow for the six hundred and twenty piastres, and he drove her home the twenty miles rejoicing.

There has been a burglary over at Gourneh, an unheard-of event. Some men broke into the house of the Coptic _gabit_ (tax-gatherer) and stole the money-box containing about sixty purses--over 150 pounds. The _gabit_ came to me sick with the fright which gave him jaundice, and about eight men are gone in chains to Keneh on suspicion. Hajjee Baba too, a Turkish cawass, is awfully bilious; he says he is 'sick from beating men, and it's no use, you can't coin money on their backs and feet when they haven't a para in the world.' Altogether everyone is gloomy, and many desperate. I never saw the aspect of a population so changed.

January 1, 1867. God bless you, dearest Alick, and grant you many good years more. I must finish this to go to-morrow by the steamer. I would give a great deal to see you again, but when will that be?

January 12, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_January_ 12, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

Only two days ago I received letters from you of the 17 September and the 19 November. I wonder how many get lost and where? Janet gives me hopes of a visit of a few days in March and promises me a little terrier dog, whereat Omar is in raptures. I have made no plans at all, never having felt well enough to hope to be able to travel. The weather has changed for the better, and it is not at all old now; we shall see what the warmth does for me. You make my bowels yearn with your account of Rainie. If only we had Prince Achmet's carpet, and you could all come here for a few months.

We were greatly excited here last week; a boy was shot out in the sugar-cane field: he was with four Copts, and at first it looked ugly for the Copts. But the Maohn tells me he is convinced they are innocent, and that they only prevaricated from fear--it was robbers shot the poor child. What struck and surprised me in the affair was the excessive horror and consternation it produced; the Maohn had not had a murder in his district at all in eight years. The market-place was thronged with wailing women, Omar was sick all day, and the Maohn pale and wretched. The horror of killing seems greater here than ever I saw it. Palgrave says the same of the Arabian Arabs in his book: it is not one's notion of Oriental feeling, but a murder in England is taken quite as a joke compared with the scene here. I fear there will be robberies, owing to the distress, and the numbers who are running away from the land unable to pay their taxes. Don't fear for me, for I have two watchmen in the house every night--the regular guard and an amateur, a man whose boy I took down to Cairo to study in Gama'l Azhar.

Palgrave has written to Ross wanting Mabrook back. I am very sorry, the more so as Mabrook is recalcitrant. 'I want to stay with thee, I don't want to go back to the Nazarene.' A boy who heard him said, 'but the Lady is a Nazarene too;' whereupon Mabrook slapped his face with great vigour. He will be troublesome if he does turn restive, and he is one who can only be managed by kindness. He is as good and quiet as possible with us, but the stubborn will is there and he is too ignorant to be reasoned with.

_January_ 14.--To-day the four Copts have again changed their story, and after swearing that the robbers were strangers, have accused a man who has shot birds for me all this winter: and the poor devil is gone to Keneh in chains. The weather seems to have set in steadily for fine. I hope soon to get out, but my donkey has grown old and shaky and I am too weak to walk, so I sit in the balcony.

January 14, 1867: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR,
_January_ 14, 1867.

DEAREST MUTTER,

We have had a very cold winter and I have been constantly ailing, luckily the cough has transferred itself from the night to the day, and I get some good sleep. The last two days have been much warmer and I hope matters will mend. I am beginning to take cod-liver oil, as we can't find a milch camel anywhere.

My boat has been well let in Cairo and is expected here every day. The gentlemen shoot, and tell the crew not to row, and in short take it easy, and give them 2 pounds in every place. Imagine what luxury for my crew. I shall have to dismiss the lot, they will be so spoilt. The English Consul-General came up in a steamer with Dr. Patterson and Mr. Francis. I dined with them one day; I wish you could have seen me carried in my armchair high up on the shoulders of four men, like a successful candidate, or more like one of the Pharaohs in an ancient bas-relief, preceded by torch bearers and other attendants and followers, my procession was quite regal. I wish I could show you a new friend of mine, Osman Ibraheem, who studied medicine five years in Paris. My heart warmed to him directly, because like most high-bred Arabs, he is so like Don Quixote--only Don Quixote quite in his senses. The sort of innocent sententiousness, and perfectly natural love of fine language and fine sentiments is unattainable to any European, except, I suppose, a Spaniard. It is quite unlike Italian fustian or French _sentiment_. I suppose to most Europeans it is ridiculous, but I used to cry when the carriers beat the most noble of all knights, when I was a little girl and read Don Quixote; and now I felt as it were like Sancho, when I listened to Osman reciting bits of heroic poetry, or uttering 'wise saws' and 'modern instances,' with the peculiar mixture of strong sense of 'exultation' which stamps the great Don. I may not repeat all I heard from him of the state of things here, and the insults he had to endure--a Shereef and an educated man--from coarse Turkish Pashas; it was the carriers over again. He told me he had often cried like a woman, at night in his own room, at the miseries he was forced to witness and could do nothing to relieve; all the men I have particularly liked I find are more or less pupils of the Sheykh el-Bagooree now dead, who seems to have had a gift of inspiring honourable feeling. Our good Maohn is one; he is no conjuror, but the honesty and goodness are heroic which lead a man to starve on 15 pounds a month, when he is expected to grow rich on plunder.

The war in Crete saddens many a household here. Sheykh Yussuf's brother, Sheykh Yooris, is serving there, and many more. People are actually beginning to say 'We hope the English and French won't fight for the Sultan if the Moscovites want to eat him--there will be no good for us till the Turks are driven out.' All the old religious devotion to the Sultan seems quite gone.

Poor Mustapha has been very unwell and I stopped his Ramadan, gave him some physic and ordered him not to fast, for which I think he is rather grateful. The Imaam and Mufti always endorse my prohibitions of fasting to my patients. Old Ismaeen is dead, aged over a hundred; he served Belzoni, and when he grew doting was always wanting me to go with him to join Belzoni at Abu Simbel. He was not at all ill--he only went out like a candle. His grandson brought me a bit of the meat cooked at his funeral, and begged me to eat it, that I might live to be very old, according to the superstition here. When they killed the buffalo for the Sheykh Abu-l-Hajjaj, the man who had a right to the feet kindly gave them to Omar, who wanted to make calves' foot jelly for me. I had a sort of profane feeling, as if I were eating a descendant of the bull Apis.

I am reading Mme. du Deffand's letters. What a repulsive picture of a woman. I don't know which I dislike most, Horace Walpole or herself: the conflict of selfishness, vanity and _ennui_ disguised as sentiment is quite hateful: to her Turgot was _un sot animal_,--so much for her great gifts.

Remember me kindly to William and tell him how much I wish I could see his 'improvements,' Omar also desires his salaam to him, having a sort of fellow feeling for your faithful henchman. I need not say he kisses your hand most dutifully.

January 22, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_January_ 22, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

The weather has been lovely, for the last week, and I am therefore somewhat better. My boat arrived to-day, with all the men in high good-humour, and Omar tells me all is in good order, only the people in Cairo gave her the evil eye, and broke the iron part of the rudder which had to be repaired at Benisouef. Mr. Lear has been here the last few days, and is just going up to the second cataract; he has done a little drawing of my house for you--a new view of it. He is a pleasant man and I was glad to see him.

[Picture: Lady Duff Gordon, from oil portrait by Henry W. Phillips, about
1851]

Such a queer fellow came here the other day--a tall stalwart Holsteiner, I should think a man of fifty, who has been four years up in the Soudan and Sennaar, and being penniless, had walked all through Nubia begging his way. He was not the least 'down upon his luck' and spoke with enthusiasm of the hospitality and kindness of Sir Samuel Baker's 'tigers.' _Ja, das sind die rechten Kerls, dass ist das gluckliche Leben_. His account is that if you go with an armed party, the blacks naturally show fight, as men with guns, in their eyes, are always slave hunters; but if you go alone and poor, they kill an ox for you, unless you prefer a sheep, give you a hut, and generally anything they have to offer, _merissey_ (beer) to make you as drunk as a lord, and young ladies to pour it out for you--and--you need not wear any clothes. If you had heard him you would have started for the interior at once. I gave him a dinner and a bottle of common wine, which he emptied, and a few shillings, and away he trudged merrily towards Cairo. I wonder what the Nubians thought of a _howagah_ begging. He said they were all kind, and that he was sure he often ate what they pinched themselves to give--dourrah bread and dates.

In the evening we were talking about this man's stories, and of 'anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow' to a prodigious height, by means of an edifice woven of their own hair, and other queer things, when Hassan told me a story which pleased me particularly. 'My father,' said he, 'Sheykh Mohammed (who was a taller and handsomer man than I am), was once travelling very far up in the black country, and he and the men he was with had very little to eat, and had killed nothing for many days; presently they heard a sort of wailing from a hole in the rock, and some of the men went in and dragged out a creature--I know not, and my father knew not, whether a child of Adam or a beast. But it was like a very foul and ill-shaped woman, and had six toes on its feet. The men wished to slay it, according to the law declaring it to be a beast and lawful food, but when it saw the knife, it cried sadly and covered its face with its hands in terror, and my father said, 'By the Most High God, ye shall not slay the poor woman-beast which thus begs its life; I tell you it is unlawful to eat one so like the children of Adam.' And the beast or woman clung to him and hid under his cloak; and my father carried her for some time behind him on his horse, until they saw some creatures like her, and then he sent her to them, but he had to drive her from him by force, for she clung to him. Thinkest thou oh Lady, it was really a beast, or some sort of the children of Adam?'

'God knows, and He only,' said I piously, 'but by His indulgent name, thy father, oh Sheykh, was a true nobleman.' Sheykh Yussuf chimed in and gave a decided opinion that a creature able to understand the sight of the knife and to act so, was not lawful to kill for food. You see what a real Arab Don Quixote was. It is a picture worthy of him,--the tall, noble-looking Abab'deh sheltering the poor 'woman-beast,' most likely a gorilla or chimpanzee, and carrying her _en croupe_.

January 26, 1867: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR,
_January_ 26, 1867.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I must betray dear Sheykh Yussuf's confidence, and tell you his love story.

A young fellow ran away with a girl he loved a short time ago, she having told him that her parents wanted to marry her to another, and that she would go to such a spot for water, and he must come on a horse, beat her and carry her off (the beating saves the maiden's blushes). Well, the lad did it, and carried her to Salamieh where they were married, and then they went to Sheykh Yussuf to get him to conciliate the family, which he did. He told me the affair, and I saw he sympathized much with the runaways. 'Ah,' he said 'Lady, it is love, and that is terrible, I can tell thee love is dreadful indeed to bear.' Then he hesitated and blushed, and went on, 'I felt it once, Lady, it was the will of God that I should love her who is now my wife. Thirteen years ago I loved her and wished to marry her, but my father, and her grandfather my uncle the Shereef, had quarrelled, and they took her and married her to another man. I never told anyone of it, but my liver was burning and my heart ready to burst for three years; but when I met her I fixed my eyes on the ground for fear she should see my love, and I said to myself, Oh Yussuf, God has afflicted thee, praise be unto Him, do thou remember thy blood (Shereef) and let thy conduct be that of the Beni Azra who when they are thus afflicted die rather than sin, for they have the strongest passion of love and the greatest honour. And I did not die but went to Cairo to the Gama el-Azhar and studied, and afterwards I married twice, as thou knowest, but I never loved any but that one, and when my last wife died the husband of this one had just divorced her to take a younger and prettier one and my father desired me then to take her, but I was half afraid not knowing whether she would love me; but, Praise be to God I consented, and behold, poor thing, she also had loved me in like manner.' I thought when I went to see her that she was unusually radiant with new-married happiness, and she talked of 'el-Sheykh' with singular pride and delight, and embraced me and called me 'mother' most affectionately. Is it not a pretty piece of regular Arab romance like Ghamem?

My boat has gone up to-day with two very nice Englishmen in her. Their young Maltese dragoman, aged twenty-four, told me his father often talked of 'the Commissioners' and all they had done, and how things were changed in the island for the better. (1) Everything spiritual and temporal has been done for the boat's safety in the Cataract--urgent letters to the Maohn el Baudar, and him of Assouan to see to the men, and plenty of prayers and vows to Abu-l-Hajjaj on behalf of the 'property of the Lady,' or _kurzweg_ 'our boat' as she is commonly called in Luxor.