Chapter XIV: Part 14

Here we have the other side of the misery of the Candian business; in Europe, of course, the obvious thing is the sufferings of the Cretans, but really I am more sorry for the poor fellah lads who are dragged away to fight in a quarrel they had no hand in raising, and with which they have no sympathy. The _Times_ suggests that the Sultan should relinquish the island, and that has been said in many an Egyptian hut long before. The Sultan is worn out, and the Muslims here know it, and say it would be the best day for the Arabs if he were driven out; that after all a Turk never was the true _Ameer el-Moomeneen_ (Commander of the Faithful). Only in Europe people talk and write as if it were all Muslim _versus_ Christian, and the Christians were all oppressed, and the Muslims all oppressors. I wish they could see the domineering of the Greeks and Maltese as Christians. The Englishman domineers as a free man and a Briton, which is different, and that is the reason why the Arabs wish for English rule, and would dread that of Eastern Christians. Well they may; for if ever the Greeks do reign in Stamboul the sufferings of the Muslims will satisfy the most eager fanatic that ever cursed Mahound. I know nothing of Turkey, but I have seen and heard enough to know that there are plenty of other divisions besides that of Christian and Muslim. Here in Egypt it is clear enough: it is Arab _versus_ Turk and the Copt siding with the stronger for his interest, while he rather sympathizes with his brother fellah. At all events the Copt don't want other Christians to get power; he would far rather have a Muslim than a heretic ruler, above all the hated Greek. The Englishman he looks on as a variety of Muslim--a man who washes, has no pictures in his church, who has married bishops, and above all, who does not fast from all that has life for half the year, and this heresy is so extreme as not to give offence, unless he tries to convert.

The Pasha's sons have just been up the river: they ordered a reading of the Koran at the tomb of Abu-l-Hajjaj and gave every Alim sixpence. We have not left off chaffing (as Maurice would say) Sheykh Allah-ud-deen, the Muezzin, and sundry others on this superb backsheesh, and one old Fikee never knows whether to laugh, to cry, or to scold, when I ask to see the shawl and tarboosh he has bought with the presents of Pashas. Yussuf and the Kadee too had been called on to contribute baskets of bread to the steamer so that their sixpences were particularly absurd.

The little boy whose father died is still with the Abab'deh, who will not let him travel to Cairo till the weather is warmer and they find a safe person to be kind to him. Rachmeh says 'Please God, he will go with the Sitt, perhaps.' Hassan has consoled him with sugar-cane and indulgence, and if I lose Mabrook, and the little boy takes to me, he may fall into my hands as Achmet has done. I hear he is a good boy but a perfect savage; that however, I find makes no difference--in fact, I think they learn faster than those who have ways of their own. So I see Terence was a nigger! I would tell Rachmeh so if I could make him understand who Terence was, and that he, Rachmeh, stood in need of any encouragement, but the worthy fellow never imagines that his skin is in any way inferior to mine.

February 3, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_February_ 3, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

The boat goes down to-morrow and I have little to add to Mutter's letter, only that I am better.

There is a man here from Girgeh, who says he is married to a Ginneeyeh (fairy) princess. I have asked to be presented to her, but I suspect there will be some hitch about it. It will be like Alexis's _Allez, Madame, vous etes trop incredule_. {334} The unintelligible thing is the motive which prompts wonders and miracles here, seeing that the wonder workers do not get any money by it; and indeed, very often give, like the Indian saint I told you of who gave me four dollars. His miracles were all gratis, which was the most miraculous thing of all in a saint. I am promised that the Ginneeyeh shall come through the wall. If she should do so I shall be compelled to believe in her, as there are no mechanical contrivances in Luxor. All the Hareem here believe it, and the man's human wife swears she waits on her like a slave, and backs her husband's lie or delusion fully. I have not seen the man, but I should not wonder if it were a delusion--real _bona fide_ visions and revelations are so common, and I think there is but little downright imposture. Meanwhile familiarity breeds contempt. Jinns, Afreets and Shaitans inspire far less respect than the stupidest ghost at home, and the devil (Iblees) is reduced to deplorable insignificance. He is never mentioned in the pulpit, or in religious conversation, with the respect he enjoys in Christian countries. I suppose we may console ourselves with the hope that he will pay off the Muslims for their neglect of him hereafter.

I cannot describe to you the misery here now, indeed it is wearisome even to think of: every day some new tax. Now every beast; camel, cow, sheep, donkey, horse, is made to pay. The fellaheen can no longer eat bread, they are living on barley meal, mixed with water and new green stuff, vetches etc., which to people used to good food is terrible, and I see all my acquaintances growing seedy and ragged and anxious. Yussuf is clear of debt, his religion having kept him from borrowing, but he wants to sell his little slave girl, and has sold his donkey, and he is the best off. The taxation makes life almost impossible--100 piastres per feddan, a tax on every crop, on every annual fruit, and again when it is sold in the market; on every man, on charcoal, on butter, on salt, on the dancing girls. I wonder I am not tormented for money--not above three people have tried to beg or borrow.

Thanks for the Westminster epilogue; it always amuses me much. So Terence was a nigger. There is no trace of the negro 'boy' in his Davus. My nigger has grown huge, and has developed a voice of thunder. He is of the elephantine rather than the tiger species, a very mild young savage. I shall be sorry when Palgrave takes him. I am tempted to buy Yussuf's nice little Dinka girl to replace him, only a girl is such an impossibility where there is no regular hareem. In the boat Achmet is enough under Omar; but in this large dusty house, and with errands to run, and comers and goers to look after, pipes and coffee and the like, it takes two boys to be comfortable. Mabrook too washes very well. It is surprising how fast the boys learn, and how well they do their work. Achmet, who is quite little, would be a perfectly sufficient servant for a man alone; he can cook, wash, clean the rooms, make the beds, do all the table service, knife and plate cleaning, all fairly well, and I believe now he would get along even without Omar's orders. Mabrook is slower, but he has the same merit our poor Hassan had, {336} he never forgets what he has been once told to do, and he is clean in his work, though hopelessly dirty as to his clothes. He cannot get used to them, and takes a roll in the dust, or leans against a dirty wall, oblivious of his clean-washed blue shirt. Achmet is quicker and more careless, but they both are good boys and very fond of Omar. 'Uncle Omar' is the form of address, though he scolds them pretty severely if they misbehave; and I observe that the high jinks take place chiefly when only I am in the way, and Omar gone to market or to the mosque. The little rogues have found out that their laughing does not 'affect my nerves,' and I am often treated to a share in the joke. How I wish Rainie could see the children: they would amuse her. Yussuf's girl, 'Meer en Nezzil,' is a charming child, and very clever; her emphatic way of explaining everything to me, and her gestures, would delight you. Her cousin and future husband, age five (she is six), broke the doll which I had given her, and her description of it was most dramatic, ending with a wheedling glance at the cupboard and 'of course there are no more dolls there; oh no, no more.' She is a fine little creature, far more Arab than fellaha; quite a _Shaitan_, her father says. She came in full of making cakes for Bairam, and offered her services; 'Oh my aunt, if thou wantest anything I can work,' said she, tucking up her sleeves.

March 6, 1867: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR,
_March_ 6, 1867.

DEAREST MUTTER,

The warm weather has set in, and I am already as much the better for it as usual. I had a slight attack, not nearly so bad as that at Soden, but it lingered and I kept my bed as a measure of precaution. Dear Yussuf was with me the evening I was attacked, and sat up all night to give me my medicine every hour. At the prayer of dawn, an hour and a half before sunrise, I heard his supplications for my life and health, and for you and all my family; and I thought of what I had lately read, how the Greeks massacred their own patriots because the Turks had shown them mercy--a display of temper which I hope will enlighten Western Christendom as to what the Muslims have to expect, if they (the Western Christians) help the Eastern Christians to get the upper hand. Yussuf was asking about a lady the other day who has turned Catholic. 'Poor thing,' said he, 'the priests have drawn out her brains through her ears, no doubt: but never fear, her heart is good and her charity is great, and God will not deal hardly with those who serve Him with their hearts, though it is sad she should bow down before images. But look at thy slave Mabrook, can he understand one hundredth part of the thoughts of thy mind? Never-the-less he loves thee, and obeys thee with pleasure and alacrity; and wilt thou punish him because he knows not all thy ways? And shall God, who is so much higher above us as thou art above thy slave, be less just than thou?' I pinned him at once, and insisted on knowing the orthodox belief; but he quoted the Koran and the decisions of the Ulema to show that he stretched no point as far as Jews and Christians are concerned, and even that idolaters are not to be condemned by man. Yussuf wants me to write a short account of the faith from his dictation. Would anyone publish it? It annoys him terribly to hear the Muslims constantly accused of intolerance, and he is right--it is not true. They show their conviction that their faith is the best in the world with the same sort of naivete that I have seen in very innocent and ignorant English women; in fact, display a sort of religious conceit; but it is not often bitter or _haineux_, however much they are in earnest.

I am going to write to Palgrave and ask him to let me send another boy or the money for Mabrook, who can't endure the notion of leaving me. Achmet, who was always hankering after the fleshpots of Alexandria, got some people belonging to the boats to promise to take him, and came home and picked a quarrel and departed. Poor little chap; the Sheykh el-Beled 'put a spoke in his wheel' by informing him he would be wanted for the Pasha's works and must stay in his own place. Since he went Mabrook has come out wonderfully and does his own work and Achmet's with the greatest satisfaction. He tells me he likes it best so; he likes to be quiet. He just suits me and I him, it is humiliating to find how much more I am to the taste of savages than of the 'polite circles.'

The old lady of the Maohn proposed to come to me, but I would not let her leave her home, which would be quite an adventure to her. I knew she would be exclamatory, and lament over me, and say every minute, 'Oh my liver. Oh my eyes! The name of God be upon thee, and never mind! to-morrow please God, thou wilt be quite well,' and so forth. People send me such odd dishes, some very good. Yussuf's wife packed two calves' feet tight in a little black earthern pan, with a seasoning of herbs, and baked it in the bread oven, and the result was excellent. Also she made me a sort of small macaroni, extremely good. Now too we can get milk again, and Omar makes _kishta_, alias clotted cream.

Do send me a good edition of the 'Arabian Nights' in Arabic, and I should much like to give Yussuf Lane's Arabic dictionary. He is very anxious to have it. I can't read the 'Arabian Nights,' but it is a favourite amusement to make one of the party read aloud; a stray copy of 'Kamar ez-Zeman and Sitt Boodoora' went all round Luxor, and was much coveted for the village _soirees_. But its owner departed, and left us to mourn over the loss of his MSS.

I must tell you a black standard of respectability (it is quite equal to the English one of the gig, or the ham for breakfast). I was taking counsel with my friend Rachmeh, a negro, about Mabrook, and he urged me to buy him of Palgrave, because he saw that the lad really loved me. 'Moreover,' he said, 'the boy is of a respectable family, for he told me his mother wore a cow's tail down to her heels (that and a girdle to which the tail is fastened, and a tiny leathern apron in front, constituted her whole wardrobe), and that she beat him well when he told lies or stole his neighbours eggs.' Poor woman; I wish this abominable slave trade had spared her and her boy. What folly it is to stop the Circassian slave trade, if it is stopped, and to leave this. The Circassians take their own children to market, as a way of providing for them handsomely, and both boys and girls like being sold to the rich Turks; but the blacks and Abyssinians fight hard for their own liberty and that of their cubs. Mabrook swears that there were two Europeans in the party which attacked his village and killed he knew not how many, and carried him and others off. He was not stolen by Arabs, or by Barrabias, like Hassan, but taken in war from his home by the seaside, a place called Bookee, and carried in a ship to Jedda, and thence back to Koseir and Keneh, where Palgrave bought him. I must say that once here the slaves are happy and well off, but the waste of life and the misery caused by the trade must be immense. The slaves are coming down the river by hundreds every week, and are very cheap--twelve to twenty pounds for a fine boy, and nine pounds and upwards for a girl. I heard that the last _gellab_ offered a woman and baby for anything anyone would give for them, on account of the trouble of the baby. By-the-bye, Mabrook displays the negro talent for babies. Now that Achmet is gone, who scolded them and drove them out, Mohammed's children, quite babies, are for ever trotting after 'Maboo,' as they pronounce his name, and he talks incessantly to them. It reminds me so of Janet and poor Hassan, but Mabrook is not like Hassan, he is one of the sons of Anak, and already as big and strong as a man, with the most prodigious chest and limbs.

Don't be at all uneasy about me as to care. Omar knows exactly what to do as he showed the other day when I was taken ill. I had shown him the medicines and given him instructions so I had not even to speak, and if I were to be ill enough to want more help, Yussuf would always sit up alternate nights; but it is not necessary. Arabs make no grievance about broken rest; they don't 'go to bed properly,' but lie down half dressed, and have a happy faculty of sleeping at odd times and anyhow, which enables them to wait on one day and night, without distressing themselves as it distresses us.

_Thursday_.--A telegram has just come announcing that Janet will leave Cairo to-morrow in a steamer, and therefore be here, Inshallah, this day week. I enclose a note from a Copt boy, which will amuse you. He is 'sapping' at English, and I teach him whenever I am able. I am a special favourite with all the young lads; they must not talk much before grown men, so they come and sit on the floor round my feet, and ask questions and advice, and enjoy themselves amazingly. Hobble-de-hoy-hood is very different here from what it is with us; they care earlier for the affairs of the grown-up world, and are more curious and more polished, but lack the fine animal gaiety of our boys. The girls are much more _gamin_ than the boys, and more romping and joyous.

It is very warm now. I fear Janet will sigh terribly over the heat. They have left their voyage too late for such as do not love the Shems el-Kebeer (the big sun), which has just begun. I who worship Ammun Ra, love to feel him in his glory. It is long since I had any letters, I want so to hear how you all are.

March 7, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

_March_ 7, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

I have written a long yarn to Mutter and am rather tired, so I only write to say I am much better. The heat has set in, and, of course with it my health has mended, but I am a little shaky and afraid to tire myself. Moreover I want to nurse up and be stronger by next Thursday when Janet and Ross are expected.

What a queer old fish your Dublin antiquary is, who wants to whitewash Miss Rhampsinitus, and to identify her with the beloved of Solomon (or Saleem); my brain spun round as I read it. Must I answer him, or will you? A dragoman gave me an old broken travelling arm-chair, and Yussuf sat in an arm-chair for the first time in his life. 'May the soul of the man who made it find a seat in Paradise,' was his exclamation, which strikes me as singularly appropriate on sitting in a very comfortable armchair. Yussuf was thankful for small mercies in this case.

I am afraid Janet may be bored by all the people's civility; they will insist on making great dinners and fantasias for her I am sure. I hope they will go on to Assouan and take me with them; the change will do me good, and I should like to see as much of her as I can before she leaves Egypt for good.

The state of business here is curious. The last regulations have stopped all money lending, and the prisons are full of Sheykh el-Beled whose villages can't pay the taxes. Most respectable men have offered me to go partners with them now in their wheat, which will be cut in six weeks, if only I would pay their present taxes, I to take half the crop and half the taxes, with interest out of their half--some such trifle as 30 per cent, per month. Our prison is full of men, and we send them their dinner _a tour de role_. The other day a woman went with a big wooden bowl on her head, full of what she had cooked for them, accompanied by her husband. One Khaleel Effendi, a new vakeel here, was there, and said, 'What dost thou ask here thou harlot?' Her husband answered, 'That is no harlot, oh Effendim, but my wife.' Whereupon he was beaten till he fainted, and then there was a lamentation; they carried him down past my house, with a crowd of women all shrieking like mad creatures, especially his wife, who yelled and beat her head and threw dust over it, _more majorum_, as you see in the tombs. The humours of tax-gathering in this country are quite _impayable_ you perceive--and ought to be set forth on the escutcheon of the new Knight of the Bath whom the Queen hath delighted to honour. Cawass battant, Fellah rampant, and Fellaha pleurant would be the proper blazon. Distress in England is terrible, but, at least, it is not the result of extortion, as it is here, where everything from nature is so abundant and glorious, and yet mankind so miserable. It is not a little hunger, it is the cruel oppression which maddens the people now. They never complained before, but now whole villages are deserted. The boat goes to-morrow morning so I must say goodbye.

April 12, 1867: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR,
_April_ 12, 1867.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I have just received your letters, including the one for Omar which I read to him, and which he kissed and said he should keep as a _hegab_ (talisman). I have given him an order on Coutts' correspondents for the money, in case I die. Omar proposes to wait till we get to Cairo and then to buy a little house, or a floor in one. I am to keep all the money till the house is found, so he will in no way be tempted to do anything foolish with it. I hope you approve?

Janet's visit was quite an _Eed_ (festival), as the people said. When I got up on the morning she was expected, I found the house decked with palm branches and lemon blossoms, and the holy flags of Abu-l-Hajjaj waving over my balcony. The mosque people had brought them, saying all the people were happy to-day, because it was a fortunate day for me. I suppose if I had had a mind to _testify_, I ought to have indignantly torn down the banners which bore the declaration, 'There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet.' But it appeared to me that if Imaams and Muezzins could send their banners to decorate a Christian house, the Christian might manage to endure the kindness. Then there was fantasia on horseback, and all the notables to meet the boat, and general welcome and jubilation. Next day I went on with Henry and Janet in the steamer, and had a very pleasant time to Assouan and back, and they stayed another day here, and I hired a little dahabieh which they towed down to Keneh where they stayed a day; after which Sheykh Yussuf and I sailed back again to Luxor. As bad luck would have it we had hot weather just the week they were up here: since then it has been quite cool.

Janet has left me her little black and tan terrier, a very nice little dog, but I can't hope to rival Omar in his affections. He sleeps in Omar's bosom, and Omar spoils and pets him all day, and boasts to the people how the dog drinks tea and coffee and eats dainty food, and the people say Mashallah! whereas I should have expected them to curse the dog's father. The other day a scrupulous person drew back with an air of alarm from Bob's approach, whereupon the dog stared at him, and forthwith plunged into Sheykh Yussuf's lap, from which stronghold he 'yapped' defiance at whoever should object to him. I never laughed more heartily, and Yussuf went into _fou rire_. The mouth of the dog only is unclean, and Yussuf declares he is a very well-educated dog, and does not attempt to lick; he pets him accordingly, and gives him tea in his own saucer, only _not_ in the cup.

I am to inherit another little blackie from Ross's agency at Keneh: the funniest little chap. I cannot think why I go on expecting so-called savages to be different from other people. Mabrook's simple talk about his village, and the animals and the victuals; and how the men of a neighbouring village stole him in order to sell him for a gun (the price of a gun is a boy), but were prevented by a razzia of Turks, etc. who killed the first aggressors and took all the children--all this he tells just as an English boy might tell of bird-nesting--delights me. He has the same general notion of right and wrong; and yet his tribe know neither bread nor any sort of clothes, nor cheese nor butter, nor even drink milk, nor the African beer; and it always rains there, and is always deadly cold at night, so that without a fire they would die. They have two products of civilization--guns and tobacco, for which they pay in boys and girls, whom they steal. I wonder where the country is, it is called Sowaghli, and the next people are Mueseh, on the sea-coast, and it is not so hot as Egypt. It must be in the southern hemisphere. The new _negrillon_ is from Darfoor. Won't Maurice be amused by his attendants, the Darfoor boy will trot after him, as he can shoot and clean guns, tiny as he is Maurice seems to wish to come and I hope Alexander will let him spend the winter here, and I will take him up to the second Cataract; I really think he would enjoy it.

My boat will not return I think for another six weeks. Mr. Eaton and Mr. Baird were such nice people! their dragoman, a Maltese, appeared to hate the Italians with ferocity. He said all decent people in Malta would ten times rather belong to the Mahommedans than to the Italians--after all blood tells. He was a very respectable young man, and being a dragoman and the son of a dragoman, he has seen the world, and particularly the Muslims. I suppose it is the Pope that makes the Italians so hateful to them.

The post here is dreadful, I would not mind their reading one's letters if they would only send them on. Omar begs we to say that he and his children will pray for you all his life, please God, not for the money only but still more for the good words and the trusting him. But he says, 'I can't say much _politikeh_, Please God she shall see, only I kiss her hand now.' You will hear from Janet about her excursion. What I liked best was shooting the Cataract in a small boat; it was fine fantasia.

April 19, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_April_ 19, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

I have been much amused lately by a new acquaintance, who, in romances of the last century, would be called an 'Arabian sage.' Sheykh Abdurrachman lives in a village half a day's journey off, and came over to visit me and to doctor me according to the science of Galen and Avicenna. Fancy a tall, thin, graceful man, with a grey beard and liquid eyes, absorbed in studies of the obsolete kind, a doctor of theology, law, medicine and astronomy. We spent three days in arguing and questioning; I consented to swallow a potion or two which he made up before me, of very innocent materials. My friend is neither a quack nor superstitious, and two hundred years ago would have been a better physician than most in Europe. Indeed I would rather swallow his physic now than that of many a M.D. I found him like all the learned theologians I have known, extremely liberal and tolerant. You can conceive nothing more interesting and curious than the conversation of a man learned and intelligent, and utterly ignorant of all our modern Western science. If I was pleased with him, he was enchanted with me, and swore by God that I was a Mufti indeed, and that a man could nowhere spend time so delightfully as in conversation with me. He said he had been acquainted with two or three Englishmen who had pleased him much, but that if all Englishwomen were like me the power must necessarily be in our hands, for that my _akl_ (brain, intellect) was far above that of the men he had known. He objected to our medicine that it seemed to consist in palliatives, which he rather scorned, and aimed always at a radical cure. I told him that if he had studied anatomy he would know that radical cures were difficult of performance, and he ended by lamenting his ignorance of English or some European language, and that he had not learned our _Ilm_ (science) also. Then we plunged into sympathies, mystic numbers, and the occult virtues of stones, etc., and I swallowed my mixture (consisting of liquorice, cummin and soda) just as the sun entered a particular house, and the moon was in some favourable aspect. He praised to me his friend, a learned Jew of Cairo. I could have fancied myself listening to Abu Suleyman of Cordova, in the days when we were the barbarians and the Arabs were the learned race. There is something very winning in the gentle, dignified manners of all the men of learning I have seen here, and their homely dress and habits make it still more striking. I longed to photograph my Sheykh as he sat on the divan pulling MSS. out of his bosom to read me the words of _El-Hakeem Lokman_, or to overwhelm me with the authority of some physician whose very name I had never heard.

The hand of the Government is awfully heavy upon us. All this week the people have been working night and day cutting their unripe corn, because three hundred and ten men are to go to-morrow to work on the railroad below Siout. This green corn is, of course, valueless to sell and unwholesome to eat; so the magnificent harvest of this year is turned to bitterness at the last moment. From a neighbouring village all the men are gone, and seven more are wanted to make up the _corvee_. The population of Luxor is 1,000 males of all ages, so you can guess how many strong men are left after three hundred and ten are taken.

I don't like to think too much about seeing you and Maurice next winter for fear I should be disappointed. If I am too sick and wretched I can hardly wish you to come because I know what a nuisance it is to be with one always coughing and panting, and unable to do like other people. But if I pick up tolerably this summer I shall indeed be glad to see you and him once more.

This house is falling sadly to decay, which produces snakes and scorpions. I sent for the _hawee_ (snake-catcher) who caught a snake, but who can't conjure the scorpions out of their holes. One of my fat turkeys has just fallen a victim, and I am in constant fear for little Bob, only he is always in Omar's arms. I think I described to you the festival of Sheykh Gibrieel: the dinner, and the poets who improvised; this year I had a fine piece of declamation in my honour. A real calamity is the loss of our good Maohn, Seleem Effendi. The Mudir hailed him from his steamer to go to Keneh directly, with no further notice. We hoped some good luck for him, and so it would have been to a Turk. He is made overseer over the poor people at the railway work, and only gets two pounds five shillings per month additional, he has to keep a horse and a donkey, and to buy them and to hire a sais, and he does _not_ know how to squeeze the fellaheen. It is true 'however close you skin an onion, a clever man can always peel it again,' which means that even the poorest devils at the works can be beaten into giving a little more; but our dear Seleem, God bless him, will be ruined and made miserable by his promotion. I had a very woeful letter from him yesterday.

May 15, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_May_ 15, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

All the Christendom of Upper Egypt is in a state of excitement, owing to the arrival of the Patriarch of Cairo, who is now in Luxor. My neighbour, Mikaeel, entertains him, and Omar has been busily decorating his house and arranging the illumination of his garden, and to-day is gone to cook the confectionery, he being looked upon as the person best acquainted with the customs of the great. Last night the Patriarch sent for me, and I went to kiss his hand, but I won't go again. It was a very droll caricature of the thunders of the Vatican. Poor Mikaeel had planned that I was to dine with the Patriarch, and had borrowed my silver spoons, etc., etc., in that belief. But the representative of St. Mark is furious against the American missionaries who have converted some twenty Copts at Koos, and he could not bring himself to be decently civil to a Protestant. I found a coarse-looking man seated on a raised divan smoking his chibouk, on his right were some priests on a low divan; I went up and kissed his hand and was about to sit by the priests, but he roughly ordered a cawass to put a wooden chair _off the carpet_ to his left, at a distance from him, and told me to sit there. I looked round to see whether any of my neighbours were present, and I saw the consternation in their faces so, not wishing to annoy them, I did as if I did not perceive the affront, and sat down and talked for half an hour to the priests, and then took leave. I was informed that the Catholics were _naas mesakeen_ (poor inoffensive people), and that the Muslims at least were of an old religion, but that the Protestants ate meat all the year round, 'like dogs'--'or Muslims,' put in Omar, who stood behind my chair and did not relish the mention of dogs and the 'English religion' in one sentence. As I went the Patriarch called for dinner, it seems he had told Mikaeel he would not eat with me. It is evidently 'a judgment' of a most signal nature that I should be snubbed for the offences of missionaries, but it has caused some ill blood; the Kadee and Sheykh Yussuf and the rest, who all intended to do the civil to the Patriarch, now won't go near him on account of his rudeness to me. He has come up in a steamer, at the Pasha's expense, with a guard of cawasses, and, of course, is loud in praise of the Government, though he failed in getting the Moudir to send all the Protestants of Koos to the public works, or the army.

From what he said before me about the Abyssinians, and still more, from what he said to others about the English prisoners up there, I am convinced that the place to put the screw on is the _Batrarchane_ (Patriarch's palace) at Cairo, and that the priests are at the bottom of that affair. {350} He boasted immensely of the obedience and piety of _El Habbesh_ (the Abyssinians).

_Saturday_.--Yesterday I heard a little whispered grumbling about the money demanded by the 'Father.' One of my Copt neighbours was forced to sell me his whole provision of cooking butter to pay his quota. This a little damps the exultation caused by seeing him so honoured by the Effendina. One man who had heard that he had called the American missionaries 'beggars,' grumbled to me, 'Ah yes, beggars, beggars, they didn't beg of me for money.' I really do think that there must be something in this dread of the Protestant movement. Evidently the Pasha is backing up the Patriarch who keeps his church well apart from all other Christians, and well under the thumb of the Turks. It was pretty to hear the priests talk so politely of Islam, and curse the Protestants so bitterly. We were very nearly having a row about a woman, who formerly turned Moslimeh to get rid of an old blind Copt husband who had been forced upon her, and was permitted to recant, I suppose in order to get rid of the Muslim husband in his turn. However he said, 'I don't care, she is the mother of my two children, and whether she is Muslim or Christian she is my wife, and I won't divorce her, but I'll send her to church as much as she likes.' Thereupon the priests of course dropped the wrangle, much to the relief of Sheykh Yussuf, in whose house she had taken up her quarters after leaving the church, and who was afraid of being drawn into a dispute.

My new little Darfour boy is very funny and very intelligent. I hope he will turn out well, he seems well disposed, though rather lazy. Mabrook quarrelled with a boy belonging to the quarter close to us about a bird, and both boys ran away. The Arab boy is missing still I suppose, but Mabrook was brought back by force, swelling with passion, and with his clothes most scripturally 'rent.' He had regularly 'run amuck.' Sheykh Yussuf lectured him on his insolence to the people of the quarter, and I wound up by saying, 'Oh my son! whither dost thou wish to go? I cannot let thee wander about like a beggar, with torn clothes and no money, that the police may take thee and put thee in the army; but say where thou desirest to go, and we will talk about it with discretion.' It was at once borne in upon him that he did not want to go anywhere, and he said, 'I repent; I am but an ox, bring the courbash, beat me, and let me go to finish cooking the Sitt's dinner.' I remitted the beating, with a threat that if he bullied the neighbours again he would get it at the police, and not from Omar's very inefficient arm. In half an hour he was as merry as ever. It was a curious display of negro temper, and all about nothing at all. As he stood before me, he looked quite grandly tragic; and swore he only wanted to run outside and die; that was all.

I wish you could have heard (and understood) my _soirees, au clair de la lune_, with Sheykh Yussuf and Sheykh Abdurrachman. How Abdurrachman and I wrangled, and how Yussuf laughed, and egged us on. Abdurrachman was wroth at my want of faith in physic generally, as well as in particular, and said I talked like an infidel, for had not God said, 'I have made a medicine for every disease?' I said, 'Yes, but He does not say that He has told the doctors which it is; and meanwhile I say, _hekmet Allah_, (God will cure) which can't be called an infidel sentiment.' Then we got into alchemy, astrology, magic and the rest; and Yussuf vexed his friend by telling gravely stories palpably absurd. Abdurrachman intimated that he was laughing at _El-Ilm el-Muslimeen_ (the science of the Muslims), but Yussuf said, 'What is the _Ilm el-Muslimeen_? God has revealed religion through His prophets, and we can learn nothing new on that point; but all other learning He has left to the intelligence of men, and the Prophet Mohammed said, "All learning is from God, even the learning of idolaters." Why then should we Muslims shut out the light, and want to remain ever like children? The learning of the Franks is as lawful as any other.' Abdurrachman was too sensible a man to be able to dispute this, but it vexed him.

I am tired of telling all the _plackereien_ of our poor people, how three hundred and ten men were dragged off on Easter Monday with their bread and tools, how in four days they were all sent back from Keneh, because there were no orders about them, and made to _pay their boat hire_. Then in five days they were sent for again. Meanwhile the harvest was cut green, and the wheat is lying out unthreshed to be devoured by birds and rats, and the men's bread was wasted and spoiled with the hauling in and out of boats. I am obliged to send camels twenty miles for charcoal, because the Abab'deh won't bring it to market any more, the tax is too heavy. Butter too we have to buy secretly, none comes into the market. When I remember the lovely smiling landscape which I first beheld from my windows, swarming with beasts and men, and look at the dreary waste now, I feel the 'foot of the Turk' heavy indeed. Where there were fifty donkeys there is but one; camels, horses, all are gone; not only the horned cattle, even the dogs are more than decimated, and the hawks and vultures seem to me fewer; mankind has no food to spare for hangers-on. The donkeys are sold, the camels confiscated, and the dogs dead (the one sole advantage). Meat is cheap, as everyone must sell to pay taxes and no one has money to buy. I am implored to take sheep and poultry for what I will give.

May 23, 1867: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR,
_May_ 23, 1867.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I have only time for a few words by Giafar Pasha, who goes early to-morrow morning. My boat arrived all right and brought your tin box. The books and toys are very welcome. The latter threw little Darfour into ecstasies, and he got into disgrace for 'playing with the Sitt' instead of minding some business on hand. I fear I shall spoil him, he is so extremely engaging and such a baby. He is still changing his teeth, so cannot be more than eight; at first I did not like him, and feared he was sullen, but it was the usual _khoss_ (fear), the word that is always in one's ears, and now that is gone, he is always coming hopping in to play with me. He is extremely intelligent and has a pretty baby nigger face. The Darfour people are, as you know, an independent and brave people, and by no means 'savages.' I can't help thinking how pleased Rainie would be with the child. He asked me to give him the picture of the English Sultaneh out of the _Illustrated London News_, and has pasted it inside the lid of his box.

I am better as usual, since the hot weather has begun, the last six days. I shall leave this in a week, I think, and Mustapha and Yussuf will go with me to Cairo. Yussuf was quite enchanted with your note to him; his eyes glistened, and he took an envelope to keep it carefully. Omar said such a letter is like a _hegab_ (amulet) and Yussuf said, 'Truly it is, and I could never have one with more _baraka_ (blessing) or more like the virtue which went out of Jesus, if ever I wore one at all; I will never part with it.'

We had a very pretty festival for the Sheykh, whose tomb you have a photograph of, and I spent a very pleasant evening with Sheykh Abd el-Mootooal, who used to scowl at me, but now we are 'like brothers.' I found him very clever, and better informed than any Arab I have met, who is quite apart from all Franks. I was astonished to find that he _abondait dans man sens_ in my dispute with Sheykh Abdurrachman, and said that it was the duty of Muslims to learn what they could from us, and not to stick to the old routine.

On Sunday the Patriarch snubbed me, and would not eat with me, and on Monday a _Walee_ (saint) picked out tit-bits for me with his own fingers, and went with me inside the tomb. The Patriarch has made a blunder with his progress. He has come ostentatiously as the _protege_ and _pronem_ of the Pasha, and he has 'eaten' and beaten the fellaheen. The Copts of Luxor have had to pay fifty pounds for the honour of his presence, besides no end of sheep, poultry, butter, etc. If I were of a proselytising mind I could make converts of several whose pockets and backs are smarting, and the American missionaries will do it. Of course the Muslims sympathize with the converts to a religion which has no 'idols,' and no monks, and whose priests marry like other folk, so they are the less afraid. I hear there are now fifty Protestants at Koos, and the Patriarch was furious because he could not beat them. Omar cooked a grand dinner for him last night for our neighbour Mikaeel, and the eating was not over till two in the morning. Our Government should manage to put the screw on him about our Abyssinian prisoners. I dare not say who told me all he said, but he was a truthful man and a Christian. The Patriarch answered me sharply when I asked about the state of religion in Abyssinia that, 'they were lovers of the faith, and his obedient children.' Whenever there is mischief among the Copts, the priests are at the bottom of it. If the Patriarch chose those people would be let go; and so it would be but he hates all Europeans bitterly.

I should like to have the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ of all things, but I don't know how it is to come here, or what the postage would cost. They send nothing but letters above Cairo by post, as all goes on men's backs. 'Inshallah! I am the bearer of good news,' cries the postman, as he flings the letter over the wall. I am so glad of the chance of getting news to you quick by Giafar Pasha, who came here like a gentleman, alone, without a retinue; he is on his way from two years in the Soudan, where he was absolute Pasha. He is very much liked and respected, and seems a very sensible and agreeable man, quite unlike any Turkish big-wig I have seen. Great potentate as he is, he made Yussuf Mustapha and Abdallah sit down, and was extremely civil and simple in his manners.

June 30, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

BENISOUEF,
_June_ 30, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

I write on the chance that this may go safe by post so that you may not think me lost. I left Luxor on May 31, got to Siout (half-way) in a week, and have ever since been battling with an unceasing furious north and north-east wind. I feel like the much travelled Odysseus, and have seen 'villages and men,' unlike him, however 'my companions' have neither grumbled nor deserted, though it is a bad business for them, having received their money at the rate of about twenty days' pay, for which they must take me to Cairo. They have eaten all, and are now obliged to stop and make bread here, but they are as good-humoured as if all were well. My fleet consisted of my dahabieh, flag ship; tender, a _kyasseh_ (cargo boat) for my horse and sais, wherein were packed two extremely poor shrivelled old widows, going to Cairo to see their sons, now in garrison there; lots of hard bread, wheat, flour, jars of butter, onions and lentils for all the lads of 'my family' studying at Gama'l Azhar, besides in my box queer little stores of long hoarded money for those _megowareen_ (students of Gama'l Azhar). Don't you wish you could provide for Maurice with a sack of bread, a basket of onions and one pound sixteen shillings?

The handsome brown Sheykh el-Arab, Hassan, wanted me to take him, but I knew him to be a 'fast' man, and asked Yussuf how I could avoid it without breaking the laws of hospitality, so my 'father,' the old Shereef, told Hassan that he did not choose his daughter to travel with a wine-bibber and a frequenter of loose company. Under my convoy sailed two or three little boats with family parties. One of these was very pretty, whose steersman was a charming little fat girl of five years old. All these hoped to escape being caught and worried by the way, by belonging to me, and they dropped off at their several villages. I am tolerably well, better than when I started, in spite of the wind.

Poor Reis Mohammed had a very bad attack of ophthalmia, and sat all of a heap, groaning all day and night, and protesting 'I am a Muslim,' equivalent to 'God's will be done.' At one place I was known, and had a lot of sick to see, and a civil man killed a sheep and regaled us all with meat and _fateereh_. The part of the river in which we were kept by the high wind is made cheerful by the custom of the Hareem being just as free to mix with men as Europeans, and I quite enjoyed the pretty girls' faces, and the gossip with the women who came to fill their water-jars and peep in at the cabin windows, which, by the way, they always ask leave to do. The Sheykh el-Hawara gave me two sheep which are in the cargo-boat with four others--all presents--which Omar intends you to eat at Cairo. The Sheykh is very anxious to give you an entertainment at his palace, if you come up the river, with horse-riding, feasting and dancing girls. In fact I am charged with many messages to _el-Kebir_ (the great master).

July 8, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

CAIRO,
_July_ 8, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

I arrived to-day, after thirty-eight days' voyage, one month of ceaseless furious wind. My poor men had a hard pull down against it. However I am feeling better than when I left Luxor.

Omar has just brought a whole cargo of your letters, the last of the 26 June. Let me know your plans. If you can go up the river I might send the boat beforehand to Minieh, so far there is a railway now, which would break the neck of the tedious part of the voyage for you if you are pressed for time. I must send this off at once to catch early post to-morrow. Excuse haste, I write in all the bustle of arrival.

July 28, 1867: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

BOULAK,
_July_ 28, 1867.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I know I can write nothing more sure to please you than that I am a good deal better. It has been intensely hot, and the wind very worrying, but my cough has greatly abated and I do not feel so weak as I did. I am anchored here in the river at my old quarters, and have not yet been ashore owing to the hot wind and the dust, which of course are far less troublesome here on the river. I have seen but very few people and have but one neighbour, in a boat anchored near mine, a very bewitching Circassian, the former slave of a rich Pasha, now married to a respectable dragoman, and staying in his boat for a week or two. She is young and pretty, and very amiable, and we visit each other often and get on very well indeed. She is a very religious little lady, and was much relieved when I assured her it was not part of my daily devotions to curse the Prophet, and revile the noble Koran.