Chapter III: Part 3

You will have seen my letter to my mother, and heard how much better I am for the glorious air of Nubia and the high up-country. Already we are returning into misty weather. I dined and spent the day with Wassef and his Hareem, such an amiable, kindly household. I was charmed with their manner to each other, to the slaves and family. The slaves (all Muslims) told Omar what an excellent master they had. He had meant to make a dance-fantasia, but as I had not good news it was countermanded. Poor Wassef ate his boiled beans rather ruefully, while his wife and I had an excellent dinner, she being excused fasting on account of a coming baby. The Copt fast is no joke, neither butter, milk, eggs nor fish being allowed for fifty-five days. They made Sally dine with us, and Omar was admitted to wait and interpret. Wassef's younger brother waited on him as in the Bible, and his clerk, a nice young fellow, assisted. Black slaves brought the dishes in, and capital the food was. There was plenty of joking between the lady and Omar about Ramadan, which he had broken, and the Nasranee fast, and also about the number of wives allowed, the young clerk intimating that he rather liked that point in Islam. I have promised to spend ten or twelve days at their house if ever I go up the Nile again. I have also promised to send Wassef all particulars as to the expense, etc. of educating his boy in England, and to look after him and have him to our house in the holidays. I can't describe how anxiously kind these people were to me. One gets such a wonderful amount of sympathy and real hearty kindness here. A curious instance of the affinity of the British mind for prejudice is the way in which every Englishman I have seen scorns the Eastern Christians, and droll enough that sinners like Kinglake and I should be the only people to feel the tie of the 'common faith' (_vide_ 'Eothen'). A very pious Scotch gentleman wondered that I could think of entering a Copt's house, adding that they were the publicans (tax-gatherers) of this country, which is partly true. I felt inclined to mention that better company than he or I had dined with publicans, and even sinners.

The Copts are evidently the ancient Egyptians. The slightly aquiline nose and long eye are the very same as the profiles of the tombs and temples, and also like the very earliest Byzantine pictures; _du reste_, the face is handsome, but generally sallow and rather inclined to puffiness, and the figure wants the grace of the Arabs. Nor has any Copt the thoroughbred, _distingue_ look of the meanest man or woman of good Arab blood. Their feet are the long-toed, flattish foot of the Egyptian statue, while the Arab foot is classically perfect and you could put your hand under the instep. The beauty of the Ababdeh, black, naked, and shaggy-haired, is quite marvellous. I never saw such delicate limbs and features, or such eyes and teeth.

CAIRO,
_March_ 19.

After leaving Siout I caught cold. The worst of going up the Nile is that one must come down again and find horrid fogs, and cold nights with sultry days. So I did not attempt Sakhara and the Pyramids, but came a day before my appointed time to Cairo. Up here in the town it is much warmer and dryer, and my cough is better already. I found all your letters in many volumes, and was so excited over reading them that I could not sleep one moment last night, so excuse dulness, but I thought you'd like to know I was safe in Briggs' bank, and expecting Janet and Ross to-night.

April 9, 1863: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

CAIRO,
_April_ 9, 1863.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I write to you because I know Janet is sure to write to Alick. I have had a very severe attack of bronchitis. As I seemed to be getting worse after Janet and Ross left for Alexandria, Omar very wisely sent for Hekekian Bey, who came at once bringing De Leo Bey, the surgeon-in-chief of the Pasha's troops, and also the doctor to the hareem. He has been most kind, coming two and three times a day at first. He won't take any fee, _sous pretexte_ that he is _officier du Pasha_; I must send him a present from England. As to Hekekian Bey, he is absolutely the Good Samaritan, and these Orientals do their kindnesses with such an air of enjoyment to themselves that it seems quite a favour to let them wait upon one. Hekekian comes in every day with his handsome old face and a budget of news, all the gossip of the Sultan and his doings. I shall always fancy the Good Samaritan in a tarboosh with a white beard and very long eyes. I am out of bed to-day for the second time, and waiting for a warm day to go out. Sally saw the illuminations last night; the Turkish bazaar she says was gorgeous. The Sultan and all his suite have not eaten bread here, all their food comes from Constantinople. To-morrow the Mahmaal goes--think of my missing that sight! _C'est desclant_.

I have a black slave--a real one. I looked at her little ears wondering they had not been bored for rings. She fancied I wished them bored (she was sitting on the floor close at my side), and in a minute she stood up and showed me her ear with a great pin through it: 'Is that well, lady?' the creature is eight years old. The shock nearly made me faint. What extremities of terror had reduced that little mind to such a state. She is very good and gentle, and sews quite nicely already. When she first came, she tells me, she thought I should eat her; now her one dread is that I should leave her behind. She sings a wild song of joy to Maurice's picture and about the little Sitt. She was sent from Khartoum as a present to Mr. Thayer, who has no woman-servant at all. He fetched me to look at her, and when I saw the terror-stricken creature being coarsely pulled about by his cook and groom, I said I would take her for the present. Sally teaches her, and she is very good; but now she has set her whole little black soul upon me. De Leo can give no opinion as to what I ought to do, as he knows little but Egypt, and thinks England rather like Norway, I fancy. Only don't let me be put in a dreadful mountain valley; I hear the drip, drip, drip of Eaux Bonnes in bad dreams still, when I am chilly and oppressed in my sleep. I'll write again soon, send this to Alick, please.

April 13, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

CAIRO,
_April_ 13, 1863.

DEAREST ALICK,

You will have heard from my mother of my ill luck, falling sick again. The fact is that the spring in Egypt is very trying, and I came down the river a full month too soon. People do tell such lies about the heat. To-day is the first warm day we have had; till now I have been shivering, and Sally too. I have been out twice, and saw the holy Mahmaal rest for its first station outside the town, it is a deeply affecting sight--all those men prepared to endure such hardship. They halt among the tombs of the Khalifah, such a spot. Omar's eyes were full of tears and his voice shaking with emotion, as he talked about it and pointed out the Mahmaal and the Sheykh al-Gemel, who leads the sacred camel, naked to the waist with flowing hair. Muslim piety is so unlike what Europeans think it is, so full of tender emotions, so much more sentimental than we imagine--and it is wonderfully strong. I used to hear Omar praying outside my door while I was so ill, 'O God, make her better. O my God, let her sleep,' as naturally as we should say, 'I hope she'll have a good night.'

The Sultan's coming is a kind of riddle. No one knows what he wants. The Pasha has ordered all the women of the lower classes to keep indoors while he is here. Arab women are outspoken, and might shout out their grievances to the great Sultan.

_April_ 15.--I continue to get better slowly, and in a few days will go down to Alexandria. Omar is gone to Boulak to inquire the cost of a boat, as I am not fond of the railroad, and have a good deal of heavy baggage, cooking utensils, etc., which the railway charges enormously for. The black slave girl, sent as a present to the American Consul-General, is as happy as possible, and sings quaint, soft little Kordofan songs all day. I hope you won't object to my bringing her home. She wails so terribly when Omar tells her she is not my slave, for fear I should leave her, and insists on being my slave. She wants to be a present to Rainie, the little Sitt, and laughs out so heartily at the thought of her. She is very quiet and gentle, poor little savage, and the utter slavishness of the poor little soul quite upsets me; she has no will of her own. Now she has taken to talking, and tells all her woes and how _batal_ (bad) everyone was at Khartoum; and then she rubs her little black nose on my hand, and laughs so merrily, and says all is _quyis keteer_ (very good) here, and she hugs herself with delight. I think Rainie will like her very much.

I am going to visit an old Muslim French painter's family. He has an Arab wife and grown-up daughters, and is a very agreeable old man with a store of Arab legends; I am going to persuade him to write them and let me translate them into English. The Sultan goes away to-day. Even water to drink has been brought from Constantinople; I heard that from Hekekian Bey, who formerly owned the eunuch who is now Kislar Aghasy to the Sultan himself. Hekekian had the honour of kissing his old slave's hand. If anyone tries to make you believe any bosh about civilization in Egypt, laugh at it. The real life and the real people are exactly as described in the most veracious of books, the 'Thousand and One Nights'; the tyranny is the same, the people are not altered--and very charming people they are. If I could but speak the language I could get into Arab society here through two or three different people, and see more than many Europeans who have lived here all their lives. The Arabs are keenly alive to the least prejudice against them, but when they feel quite safe on that point they rather like the amusement of a stranger.

Omar devised a glorious scheme, if I were only well and strong, of putting me in a takterrawan and taking me to Mecca in the character of his mother, supposed to be a Turk. To a European man, of course, it would be impossible, but an enterprising woman might do it easily with a Muslim confederate. Fancy seeing the pilgrimage! In a few days I shall go down to Alexandria, if it makes me ill again I must return to Europe or go to Beyrout. I can't get a boat under 12 pounds; thus do the Arabs understand competition; the owner of boats said so few were wanted, times were bad on account of the railway, etc., he must have double what he used to charge. In vain Omar argued that that was not the way to get employment. 'Maleesh!' (Never mind!), and so I must go by rail. Is not that Eastern? Up the river, where there is no railroad, I might have had it at half that rate. All you have ever told me as most Spanish in Spain is in full vigour here, and also I am reminded of Ireland at every turn; the same causes produce the same effects.

To-day the Khamseen is blowing and it is decidedly hot, quite unlike the heat at the Cape; this is close and gloomy, no sunshine. Altogether the climate is far less bright than I expected, very, very inferior to the Cape. Nevertheless, I heartily agree to the Arab saying: 'He who has drunk Nile water will ever long to drink it again'; and when a graceful woman in a blue shirt and veil lifts a huge jar from her shoulder and holds it to your lips with a hearty smile and welcome, it tastes doubly sweet. _Alhamdulillah_! Sally says all other water is like bad small-beer compared to sweet ale after the Nile water. When the Khamseen is over, Omar insists on my going to see the tree and the well where Sittina Mariam rested with Seyidna Issa {55} in her arms during the flight into Egypt. It is venerated by Christian and Muslim alike, and is a great place for feasting and holiday-making out of doors, which the Arabs so dearly love. Do write and tell me what you wish me to do. If it were not that I cannot endure not to see you and the children, I would stay here and take a house at the Abbassieh in the desert; but I could not endure it. Nor can I endure this wandering life much longer. I must come home and die in peace if I don't get really better. Write to Alexandria next.

April 18, 1863: Mr. Tom Taylor

_To Mr. Tom Taylor_.

CAIRO,
_April_ 18, 1863.

MY DEAR TOM,

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

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

By no deed of my own have I become a slave-owner. The American Consul-General turned over to me a black girl of eight or nine, and in consequence of her reports the poor little black boy who is the slave and marmiton of the cook here has been entreating Omar to beg me to buy him and take him with me. It is touching to see the two poor little black things recounting their woes and comparing notes. I went yesterday to deposit my cooking things and boat furniture at my washerwoman's house. Seeing me arrive on my donkey, followed by a cargo of household goods, about eight or ten Arab women thronged round delighted at the idea that I was coming to live in their quarter, and offering me neighbourly services. Of course all rushed upstairs, and my old washerwoman was put to great expense in pipes and coffee. I think, as you, that I must have the 'black drop,' and that the Arabs see it, for I am always told that I am like them, with praises of my former good looks. 'You were beautiful Hareem once.' Nothing is more striking to me than the way in which one is constantly reminded of Herodotus. The Christianity and the Islam of this country are full of the ancient worship, and the sacred animals have all taken service with Muslim saints. At Minieh one reigns over crocodiles; higher up I saw the hole of AEsculapius' serpent at Gebel Sheykh Hereedee, and I fed the birds--as did Herodotus--who used to tear the cordage of boats which refused to feed them, and who are now the servants of Sheykh Naooneh, and still come on board by scores for the bread which no Reis dares refuse them. Bubastis' cats are still fed in the Cadi's court at public expense in Cairo, and behave with singular decorum when 'the servant of the cats' serves them their dinner. Among gods, Amun Ra, the sun-god and serpent-killer, calls himself Mar Girgis (St. George), and is worshipped by Christians and Muslims in the same churches, and Osiris holds his festivals as riotously as ever at Tanta in the Delta, under the name of Seyd el Bedawee. The _fellah_ women offer sacrifices to the Nile, and walk round ancient statues in order to have children. The ceremonies at births and burials are not Muslim, but ancient Egyptian.

The Copts are far more close and reserved and backward than the Arabs, and they have been so repudiated by Europeans that they are doubly shy of us. The Europeans resent being called 'Nazranee' as a genteel Hebrew gentleman may shrink from 'Jew.' But I said boldly, '_Ana Nazraneeh_. _Alhamdulillah_!' (I am a Nazranee. Praise be to God), and found that it was much approved by the Muslims as well as the Copts. Curious things are to be seen here in religion--Muslims praying at the tomb of Mar Girgis (St. George) and the resting-places of Sittina Mariam and Seyidna Issa, and miracles, brand-new, of an equally mixed description.

If you have any power over any artists, send them to paint here. No words can describe either the picturesque beauty of Cairo or the splendid forms of the people in Upper Egypt, and above all in Nubia. I was in raptures at seeing how superb an animal man (and woman) really is. My donkey-girl at Thebes, dressed like a Greek statue--Ward es-Sham (the Rose of Syria)--was a feast to the eyes; and here, too, what grace and sweetness, and how good is a drink of Nile water out of an amphora held to your lips by a woman as graceful as she is kindly. 'May it benefit thee,' she says, smiling with all her beautiful teeth and eyes. '_Alhamdulillah_,' you reply; and it is worth thanking God for. The days of the beauty of Cairo are numbered. The mosques are falling to decay, the exquisite lattice windows rotting away and replaced by European glass and jalousies. Only the people and the Government remain unchanged. Read all the pretty paragraphs about civilisation here, and then say, Bosh!

If you know anyone coming here and wanting a good servant and dragoman, recommend my dear Omar Abou el-Halaweh of Alexandria. He has been my friend and companion, as well as my cook and general servant, now for six months, and we are very sad at our approaching separation. I am to spend a day in his house with his young wife at Alexandria, and to eat his bread. He sadly wants to go with me to Europe and to see my children. Sally, I think, is almost as fond of the Arabs as I am, and very popular. My poor ragged crew were for ever calling out 'Yah Sara' for some assistance or other, hurt fingers or such calamities; and the quantity of doctoring I did was fearful. Sally was constantly wishing for you to see all manner of things and to sketch. What a yarn I have made!

May 12, 1863: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

ALEXANDRIA,
_May_ 12, 1863.

DEAREST MUTTER,

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

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

One must come to the East to understand absolute equality. As there is no education and no reason why the donkey-boy who runs behind me may not become a great man, and as all Muslims are _ipso facto_ equal; money and rank are looked on as mere accidents, and my _savoir vivre_ was highly thought of because I sat down with Fellaheen and treated everyone as they treat each other. In Alexandria all that is changed. The European ideas and customs have extinguished the Arab altogether, and those who remain are not improved by the contact. Only the _Bedaween_ preserve their haughty _nonchalance_. I found the Mograbee bazaar full of them when I went to buy a white cloak, and was amused at the way in which one splendid bronze figure, who lay on the shop-front, moved one leg to let me sit down. They got interested in my purchase, and assisted in making the bargain and wrapping the cloak round me Bedawee fashion, and they too complimented me on having 'the face of the Arab,' which means Bedaween. I wanted a little Arab dress for Rainie, but could not find one, as at her age none are worn in the desert.

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

May 12, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

ALEXANDRIA,
_May_ 12, 1863.

DEAREST ALICK,

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

How you would revel in old Masr el-Kahira, peep up at lattice windows, gape like a _gasheem_ (green one) in the bazaar, go wild over the mosques, laugh at portly Turks and dignified Sheykhs on their white donkeys, drink sherbet in the streets, ride wildly about on a donkey, peer under black veils at beautiful eyes and feel generally intoxicated! I am quite a good cicerone now of the glorious old city. Omar is in raptures at the idea that the Sidi el Kebir (the Great Master) might come, and still more if he brought the 'little master.' He plans meeting you on the steamboat and bringing you to me, that I may kiss your hand first of all. Mashallah! How our hearts would be dilated!

May 21, 1863: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

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

DEAREST MUTTER,

I came here on Saturday night. To-day is Wednesday, and I am already much better. I have attached an excellent donkey and his master, a delightful youth called Hassan, to my household for fifteen piastres (under two shillings) a day. They live at the door, and Hassan cleans the stairs and goes errands during the heat of the day, and I ride out very early, at six or seven, and again at five. The air is delicious now. It is very hot for a few hours, but not stifling, and the breeze does not chill one as it does at Alexandria. I live all day and all night with open windows, and plenty of fresh warm air is the best of remedies. I can do no better than stay here till the heat becomes too great. I left little Zeyneb at Alexandria with Janet's maid Ellen who quite loves her, and begged to keep her 'for company,' and also to help in their removal to the new house. She clung about me and made me promise to come back to her, but was content to stop with Ellen, whose affection she of course returns. It was pleasant to see her so happy, and how she relished being 'put to bed' with a kiss by Ellen or Sally. Her Turkish master, whom she pronounces to have been _batal_ (bad), called her Salaam es-Sidi (the Peace of her Master); but she said that in her own village she used to be Zeyneb, and so we call her. She has grown fatter and, if possible, blacker. Mahbrooka (Good Fortune), the elder wife of Hegab, the confectioner, was much interested in her, as her fate had been the same. She was bought by an Italian who lived with her till his death, when she married Hegab. She is a pious Muslimeh, and invoked the intercession of Seyidna Mohammad for me when I told her I had no intention of baptizing Zeyneb by force, as had been done to her.

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

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

Hekekian Bey is my near neighbour, and he comes in and we _fronder_ the Government. His heart is sore with disinterested grief for the sufferings of the people. 'Don't they deserve to be decently governed, to be allowed a little happiness and prosperity? They are so docile, so contented; are they not a good people?' Those were his words as he was recounting some new iniquity. Of course half these acts are done under pretext of improving and civilizing, and the Europeans applaud and say, 'Oh, but nothing could be done without forced labour,' and the poor Fellaheen are marched off in gangs like convicts, and their families starve, and (who'd have thought it) the population keeps diminishing. No wonder the cry is, 'Let the English Queen come and take us.' You see, I don't see things quite as Ross does, but mine is another _standpunkt_, and my heart is with the Arabs. I care less about opening up the trade with the Soudan and all the new railways, and I should like to see person and property safe, which no one's is here (Europeans, of course, excepted). Ismail Pasha got the Sultan to allow him to take 90,000 feddans of uncultivated land for himself as private property, very well, but the late Viceroy Said granted eight years ago certain uncultivated lands to a good many Turks, his _employes_, in hopes of founding a landed aristocracy and inducing them to spend their capital in cultivation. They did so, and now Ismail Pasha takes their improved land and gives them feddan for feddan of his new land, which will take five years to bring into cultivation, instead. He forces them to sign a _voluntary_ deed of exchange, or they go off to Fazogloo, a hot Siberia whence none return. The Sultan also left a large sum of money for religious institutions and charities--Muslim, Jew, and Christian. None have received a foddah. It is true the Sultan and his suite plundered the Pasha and the people here; but from all I hear the Sultan really wishes to do good. What is wanted here is hands to till the ground, and wages are very high; food, of course, gets dearer, and the forced labour inflicts more suffering than before, and the population will decrease yet faster. This appears to me to be a state of things in which it is no use to say that public works must be made at any cost. The wealth will perhaps be increased, if meanwhile the people are not exterminated. Then, every new Pasha builds a huge new palace while those of his predecessors fall to ruin. Mehemet Ali's sons even cut down the trees of his beautiful botanical garden and planted beans there; so money is constantly wasted more than if it were thrown into the Nile, for then the Fellaheen would not have to spend their time, so much wanted for agriculture, in building hideous barrack-like so-called palaces. What chokes me is to hear English people talk of the stick being 'the only way to manage Arabs' as if anyone could doubt that it is the easiest way to manage any people where it can be used with impunity.

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

I am more and more annoyed at not being able to ask questions for myself, as I don't like to ask through a Muslim and no Copts speak any foreign language, or very very few. Omar and Hassan had been at five this morning to the tomb of Sittina Zeyneb, one of the daughters of the Prophet, to 'see her' (Sunday is her day of reception), and say the Fathah at her tomb. Next Friday the great Bairam begins and every Muslim eats a bit of meat at his richer neighbour's expense. It is the day on which the pilgrims go up the sacred mount near Mecca, to hear the sermon which terminates the Haj. Yesterday I went to call on pretty Mrs. Wilkinson, she is an Armenian of the Greek faith, and was gone to pray at the convent of Mar Girgis (St. George) to cure the pains a bad rheumatic fever has left in her hands. Evidently Mar Girgis is simply Ammon Ra, the God of the Sun and great serpent-slayer, who is still revered in Egypt by all sects, and Seyd el-Bedawee is as certainly one form of Osiris. His festivals, held twice a year at Tanta, still display the symbol of the Creator of all things. All is thus here--the women wail the dead, as on the old sculptures, all the ceremonies are pagan, and would shock an Indian Mussulman as much as his objection to eat with a Christian shocks an Arab. This country is a palimpsest, in which the Bible is written over Herodotus, and the Koran over that. In the towns the Koran is most visible, in the country Herodotus. I fancy it is most marked and most curious among the Copts, whose churches are shaped like the ancient temples, but they are so much less accessible than the Arabs that I know less of their customs.

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

May 25, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

CAIRO,
_May_ 25, 1863.

DEAREST ALICK,

I have spun such a yarn to my mother that I shall make it serve for both. It may amuse you to see what impression Cairo makes. I ride along on my valiant donkey led by the stalwart Hassan and attended by Omar, and constantly say, 'Oh, if our master were here, how pleased he would be'--husband is not a correct word.

I went out to the tombs yesterday. Fancy that Omar witnessed the destruction of some sixty-eight or so of the most exquisite buildings--the tombs and mosques of the Arab Khaleefehs, which Said Pasha used to divert himself with bombarding for practice for his artillery. Omar was then in the boy corps of camel artillery, now disbanded. Thus the Pasha added the piquancy of sacrilege to barbarity.

The street and the neighbours would divert you. Opposite lives a Christian dyer who must be a seventh brother of the admirable barber. The same impertinence, loquacity, and love of meddling in everybody's business. I long to see him thrashed, though he is a constant comedy. My delightful servant, Omar Abou-el-Hallaweh (the father of sweets)--his family are pastrycooks--is the type of all the amiable _jeune premiers_ of the stories. I am privately of opinion that he is Bedr-ed-Deen Hassan, the more that he can make cream tarts and there is no pepper in them. Cream tarts are not very good, but lamb stuffed with pistachio nuts fulfils all one's dreams of excellence. The Arabs next door and the Levantines opposite are quiet enough, but how _do_ they eat all the cucumbers they buy of the man who cries them every morning as 'fruit gathered by sweet girls in the garden with the early dew.'

The more I see of the back-slums of Cairo, the more in love I am with it. The oldest European towns are tame and regular in comparison, and the people are so pleasant. If you smile at anything that amuses you, you get the kindest, brightest smiles in return; they give hospitality with their faces, and if one brings out a few words, 'Mashallah! what Arabic the Sitt Ingleez speaks.' The Arabs are clever enough to understand the amusement of a stranger and to enter into it, and are amused in turn, and they are wonderfully unprejudiced. When Omar explains to me their views on various matters, he adds: 'The Arab people think so--I know not if right;' and the way in which the Arab merchants worked the electric telegraph, and the eagerness of the Fellaheen for steam-ploughs, are quite extraordinary. They are extremely clever and nice children, easily amused, easily roused into a fury which lasts five minutes and leaves no malice, and half the lying and cheating of which they are accused comes from misunderstanding and ignorance. When I first took Omar he was by way of 'ten pounds, twenty pounds,' being nothing for my dignity. But as soon as I told him that 'my master was a Bey who got 100 pounds a month and no backsheesh,' he was as careful as if for himself. They see us come here and do what only their greatest Pashas do, hire a boat to ourselves, and, of course, think our wealth is boundless. The lying is mostly from fright. They dare not suggest a difference of opinion to a European, and lie to get out of scrapes which blind obedience has often got them into. As to the charges of shopkeepers, that is the custom, and the haggling a ceremony you must submit to. It is for the purchaser or employer to offer a price and fix wages--the reverse of Europe--and if you ask the price they ask something fabulous at random.

I hope to go home next month, as soon as it gets too hot here and is likely to be warm enough in England. I do so long to see the children again.

October 19, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

ALEXANDRIA,
_October_ 19, 1863.

We had a wretched voyage, good weather, but such a _petaudiere_ of a ship. I am competent to describe the horrors of the middle passage--hunger, suffocation, dirt, and such _canaille_, high and low, on board. The only gentleman was a poor Moor going to Mecca (who stowed his wife and family in a spare boiler on deck). I saw him washing his children in the morning! '_Que c'est degoutant_!' was the cry of the French spectators. If an Arab washes he is a _sale cochon_--no wonder! A delicious man who sat near me on deck, when the sun came round to our side, growled between his clenched teeth: '_Voila un tas d'intrigants a l'ombre tandis que le soleil me grille, moi_,' a good resume of French politics, methinks. Well, on arriving at noon of Friday, I was consoled for all by seeing Janet in a boat looking as fresh and bright and merry as ever she could look. The heat has evidently not hurt her at all. Omar's joy was intense. He has had an offer of a place as messenger with the mails to Suez and back, 60 pounds a year; and also his brother wanted him for Lady Herbert of Lea, who has engaged Hajjee Ali, and Ali promised high pay, but Omar said that he could not leave me. 'I think my God give her to me to take care of her, how then I leave her if she not well and not very rich? I can't speak to my God if I do bad things like that.' I am going to his house to-day to see the baby and Hajjee Hannah, who is just come down from Cairo. Omar is gone to try to get a dahabieh to go up the river, as I hear that the half-railway, half-steamer journey is dreadfully inconvenient and fatiguing, and the sight of the overflowing Nile is said to be magnificent, it is all over the land and eight miles of the railway gone. Omar kisses your hand and is charmed with the knife, but far more that my family should know his name and be satisfied with my servant.

I cannot live in Thayer's house because the march of civilization has led a party of French and Wallachian women into the ground-floor thereof to instruct the ignorant Arabs in drinking, card-playing, and other vices. So I will consult Hajjee Hannah to-day; she may know of an empty house and would make divan cushions for me. Zeyneb is much grown and very active and intelligent, but a little louder and bolder than she was owing to the maids here wanting to christianize her, and taking her out unveiled, and letting her be among the men. However, she is as affectionate as ever, and delighted at the prospect of going with me. I have replaced the veil, and Sally has checked her tongue and scolded her sister Ellen for want of decorum, to the amazement of the latter. Janet has a darling Nubian boy. Oh dear! what an elegant person Omar seemed after the French 'gentleman,' and how noble was old Hamees's (Janet's doorkeeper) paternal but reverential blessing! It is a real comfort to live in a nation of truly well-bred people and to encounter kindness after the savage incivility of France.

_Tuesday_, _October_ 20.

Omar has got a boat for 13 pounds, which is not more than the railway would cost now that half must be done by steamer and a bit on donkeys or on foot. Poor Hajjee Hannah was quite knocked up by the journey down; I shall take her up in my boat. Two and a half hours to sit grilling at noonday on the banks, and two miles to walk carrying one's own baggage is hard lines for a fat old woman. Everything is almost double in price owing to the cattle murrain and the high Nile. Such an inundation as this year was never known before. Does the blue God resent Speke's intrusion on his privacy? It will be a glorious sight, but the damage to crops, and even to the last year's stacks of grain and beans, is frightful. One sails among the palm-trees and over the submerged cotton-fields. Ismail Pasha has been very active, but, alas! his 'eye is bad,' and there have been as many calamities as under Pharaoh in his short reign. The cattle murrain is fearful, and is now beginning in Cairo and Upper Egypt. Ross reckons the loss at twelve millions sterling in cattle. The gazelles in the desert have it too, but not horses, asses or goats.

October 26, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

ALEXANDRIA,
_October_ 26, 1863.

DEAREST ALICK,

I went to two hareems the other day with a little boy of Mustapha Aga's, and was much pleased. A very pleasant Turkish lady put out all her splendid bedding and dresses for me, and was most amiable. At another a superb Arab with most _grande dame_ manners, dressed in white cotton and with unpainted face, received me statelily. Her house would drive you wild, such antique enamelled tiles covering the panels of the walls, all divided by carved woods, and such carved screens and galleries, all very old and rather dilapidated, but superb, and the lady worthy of the house. A bold-eyed slave girl with a baby put herself forward for admiration, and was ordered to bring coffee with such cool though polite imperiousness. One of our great ladies can't half crush a rival in comparison, she does it too coarsely. The quiet scorn of the pale-faced, black-haired Arab was beyond any English powers. Then it was fun to open the lattice and make me look out on the square, and to wonder what the neighbours would say at the sight of my face and European hat. She asked about my children and blessed them repeatedly, and took my hand very kindly in doing so, for fear I should think her envious and fear her eye--she had none.

_Tuesday_.--The post goes out to-morrow, and I have such a cold I must stay in bed and cannot write much. I go on Thursday and shall go to Briggs' house. Pray write to me at Cairo. Sally and I are both unwell and anxious to get up the river. I can't write more.

October 31, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

KAFR ZEYAT,
_October_ 31, 1863.

DEAREST ALICK,

We left Alexandria on Thursday about noon, and sailed with a fair wind along the Mahmoudieh Canal. My little boat flies like a bird, and my men are a capital set of fellows, bold and careful sailors. I have only seven in all, but they work well, and at a pinch Omar leaves the pots and pans and handles a rope or a pole manfully. We sailed all night and passed the locks at Atleh at four o'clock yesterday, and were greeted by old Nile tearing down like a torrent. The river is magnificent, 'seven men's height,' my Reis says, above its usual pitch; it has gone down five or six feet and left a sad scene of havoc on either side. However what the Nile takes he repays with threefold interest, they say. The women are at work rebuilding their mud huts, and the men repairing the dykes. A Frenchman told me he was on board a Pasha's steamer under M. de Lesseps' command, and they passed a flooded village where two hundred or so people stood on their roofs crying for help. Would you, could you, believe it that they passed on and left them to drown? None but an eyewitness could have made me believe such villainy.

All to-day we sailed in such heavenly weather--a sky like nothing but its most beautiful self. At the bend of the river just now we had a grand struggle to get round, and got entangled with a big timber boat. My crew got so vehement that I had to come out with an imperious request to everyone to bless the Prophet. Then the boat nearly pulled the men into the stream, and they pulled and hauled and struggled up to their waists in mud and water, and Omar brandished his pole and shouted 'Islam el Islam!' which gave a fresh spirit to the poor fellows, and round we came with a dash and caught the breeze again. Now we have put up for the night, and shall pass the railway-bridge to-morrow. The railway is all under water from here up to Tantah--eight miles--and in many places higher up.

November 14, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

CAIRO,
_November_ 14, 1863.

Here I am at last in my old quarters at Thayer's house, after a tiresome negotiation with the Vice-Consul, who had taken possession and invented the story of women on the ground-floor. I was a week in Briggs' damp house, and too ill to write. The morning I arrived at Cairo I was seized with haemorrhage, and had two days of it; however, since then I am better. I was very foolish to stay a fortnight in Alexandria.