Chapter V: Part 5

The view all round my house is magnificent on every side, over the Nile in front facing north-west, and over a splendid range of green and distant orange buff hills to the south-east, where I have a spacious covered terrace. It is rough and dusty to the extreme, but will be very pleasant. Mustapha came in just now to offer me the loan of a horse, and to ask me to go to the mosque in a few nights to see the illumination in honour of a great Sheykh, a son of Sidi Hosseyn or Hassan. I asked whether my presence might not offend any Muslimeen, and he would not hear of such a thing. The sun set while he was here, and he asked if I objected to his praying in my presence, and went through his four _rekahs_ very comfortably on my carpet. My next-door neighbour (across the courtyard all filled with antiquities) is a nice little Copt who looks like an antique statue himself. I shall _voisiner_ with his family. He sent me coffee as soon as I arrived, and came to help. I am invited to El-Moutaneh, a few hours up the river, to visit the Mouniers, and to Keneh to visit Seyyid Achmet, and also the head of the merchants there who settled the price of a carpet for me in the bazaar, and seemed to like me. He was just one of those handsome, high-bred, elderly merchants with whom a story always begins in the Arabian Nights. When I can talk I will go and see a real Arab hareem. A very nice English couple, a man and his wife, gave me breakfast in their boat, and turned out to be business connections of Ross's, of the name of Arrowsmith; they were going to Assouan, and I shall see them on their way back. I asked Mustapha about the Arab young lady, and he spoke very highly of her, and is to let me know if she comes here and to offer hospitality from me: he did not know her name--she is called 'el _Haggeh_' (the Pilgrimess).

_Thursday_.--Now I am settled in my Theban palace, it seems more and more beautiful, and I am quite melancholy that you cannot be here to enjoy it. The house is very large and has good thick walls, the comfort of which we feel to-day for it blows a hurricane; but indoors it is not at all cold. I have glass windows and doors to some of the rooms. It is a lovely dwelling. Two funny little owls as big as my fist live in the wall under my window, and come up and peep in, walking on tip-toe, and looking inquisitive like the owls in the hieroglyphics; and a splendid horus (the sacred hawk) frequents my lofty balcony. Another of my contemplar gods I sacrilegiously killed last night, a whip snake. Omar is rather in consternation for fear it should be 'the snake of the house,' for Islam has not dethroned the _Dii lares et tutelares_.

I have been 'sapping' at the _Alif Bey_ (A B C) to-day, under the direction of Sheykh Yussuf, a graceful, sweet-looking young man, with a dark brown face and such fine manners, in his _fellah_ dress--a coarse brown woollen shirt, a _libdeh_, or felt skull-cap, and a common red shawl round his head and shoulders; writing the wrong way is very hard work. Some men came to mend the staircase, which had fallen in and which consists of huge solid blocks of stone. One crushed his thumb and I had to operate on it. It is extraordinary how these people bear pain; he never winced in the least, and went off thanking God and the lady quite cheerfully. Till to-day the weather has been quite heavenly; last night I sat with my window open, it was so warm. If only I had you all here! How Rainie would play in the temple, Maurice fish in the Nile, and you go about with your spectacles on your nose. I think you would discard Frangi dress and take to a brown shirt and a _libdeh_, and soon be as brown as any _fellah_. It was so curious to see Sheykh Yussuf blush from shyness when he came in first; it shows quite as much in the coffee-brown Arab skin as in the fairest European--quite unlike the much lighter-coloured mulatto or Malay, who never change colour at all. A photographer who is living here showed me photographs done high up the White Nile. One negro girl is so splendid that I must get him to do me a copy to send you. She is not perfect like the Nubians, but so superbly strong and majestic. If I can get hold of a handsome _fellahah_ here, I'll get her photographed to show you in Europe what a woman's breast can be, for I never knew it before I came here--it is the most beautiful thing in the world. The dancing-girl I saw moved her breasts by some extraordinary muscular effort, first one and then the other; they were just like pomegranates and gloriously independent of stays or any support.

January 20, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

_Wednesday_, _January_ 20, 1864.

I received your welcome letters of December 15 and 25 on Monday, to my great joy, but was much grieved to hear of Thomas's death, and still more so to hear from Janet that Thackeray and Mrs. Alison were dead. She died the morning I left Cairo, so her last act almost was to send sweetmeats to the boat after me on the evening before. Poor dear soul her sweetness and patience were very touching. We have had a week of piercing winds, and yesterday I stayed in bed, to the great surprise of Mustapha's little girl who came to see me. To-day was beautiful again, and I mounted old Mustapha's cob pony and jogged over his farm with him, and lunched on delicious sour cream and _fateereh_ at a neighbouring village, to the great delight of the _fellaheen_. It was more Biblical than ever; the people were all relations of Mustapha's, and to see Sidi Omar, the head of the household, and the 'young men coming in from the field,' and the 'flocks and herds and camels and asses,' was like a beautiful dream. All these people are of high blood, and a sort of 'roll of Battle' is kept here for the genealogies of the noble Arabs who came in with Amr--the first Arab conqueror and lieutenant of Omar. Not one of these brown men, who do not own a second shirt, would give his brown daughter to the greatest Turkish Pasha. This country _noblesse_ is more interesting to me by far than the town people, though Omar, who is quite a Cockney, and piques himself on being 'delicate,' turns up his nose at their beggarly pride, as Londoners used to do at bare-legged Highlanders. The air of perfect equality--except as to the respect due to the head of the clan--with which the villagers treated Mustapha, and which he fully returned, made it all seem so very gentlemanly. They are not so dazzled by a little show, and far more manly than the Cairenes. I am on visiting terms with all the 'county families' resident in Luxor already. The Nazir (magistrate) is a very nice person, and my Sheykh Yussuf, who is of the highest blood (being descended from Abu-l-Hajjaj himself), is quite charming. There is an intelligent little German here as Austrian Consul, who draws nicely. I went into his house, and was startled by hearing a pretty Arab boy, his servant, inquire, '_Soll ich den Kaffee bringen_?' What next? They are all mad to learn languages, and Mustapha begs me and Sally to teach his little girl Zeyneb English.

_Friday_, 22_nd_.--Yesterday I rode over to Karnac, with Mustapha's _sais_ running by my side. Glorious hot sun and delicious air. To hear the _sais_ chatter away, his tongue running as fast as his feet, made me deeply envious of his lungs. Mustapha joined me, and pressed me to go to visit the Sheykh's tomb for the benefit of my health, as he and Sheykh Yussuf wished to say a _Fathah_ for me; but I must not drink wine at dinner. I made a little difficulty on the score of difference of religion, but Sheykh Yussuf, who came up, said that he presumed I worshipped God, and not stones, and that sincere prayers were good anywhere. Clearly the bigotry would have been on my side if I had refused any longer. So in the evening I went with Mustapha. It was a very curious sight, the little dome illuminated with as much oil as the mosque could afford, and the tombs of Abu-l-Hajjaj and his three sons. A magnificent old man, like Father Abraham himself, dressed in white, sat on a carpet at the foot of the tomb; he was the head of the family of Abu-l-Hajjaj. He made me sit by, and was extremely polite. Then came the Nazir, the Kadee, a Turk travelling on Government business, and a few other gentlemen, who all sat down round us after kissing the hand of the old Sheykh. Everyone talked; in fact it was a _soiree_ for the entertainment of the dead Sheykh. A party of men sat at the further end of the place, with their faces to the Kibleh, and played on a _taraboukeh_ (sort of small drum stretched on earthenware which gives a peculiar sound), a tambourine without bells, and little tinkling cymbals fitting on thumb and fingers (crotales), and chanted songs in honour of Mohammed and verses from the Psalms of David. Every now and then one of our party left off talking, and prayed a little or counted his beads. The old Sheykh sent for coffee, and gave me the first cup--a wonderful concession. At last the Nazir proposed a _Fathah_ for me, which the whole group round me repeated aloud, and then each said to me, 'Our Lord God bless and give thee health and peace, to thee and thy family, and take thee back safe to thy master and thy children,' one adding _Ameen_ and giving the salaam with the hand. I returned it, and said, 'Our Lord reward thee and all the people of kindness to strangers,' which was considered a very proper answer. After that we went away, and the worthy Nazir walked home with me to take a pipe and a glass of sherbet, and enjoy a talk about his wife and eight children, who are all in Foum-el-Bachr', except two boys at school in Cairo. Government appointments are so precarious that it is not worth while to move them up here, as the expense would be too heavy on a salary of 15 pounds a month, with the chance of recall any day. In Cairo or Lower Egypt it would be quite impossible for a Christian to enter a Sheykh's tomb at all--above all on his birthday festival and on the night of Friday.

_Friday_, _January_ 29.--I have been too unwell to write all this week, but will finish this to-day to send off by Lady Herbert's boat. The last week has been very cold here, the thermometer at 59 and 60 degrees, with a nipping wind and bright sun. I was obliged to keep my bed for three or four days, as of course a _palazzo_ without doors or windows to speak of was very trying, though far better than a boat. Yesterday and to-day are much better, not really much warmer, but a different air.

The _moolid_ (festival) of the Sheykh terminated last Saturday with a procession, in which the new cover of his tomb, and the ancient sacred boat, were carried on men's shoulders. It all seemed to have walked out of the royal tombs, only dusty and shabby instead of gorgeous. These festivals of the dead are such as Herodotus alludes to as held in honour of 'Him whose name he dares not mention--Him who sleeps in Philae,' only the name is changed and the mummy is absent.

For a fortnight everyone who had a horse and could ride came and 'made fantasia' every afternoon for two hours before sunset; and very pretty it was. The people here show their good blood in their riding. On the last three days all strangers were entertained with bread and cooked meat at the expense of the Luxor people; every house killed a sheep and baked bread. As I could not do that for want of servants enough, I sent 100 piastres (12s) to the servants of Abu-l-Hajjaj at the mosque to pay for the oil burnt at the tomb, etc. I was not well and in bed, but I hear that my gift gave immense satisfaction, and that I was again well prayed for. The Coptic Bishop came to see me, but he is a tipsy old monk and an impudent beggar. He sent for tea as he was ill, so I went to see him, and perceived that his disorder was arrakee. He has a very nice black slave, a Christian (Abyssinian, I think), who is a friend of Omar's, and who sent Omar a handsome dinner all ready cooked; among other things a chicken stuffed with green wheat was excellent. Omar constantly gets dinners sent him, a lot of bread, some dates and cooked fowls or pigeons, and _fateereh_ with honey, all tied up hot in a cloth. I gave an old fellow a pill and dose some days ago, but his _dura ilia_ took no notice, and he came for more, and got castor-oil. I have not seen him since, but his employer, _fellah_ Omar, sent me a lot of delicious butter in return. I think it shows great intelligence in these people, how none of them will any longer consult an Arab _hakeem_ if they can get a European to physic them. They now ask directly whether the Government doctors have been to Europe to learn _Hekmeh_, and if not they don't trust them--for poor 'savages' and 'heathens' _ce n'est pas si bete_. I had to interrupt my lessons from illness, but Sheykh Yussuf came again last night. I have mastered _Abba shedda o mus beteen_--_ibbi shedda o heftedeen_, etc. Oh dear, what must poor Arab children suffer in learning ABC! It is a terrible alphabet, and the _shekel_ (points) are _desesperants_; but now I stick for want of a dictionary.

Mr. Arrowsmith kindly gave me Miss Martineau's book, which I have begun. It is true as far as it goes, but there is the usual defect--the people are not real people, only part of the scenery to her, as to most Europeans. You may conceive how much we are naturalized when I tell you that I have received a serious offer of marriage for Sally. Mustapha A'gha has requested me to 'give her to him' for his eldest son Seyyid, a nice lad of nineteen or twenty at most. As Mustapha is the richest and most considerable person here, it shows that the Arabs draw no unfavourable conclusions as to our morals from the freedom of our manners. He said of course she would keep her own religion and her own customs. Seyyid is still in Alexandria, so it will be time to refuse when he returns. I said she was too old, but they think that no objection at all. She will have to say that her father would not allow it, for of course a handsome offer deserves a civil refusal. Sally's proposals would be quite an ethnological study; Mustapha asked what I should require as dowry for her. Fancy Sally as Hareem of the Sheykh-el-Beled of Luxor!

I am so charmed with my house that I begin seriously to contemplate staying here all the time. Cairo is so dear now, and so many dead cattle are buried there, that I think I should do better in this place. There is a huge hall, so large and cold now as to be uninhabitable, which in summer would be glorious. My dear old captain of steamer XII. would bring me up coffee and candles, and if I 'sap' and learn to talk to people, I shall have plenty of company.

The cattle disease has not extended above Minieh to any degree, and here there has not been a case. _Alhamdulillah_! Food is very good here, rather less than half Cairo prices even now; in summer it will be half that. Mustapha urges me to stay, and proposes a picnic of a few days over in the tombs with his Hareem as a diversion. I have got a photo, for a stereoscope, which I send you, of my two beloved, lovely palm-trees on the river-bank just above and looking over Philae.

Hitherto my right side has been the bad one, but now one side is uneasy and the other impossible to lie on. It does not make one sleep pleasantly, and the loss of my good, sound sleep tries me, and so I don't seem well. We shall see what hot weather will do; if that fails I will give up the contest, and come home to see as much as I shall have time for of you and my chicks.

February 7, 1864: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

_Sunday_, _February_ 7, 1864

DEAREST MUTTER,

We have had our winter pretty sharp for three weeks, and everybody has had violent colds and coughs--the Arabs, I mean.

I have been a good deal ailing, but have escaped any violent cold altogether, and now the thermometer is up to 64 degrees, and it feels very pleasant. In the sun it is always very hot, but that does not prevent the air from being keen, and chapping lips and noses, and even hands; it is curious how a temperature, which would be summer in England, makes one shiver at Thebes--_Alhamdulillah_! it is over now.

My poor Sheykh Yussuf is in great distress about his brother, also a young Sheykh (_i.e._, one learned in theology and competent to preach in the mosque). Sheykh Mohammed is come home from studying in 'El-Azhar' at Cairo--I fear to die. I went with Sheykh Yussuf, at his desire, to see if I could help him, and found him gasping for breath and very, very ill. I gave him a little soothing medicine, and put mustard plasters on him, and as it relieved him, I went again and repeated them. All the family and a lot of neighbours crowded in to look on. There he lay in a dark little den with bare mud walls, worse off, to our ideas, than any pauper; but these people do not feel the want of comforts, and one learns to think it quite natural to sit with perfect gentlemen in places inferior to our cattle-sheds. I pulled some blankets up against the wall, and put my arm behind Sheykh Mohammed's back to make him rest while the poultices were on him, whereupon he laid his green turban on my shoulder, and presently held up his delicate brown face for a kiss like an affectionate child. As I kissed him, a very pious old moollah said _Bismillah_ (In the name of God) with an approving nod, and Sheykh Mohammed's old father, a splendid old man in a green turban, thanked me with effusion, and prayed that my children might always find help and kindness. I suppose if I confessed to kissing a 'dirty Arab' in a 'hovel' the English travellers would execrate me; but it shows how much there is in 'Mussulman bigotry, unconquerable hatred, etc.,' for this family are Seyyids (descendents of the Prophet) and very pious. Sheykh Yussuf does not even smoke, and he preaches on Fridays. You would love these Saeedees, they are such thorough gentlemen. I rode over to the village a few days ago to see a farmer named Omar. Of course I had to eat, and the people were enchanted at my going alone, as they are used to see the English armed and guarded. Sidi Omar, however, insisted on accompanying me home, which is the civil thing here. He piled a whole stack of green fodder on his little nimble donkey, and hoisted himself atop of it without saddle or bridle (the fodder was for Mustapha A'gha), and we trotted home across the beautiful green barley-fields, to the amazement of some European young men out shooting. We did look a curious pair, certainly, with my English saddle and bridle, habit, hat and feather, on horseback, and Sidi Omar's brown shirt, brown legs and white turban, guiding his donkey with his chibouque. We were laughing very merrily, too, over my blundering Arabic.

Young Heathcote and Strutt called here, but were hurrying on up the river. I shall see more of them when they come down. Young Strutt is so like his mother I knew him in the street. I would like to give him a fantasia, but it is not proper for a woman to send for the dancing-girls, and as I am the friend of the Maohn (police magistrate), the Kadee, and the respectable people here, I cannot do what is indecent in their eyes. It is quite enough that they approve my unveiled face, and my associating with men; that is 'my custom,' and they think no harm of it.

To-morrow or next day Ramadan begins at the first sight of the new moon. It is a great nuisance, because everybody is cross. Omar did not keep it last year, but this year he will, and if he spoils my dinners, who can blame him? There was a wedding close by here last night, and about ten o'clock all the women passed under my windows with crys of joy 'ez-zaghareet' down to the river. I find, on inquiry, that in Upper Egypt, as soon as the bridegroom has 'taken the face' of his bride, the women take her down to 'see the Nile.' They have not yet forgotten that the old god is the giver of increase, it seems.

I have been reading Miss Martineau's book; the descriptions are excellent, but she evidently knew and cared nothing about the people, and had the feeling of most English people here, that the difference of manners is a sort of impassable gulf, the truth being that their feelings and passions are just like our own. It is curious that all the old books of travels that I have read mention the natives of strange countries in a far more natural tone, and with far more attempt to discriminate character, than modern ones, _e.g._, Niebuhr's Travels here and in Arabia, Cook's Voyages, and many others. _Have_ we grown so _very_ civilized since a hundred years that outlandish people seem like mere puppets, and not like real human beings? Miss M.'s bigotry against Copts and Greeks is droll enough, compared to her very proper reverence for 'Him who sleeps in Philae,' and her attack upon hareems outrageous; she implies that they are brothels. I must admit that I have not seen a Turkish hareem, and she apparently saw no other, and yet she fancies the morals of Turkey to be superior to those of Egypt. It is not possible for a woman to explain all the limitations to which ordinary people do subject themselves. Great men I know nothing of; but women can and do, without blame, sue their husbands-in-law for the full 'payment of debt,' and demand a divorce if they please in default. Very often a man marries a second wife out of duty to provide for a brother's widow and children, or the like. Of course licentious men act loosely as elsewhere. _Kulloolum Beni Adam_ (we are all sons of Adam), as Sheykh Yussuf says constantly, 'bad-bad and good-good'; and modern travellers show strange ignorance in talking of foreign natives _in the lump_, as they nearly all do.

_Monday_.--I have just heard that poor Sheykh Mohammed died yesterday, and was, as usual, buried at once. I had not been well for a few days, and Sheykh Yussuf took care that I should not know of his brother's death. He went to Mustapha A'gha, and told him not to tell anyone in my house till I was better, because he knew 'what was in my stomach towards his family,' and feared I should be made worse by the news. And how often I have been advised not to meddle with sick Arabs, because they are sure to suspect a Christian of poisoning those who die! I do grieve for the graceful, handsome young creature and his old father. Omar was vexed at not knowing of his death, because he would have liked to help to carry him to the grave.

I have at last learned the alphabet in Arabic, and can write it quite tidily, but now I am in a fix for want of a dictionary, and have written to Hekekian Bey to buy me one in Cairo. Sheykh Yussuf knows not a word of English, and Omar can't read or write, and has no notion of grammar or of _word for word_ interpretation, and it is very slow work. When I walk through the court of the mosque I give the customary coppers to the little boys who are spelling away loudly under the arcade, _Abba sheddeh o nusbeyteen_, _Ibbi sheddeh o heftedeen_, etc., with a keen sympathy with their difficulties and well-smudged tin slates. An additional evil is that the Arabic books printed in England, and at English presses here, require a 40-horse power microscope to distinguish a letter. The ciphering is like ours, but with other figures, and I felt very stupid when I discovered how I had reckoned Arab fashion from right to left all my life and never observed the fact. However, they 'cast down' a column of figures from top to bottom.

I am just called away by some poor men who want me to speak to the English travellers about shooting their pigeons. It is very thoughtless, but it is in great measure the fault of the servants and dragomans who think they must not venture to tell their masters that pigeons are private property. I have a great mind to put a notice on the wall of my house about it. Here, where there are never less than eight or ten boats lying for full three months, the loss to the _fellaheen_ is serious, and our Consul Mustapha A'gha is afraid to say anything. I have given my neighbours permission to call the pigeons mine, as they roost in flocks on my roof, and to go out and say that the Sitt objects to her poultry being shot, especially as I have had them shot off my balcony as they sat there.

I got a note from M. Mounier yesterday, inviting me to go and stay at El-Moutaneh, Halim Pasha's great estate, near Edfoo, and offering to send his dahabieh for me. I certainly will go as soon as the weather is decidedly hot. It is now very warm and pleasant. If I find Thebes too hot as summer advances I must drop down and return to Cairo, or try Suez, which I hear is excellent in summer--bracing desert air. But it is very tempting to stay here--a splendid cool house, food extremely cheap; about 1 pounds a week for three of us for fish, bread, butter, meat, milk, eggs and vegetables; all grocery, of course, I brought with me; no trouble, rest and civil neighbours. I feel very disinclined to move unless I am baked out, and it takes a good deal to bake me. The only fear is the Khamaseen wind. I do not feel very well. I don't ail anything in particular; blood-spitting frequent, but very slight; much less cough; but I am so weak and good for nothing. I seldom feel able to go out or do more than sit in the balcony on one side or other of the house. I have no donkey here, the hired ones are so very bad and so dear; but I have written Mounier to try and get me one at El-Moutaneh and send it down in one of Halim Pasha's corn-boats. There is no comfort like a donkey always ready. If I have to send for Mustapha's horse, I feel lazy and fancy it is too much trouble unless I can go just when I want.

I have received a letter from Alexandria of January 8. What dreadful weather! We felt the ghost of it here in our three weeks of cold. Sometimes I feel as if I must go back to you all _coute qui coute_, but I know it would be no use to try it in the summer. I long for more news of you and my chicks.

February 8, 1864: February 8, 1864

_To Mrs. Ross_.

LUXOR,
_Tuesday_, _February_ 8, 1864.

DEAREST CHILD,

I got your letter No. 3 about a week ago, and two others before it. I have been very lazy in writing, for it has been very cold (for Thebes), and I have been very seedy--no severe attack, but no strength at all. The last three or four days the weather has been warm, and I am beginning to feel better. I send this to Cairo by a clever, pleasant Mme. de Beaulaincourt, a daughter of Marechal Castellane, who is here in one of the Pasha's steamers. She will call on you when she goes to Alexandria. I have been learning to write Arabic, and know my letters--no trifle, I assure you. My Sheykh is a perfect darling--the most graceful, high-bred young creature, and a Seyyid. These Saeedees are much nicer than the Lower Egypt people. They have good Arab blood in their veins, keep pedigrees, and are more manly and independent, and more liberal in religion.

Sheykh Yussuf took me into the tomb of his ancestor, Sheykh Abul Hajjaj, the great saint here, and all the company said a Fathah for my health. It was on the night of Friday, and during the moolid of the Sheykh. Omar was surprised at the proceeding, and a little afraid the dead Sheykh might be offended. My great friend is the Maohn (police magistrate) here--a very kind, good man, much liked, I hear, by all except the Kadee, who was displeased at his giving the stick to a Mussulman for some wrong to a Copt. I am beginning to stammer out a little Arabic, but find it horribly difficult. The plurals are bewildering and the verbs quite heart-breaking. I have no books, which makes learning very slow work. I have written to Hekekian Bey to buy me a dictionary.

The house here is delightful--rather cold now, but will be perfect in hot weather--so airy and cheerful. I think I shall stay on here all the time the expense is nil, and it is very comfortable. I have a friend in a farm in a neighbouring village, and am much amused at seeing country life. It cannot be rougher, as regards material comforts, in New Zealand or Central Africa, but there is no barbarism or lack of refinement in the manners of the people. M. Mounier has invited me to go and stay with them at El-Moutaneh, and offers to send his dahabieh for me. When it gets really hot I shall like the trip very much.

Pray, when you see Mme. Tastu, say civil things for me, and tell her how much I like the house. I think it wonderful that Omar cooked the dinner without being cross. I am sure I should swear if I had to cook for a heretic in Ramadan.

February 12, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_February_ 12, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

We are in Ramadan now, and Omar really enjoys a good opportunity of 'making his soul.' He fasts and washes vigorously, prays his five times a day, goes to mosque on Fridays, and is quite merry over it, and ready to cook infidels' dinners with exemplary good-humour. It is a great merit in Muslims that they are not at all grumpy over their piety. The weather has set in since five or six days quite like paradise. I sit on my lofty balcony and drink the sweet northerly breeze, and look at the glorious mountain opposite, and think if only you and the chicks were here it would be 'the best o' life.' The beauty of Egypt grows on one, and I think it far more lovely this year than I did last. My great friend the Maohn (he is _not_ the Nazir, who is a fat little pig-eyed, jolly Turk) lives in a house which also has a superb view in another direction, and I often go and sit 'on the bench'--_i.e._, the _mastabah_ in front of his house--and do what little talk I can and see the people come with their grievances. I don't understand much of what goes on, as the _patois_ is broad and doubles the difficulty, or I would send you a Theban police report; but the Maohn is very pleasant in his manner to them, and they don't seem frightened. We have appointed a very small boy our _bowab_, or porter--or, rather, he has appointed himself--and his assumption of dignity is quite delicious. He has provided himself with a huge staff, and he behaves like the most tremendous janissary. He is about Rainie's size, as sharp as a needle, and possesses the remains of a brown shirt and a ragged kitchen duster as turban. I am very fond of little Achmet, and like to see him doing _tableaux vivants_ from Murillo with a plate of broken victuals. The children of this place have become so insufferable about _backsheesh_ that I have complained to the Maohn, and he will assemble a committee of parents and enforce better manners. It is only here and just where the English go. When I ride into the little villages I never hear the word, but am always offered milk to drink. I have taken it two or three times and not offered to pay, and the people always seem quite pleased.

Yesterday Sheykh Yussuf came again, the first time since his brother's death; he was evidently deeply affected, but spoke in the usual way, 'It is the will of God, we must all die,' etc. I wish you could see Sheykh Yussuf. I think he is the sweetest creature in look and manner I ever beheld--so refined and so simple, and with the animal grace of a gazelle. A high-bred Arab is as graceful as an Indian, but quite without the feline _Geschmeidigkeit_ or the look of dissimulation; the eye is as clear and frank as a child's. Mr. Ruchl, the Austrian Consul here, who knows Egypt and Arabia well, tells me that he thinks many of them quite as good as they look, and said of Sheykh Yussuf, _Er ist so gemuthlich_. There is a German here deciphering hieroglyphics, Herr Dummichen, a very agreeable man, but he has gone across the river to live at el-Kurneh. He has been through Ethiopia in search of temples and inscriptions. I am to go over and visit him, and see some of the tombs again in his company, which I shall enjoy, as a good interpreter is sadly wanted in those mysterious regions.

My chest is wonderfully better these last six or seven days. It is quite clear that downright heat is what does me good. Moreover, I have just heard from M. Mounier that a good donkey is _en route_ in a boat from El-Moutaneh--he will cost me between 4 pounds and 5 pounds and will enable me to be about far more than I can by merely borrowing Mustapha's horse, about which I have scruples as he lends it to other lady travellers. Little Achmet will be my sais as well as my door-keeper, I suppose. I wish you would speak to Layard in behalf of Mustapha A'gha. He has acted as English Consul here for something like thirty years, and he really is the slave of the travellers. He gives them dinners, mounts them, and does all the disagreeable business of wrangling with the reis and dragomans for them, makes himself a postmaster, takes care of their letters and sends them out to the boats, and does all manner of services for them, and lends his house for the infidels to pray in on Sundays when a clergyman is here. For this he has no remuneration at all, except such presents as the English see fit to make him, and I have seen enough to know that they are neither large nor always gracefully given. The old fellow at Keneh who has nothing to do gets regular pay, and I think Mustapha ought to have something; he is now old and rather infirm, and has to keep a clerk to help him; and at least, his expenses should be covered. Please say this to Layard from me as my message to him. Don't forget it, please, for Mustapha is a really kind friend to me at all times and in all ways.

_February_ 14th.--Yesterday we had a dust-storm off the desert. It made my head heavy and made me feel languid, but did not affect my chest at all. To-day is a soft gray day; there was a little thunder this morning and a few, very few, drops of rain--hardly enough for even Herodotus to consider portentous. My donkey came down last night, and I tried him to-day, and he is very satisfactory though alarmingly small, as the real Egyptian donkey always is; the big ones are from the Hejaz. But it is wonderful how the little creatures run along under one as easy as possible, and they have no will of their own. I rode mine out to Karnac and back, and he did not seem to think me at all heavy. When they are overworked and overgalloped they become bad on the legs and easily fall, and all those for hire are quite stumped up, poor beasts--they are so willing and docile that everyone overdrives them.

February 19, 1864: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR,
_February_ 19, 1864.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I have only time for a few lines to go down by Mr. Strutt and Heathcote's boat to Cairo. They are very good specimens and quite recognised as 'belonging to the higher people,' because they 'do not make themselves big.' I received your letter of January 21 with little darling Rainie's three days ago.

I am better now that the weather is fine again. We had a whole day's rain (which Herodotus says is a portent here) and a hurricane from the south worthy of the Cape. I thought we should have been buried under the drifting sand. To-day is again heavenly. I saw Abd-el-Azeez, the chemist in Cairo; he seemed a very good fellow, and was a pupil of my old friend M. Chrevreul, and highly recommended by him. Here I am out of all European ideas. The Sheykh-el-Arab (of the Ababdeh tribe), who has a sort of town house here, has invited me out into the desert to the black tents, and I intend to pay a visit with old Mustapha A'gha. There is a Roman well in his yard with a ghoul in it. I can't get the story from Mustapha, who is ashamed of such superstitions, but I'll find it out. We had a fantasia at Mustapha's for young Strutt and Co., and a very good dancing-girl. Some dear old prosy English people made me laugh so. The lady wondered how the women here could wear clothes 'so different from English females--poor things!' but they were not _malveillants_, only pitying and wonderstruck--nothing astonished them so much as my salutations with Seleem Effendi, the Maohn.

I begin to feel the time before me to be away from you all very long indeed, but I do think my best chance is a long spell of real heat. I have got through this winter without once catching cold at all to signify, and now the fine weather is come. I am writing in Arabic from Sheykh Yussuf's dictation the dear old story of the barber's brother with the basket of glass. The Arabs are so diverted at hearing that we all know the _Alf Leyleh o Leyleh_, the 'Thousand Nights and a Night.' The want of a dictionary with a teacher knowing no word of English is terrible. I don't know how I learn at all. The post is pretty quick up to here. I got your letter within three weeks, you see, but I get no newspapers; the post is all on foot and can't carry anything so heavy. One of my men of last year, Asgalani the steersman, has just been to see me; he says his journey was happier last year.

I hear that Phillips is coming to Cairo, and have written to him there to invite him up here to paint these handsome Saeedees. He could get up in a steamer as I did through Hassaneyn Effendi for a trifle. I wish you _could_ come, but the heat here which gives me life would be quite _impossible_ to you. The thermometer in the cold antechamber now is 67 degrees where no sun ever comes, and the blaze of the sun is prodigious.

February 26, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_February_ 26, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

I have just received your letter of the 3rd inst., and am glad to get such good tidings. You would be amused to see Omar bring me a letter and sit down on the floor till I tell him the family news, and then _Alhamdulillah_, we are so pleased, and he goes off to his pots and pans again. Lord and Lady Spencer are here, and his sister, in two boats. The English 'Milord,' extinct on the Continent, has revived in Egypt, and is greatly reverenced and usually much liked. 'These high English have mercy in their stomachs,' said one of my last year's sailors who came to kiss my hand--a pleasing fact in natural history! _Fee wahed Lord_, was little ragged Achmet's announcement of Lord Spencer--'Here's a Lord.' They are very pleasant people. I heard from Janet to-day of _ice_ at Cairo and at Shoubra, and famine prices. I cannot attempt Cairo with meat at 1s. 3d. a pound, and will e'en stay here and grill at Thebes. Marry-come-up with your Thebes and savagery! What if we _do_ wear ragged brown shirts? ''Tis manners makyth man,' and we defy you to show better breeding.

We are now in the full enjoyment of summer weather; there has been no cold for fully a fortnight, and I am getting better every day now. My cough has quite subsided, and the pain in the chest much diminished; if the heat does not overpower me I feel sure it will be very healing to my lungs. I sit out on my glorious balcony and drink the air from early morning till noon, when the sun comes upon it and drives me under cover. The thermometer has stood at 64 degrees for a fortnight or three weeks, rising sometimes to 67 degrees, but people in the boats tell me it is still cold at night on the river. Up here, only a stone's-throw from it, it is warm all night. I fear the loss of cattle has suspended irrigation to a fearful extent, and that the harvests of Lower Egypt of all kinds will be sadly scanty. The disease has not spread above Minieh, or very slightly; but, of course, cattle will rise in price here also. Already food is getting dearer here; meat is 4.5 piastres--7d.--the _rotl_ (a fraction less than a pound), and bread has risen considerably--I should say corn, for no bakers exist here. I pay a woman to grind and bake my wheat which I buy, and delicious bread it is. It is impossible to say how exactly like the early parts of the Bible every act of life is here, and how totally new it seems when one reads it here. Old Jacob's speech to Pharaoh really made me laugh (don't be shocked), because it is so exactly what a fellah says to a Pasha: 'Few and evil have been the days,' etc. (Jacob being a most prosperous man); but it is manners to say all that, and I feel quite kindly to Jacob, whom I used to think ungrateful and discontented; and when I go to Sidi Omar's farm, does he not say, 'Take now fine meal and bake cakes quickly,' and wants to kill a kid? _Fateereh_ with plenty of butter is what the 'three men' who came to Abraham ate; and the way that Abraham's chief memlook, acting as Vakeel, manages Isaac's marriage with Rebekah! All the vulgarized associations with Puritanism and abominable little 'Scripture tales and pictures' peel off here, and the inimitably truthful representation of life and character--not a flattering one certainly--comes out, and it feels like Homer. Joseph's tears and his love for the brother born of the _same mother_ is so perfect. Only one sees what a bad inferior race the Beni Israel were compared to the Beni Ishmael or to the Egyptians. Leviticus and Deuteronomy are so very heathenish compared to the law of the Koran, or to the early days of Abraham. Verily the ancient Jews were a foul nation, judging by the police regulations needful for them. Please don't make these remarks public, or I shall be burnt with Stanley and Colenso (unless I suffer Sheykh Yussuf to propose me El-Islam). He and M. de Rouge were here last evening, and we had an Arabic _soiree_. M. de Rouge speaks admirably, quite like an Alim, and it was charming to see Sheykh Yussuf's pretty look of grateful pleasure at finding himself treated like a gentleman and a scholar by two such eminent Europeans; for I (as a woman) am quite as surprising as even M. de Rouge's knowledge of hieroglyphics and Arabic _Fosseeha_. It is very interesting to see something of Arabs who have read and have the 'gentleman' ideas. His brother, the Imam, has lost his wife; he was married twenty-two years, and won't hear of taking another. I was struck with the sympathy he expressed with the English Sultana, as all the uneducated people say, 'Why doesn't she marry again?' It is curious how refinement brings out the same feelings under all 'dispensations.' I apologized to Yussuf for inadvertently returning the _Salaam aleykoum_ (Peace be with thee), which he said to Omar, and which I, as an unbeliever, could not accept. He coloured crimson, touched my hand and kissed his own, quite distressed lest the distinction might wound me. When I think of a young parsonic prig at home I shudder at the difference. But Yussuf is superstitious; he told me how someone down the river cured his cattle with water poured over a _Mushaf_ (a copy of the Koran), and has hinted at writing out a chapter for me to wear as a _hegab_ (an amulet for my health). He is interested in the antiquities and in M. de Rouge's work, and is quite up to the connection between Ancient Egypt and the books of Moses, exaggerating the importance of _Seyidna Moussa_, of course.

If I go down to Cairo again I will get letters to some of the Alim there from Abd-el-Waris, the Imam here, and I shall see what no European but Lane has seen. I think things have altered since his day, and that men of that class would be less inaccessible than they were then; and then a woman who is old (Yussuf guessed me at sixty) and educated does not shock, and does interest them. All the Europeans here are traders, and only speak the vulgarest language, and don't care to know Arab gentlemen; if they see anything above their servants it is only Turks, or Arab merchants at times. Don't fancy that I can speak at all decently yet, but I understand a good deal, and stammer out a little.

March 1, 1864: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR,
_March_ 1, 1864.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I think I shall have an opportunity of sending letters in a few days by a fast steamer, so I will begin one on the chance and send it by post if the steamer is delayed long. The glory of the climate now is beyond description, and I feel better every day. I go out early--at seven or eight o'clock--on my tiny black donkey, and come in to breakfast about ten, and go out again at four.

I want to photograph Yussuf for you. The feelings and prejudices and ideas of a cultivated Arab, as I get at them little by little, are curious beyond compare. It won't do to generalize from one man, of course, but even one gives some very new ideas. The most striking thing is the sweetness and delicacy of feeling--the horror of hurting anyone (this must be individual, of course: it is too good to be general). I apologized to him two days ago for inadvertently answering the _Salaam aleykoum_, which he, of course, said to Omar on coming in. Yesterday evening he walked in and startled me by a _Salaam aleykee_ addressed to me; he had evidently been thinking it over whether he ought to say it to me, and come to the conclusion that it was not wrong. 'Surely it is well for all the creatures of God to speak peace (_Salaam_) to each other,' said he. Now, no uneducated Muslim would have arrived at such a conclusion. Omar would pray, work, lie, do anything for me--sacrifice money even; but I doubt whether he _could_ utter _Salaam aleykoum_ to any but a Muslim. I answered as I felt: 'Peace, oh my brother, and God bless thee!' It was almost as if a Catholic priest had felt impelled by charity to offer the communion to a heretic. I observed that the story of the barber was new to him, and asked if he did not know the 'Thousand and One Nights.' No; he studied only things of religion, no light amusements were proper for an Alim (elder of religion); _we_ Europeans did not know that, of course, as _our_ religion was to enjoy ourselves; but _he_ must not make merry with diversions, or music, or droll stories. (See the mutual ignorance of all ascetics!) He has a little girl of six or seven, and teaches her to write and read; no one else, he believes, thinks of such a thing out of Cairo; there many of the daughters of the Alim learn--those who desire it. His wife died two years ago, and six months ago he married again a wife of twelve years old! (Sheykh Yussuf is thirty he tells me; he looks twenty-two or twenty-three.) What a stepmother and what a wife! He can repeat the whole Koran without a book, it takes twelve hours to do it. Has read the Towrat (old Testament) and the el-Aangeel (Gospels), of course, every Alim reads them. 'The words of Seyyidna Eesa are the true faith, but Christians have altered and corrupted their meaning. So we Muslims believe. We are all the children of God.' I ask if Muslims call themselves so, or only the slaves of God. ''Tis all one, children or slaves. Does not a good man care for both tenderly alike?' (Pray observe the Oriental feeling here. _Slave_ is a term of affection, not contempt; and remember the Centurion's '_servant_ (slave) whom he loved.') He had heard from Fodl Pasha how a cow was cured of the prevailing disease in Lower Egypt by water weighed against a _Mushaf_ (copy of the Koran), and had no doubt it was true, Fodl Pasha had tried it. Yet he thinks the Arab doctors no use at all who use verses of the Koran.