Letters from Egypt
by Lady Lucie Duff Gordon · English · Gutenberg #17816 · 757,707 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Letters from Egypt
Author: Lady Lucie Duff Gordon
Commentator: George Meredith
Editor: Janet Ross
Release date: February 21, 2006 [eBook #17816]
Most recently updated: January 22, 2010
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17816
Credits: Transcribed from the 1902 R. Brimley Johnson edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS FROM EGYPT ***
Transcribed from the 1902 R. Brimley Johnson edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org
Lady Duff Gordon's
Letters from Egypt
REVISED EDITION
WITH MEMOIR BY HER
DAUGHTER JANET ROSS
NEW INTRODUCTION BY
GEORGE MEREDITH
_SECOND IMPRESSION_
[Picture: Decorative symbol]
LONDON: R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON
1902
[Picture: Photograph of Lady Duff Gordon from sketch by G. F. Watts,
R.A., about 1848]
INTRODUCTION
The letters of Lady Duff Gordon are an introduction to her in person.
She wrote as she talked, and that is not always the note of private
correspondence, the pen being such an official instrument. Readers
growing familiar with her voice will soon have assurance that, addressing
the public, she would not have blotted a passage or affected a tone for
the applause of all Europe. Yet she could own to a liking for flattery,
and say of the consequent vanity, that an insensibility to it is inhuman.
Her humour was a mouthpiece of nature. She inherited from her father the
judicial mind, and her fine conscience brought it to bear on herself as
well as on the world, so that she would ask, 'Are we so much better?'
when someone supremely erratic was dangled before the popular eye. She
had not studied her Goethe to no purpose. Nor did the very ridiculous
creature who is commonly the outcast of all compassion miss having the
tolerant word from her, however much she might be of necessity in the
laugh, for Moliere also was of her repertory. Hers was the charity which
is perceptive and embracing: we may feel certain that she was never a
dupe of the poor souls, Christian and Muslim, whose tales of simple
misery or injustice moved her to friendly service. Egyptians, _consule
Junio_, would have met the human interpreter in her, for a picture to set
beside that of the vexed Satirist. She saw clearly into the later Nile
products, though her view of them was affectionate; but had they been
exponents of original sin, her charitableness would have found the
philosophical word on their behalf, for the reason that they were not in
the place of vantage. The service she did to them was a greater service
done to her country, by giving these quivering creatures of the baked
land proof that a Christian Englishwoman could be companionable, tender,
beneficently motherly with them, despite the reputed insurmountable
barriers of alien race and religion. Sympathy was quick in her breast
for all the diverse victims of mischance; a shade of it, that was not
indulgence, but knowledge of the roots of evil, for malefactors and for
the fool. Against the cruelty of despotic rulers and the harshness of
society she was openly at war, at a time when championship of the lowly
or the fallen was not common. Still, in this, as in everything
controversial, it was the [Greek text] with her. That singular union of
the balanced intellect with the lively heart arrested even in advocacy
the floods pressing for pathos. Her aim was at practical measures of
help; she doubted the uses of sentimentality in moving tyrants or
multitudes to do the thing needed. Moreover, she distrusted eloquence,
Parliamentary, forensic, literary; thinking that the plain facts are the
persuasive speakers in a good cause, and that rhetoric is to be suspected
as the flourish over a weak one. Does it soften the obdurate, kindle the
tardily inflammable? Only for a day, and only in cases of extreme
urgency, is an appeal to emotion of value for the gain of a day. Thus it
was that she never forced her voice, though her feelings might be at heat
and she possessed the literary art.
She writes from her home on the Upper Nile: '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.' It is by her
banishing of literary colouring matter that she brings the Arab and Copt
home to us as none other has done, by her unlaboured pleading that she
touches to the heart. She was not one to 'spread gold-leaf over her
acquaintances and make them shine,' as Horace Walpole says of Madame de
Sevigne; they would have been set shining from within, perhaps with a
mild lustre; sensibly to the observant, more credibly of the golden sort.
Her dislike of superlatives, when the marked effect had to be produced,
and it was not the literary performance she could relish as well as any
of us, renders hard the task of portraying a woman whose character calls
them forth. To him knowing her, they would not fit; her individuality
passes between epithets. The reading of a sentence of panegyric
(commonly a thing of extension) deadened her countenance, if it failed to
quicken the corners of her lips; the distended truth in it exhibited the
comic shadow on the wall behind. That haunting demon of human eulogy is
quashed by the manner she adopted, from instinct and training. Of her it
was known to all intimate with her that she could not speak falsely in
praise, nor unkindly in depreciation, however much the constant play of
her humour might tempt her to exalt or diminish beyond the bounds. But
when, for the dispersion of nonsense about men or things, and daintiness
held up the veil against rational eyesight, the _gros mot_ was demanded,
she could utter it, as from the Bench, with a like authority and
composure.
In her youth she was radiantly beautiful, with dark brows on a brilliant
complexion, the head of a Roman man, and features of Grecian line, save
for the classic Greek wall of the nose off the forehead. Women, not
enthusiasts, inclined rather to criticize, and to criticize so
independent a member of their sex particularly, have said that her entry
into a ballroom took the breath. Poetical comparisons run under heavy
weights in prose; but it would seem in truth, from the reports of her,
that wherever she appeared she could be likened to a Selene breaking
through cloud; and, further, the splendid vessel was richly freighted.
Trained by a scholar, much in the society of scholarly men, having an
innate bent to exactitude, and with a ready tongue docile to the curb,
she stepped into the world armed to be a match for it. She cut her way
through the accustomed troops of adorers, like what you will that is
buoyant and swims gallantly. Her quality of the philosophical humour
carried her easily over the shoals or the deeps in the way of a woman
claiming her right to an independent judgement upon the minor rules of
conduct, as well as upon matters of the mind. An illustrious foreigner,
_en tete-a-tete_ with her over some abstract theme, drops abruptly on a
knee to protest, overpowered; and in that posture he is patted on the
head, while the subject of conversation is continued by the benevolent
lady, until the form of ointment she administers for his beseeching
expression and his pain compels him to rise and resume his allotted part
with a mouth of acknowledging laughter. Humour, as a beautiful woman's
defensive weapon, is probably the best that can be called in aid for the
bringing of suppliant men to their senses. And so manageable are they
when the idea of comedy and the chord of chivalry are made to vibrate,
that they (supposing them of the impressionable race which is overpowered
by Aphrodite's favourites) will be withdrawn from their great aims, and
transformed into happy crust-munching devotees--in other words, fast
friends. Lady Duff Gordon had many, and the truest, and of all lands.
She had, on the other hand, her number of detractors, whom she excused.
What woman is without them, if she offends the conventions, is a step in
advance of her day, and, in this instance, never hesitates upon the
needed occasion to dub things with their right names? She could
appreciate their disapproval of her in giving herself the airs of a man,
pronouncing verdicts on affairs in the style of a man, preferring
association with men. So it was; and, besides, she smoked. Her
physician had hinted at the soothing for an irritated throat that might
come of some whiffs of tobacco. She tried a cigar, and liked it, and
smoked from that day, in her library chair and on horseback. Where she
saw no harm in an act, opinion had no greater effect on her than summer
flies to one with a fan. The country people, sorely tried by the
spectacle at first, remembered the gentle deeds and homely chat of an
eccentric lady, and pardoned her, who was often to be seen discoursing
familiarly with the tramp on the road, incapable of denying her
house-door to the lost dog attached by some instinct to her heels. In
the circles named 'upper' there was mention of women unsexing themselves.
She preferred the society of men, on the plain ground that they discuss
matters of weight, and are--the pick of them--of open speech, more
liberal, more genial, better comrades. Was it wonderful to hear them,
knowing her as they did, unite in calling her _coeur d'or_? And women
could say it of her, for the reasons known to women. Her intimate
friendships were with women as with men. The closest friend of this most
manfully-minded of women was one of her sex, little resembling her,
except in downright truthfulness, lovingness, and heroic fortitude.
The hospitable house at Esher gave its welcome not merely to men and
women of distinction; the humble undistinguished were made joyous guests
there, whether commonplace or counting among the hopeful. Their hostess
knew how to shelter the sensitively silent at table, if they were unable
to take encouragement and join the flow. Their faces at least responded
to her bright look on one or the other of them when something worthy of
memory sparkled flying. She had the laugh that rocks the frame, but it
was usually with a triumphant smile that she greeted things good to the
ear; and her own manner of telling was concise, on the lines of the
running subject, to carry it along, not to produce an effect--which is
like the horrid gap in air after a blast of powder. Quotation came when
it sprang to the lips and was native. She was shrewd and cogent,
invariably calm in argument, sitting over it, not making it a duel, as
the argumentative are prone to do; and a strong point scored against her
received the honours due to a noble enemy. No pose as mistress of a
salon shuffling the guests marked her treatment of them; she was their
comrade, one of the pack. This can be the case only when a governing
lady is at all points their equal, more than a player of trump cards. In
England, in her day, while health was with her, there was one house where
men and women conversed. When that house perforce was closed, a light
had gone out in our country.
The fatal brilliancy of skin indicated the fell disease which ultimately
drove her into exile, to die in exile. Lucie Duff Gordon was of the
order of women of whom a man of many years may say that their like is to
be met but once or twice in a lifetime.
[Picture: George Meredith's signature]
MEMOIR
Lucie Duff Gordon, born on June 24, 1821, was the only child of John and
Sarah Austin and inherited the beauty and the intellect of her parents.
The wisdom, learning, and vehement eloquence of John Austin, author of
the 'Province of Jurisprudence Determined,' were celebrated, and Lord
Brougham used to say: 'If John Austin had had health, neither Lyndhurst
nor I should have been Chancellor.' He entered the army, and was in
Sicily under Lord William Bentinck; but soon quitted an uncongenial
service, and was called to the Bar. In 1819 he married Sarah, the
youngest daughter of John Taylor of Norwich, {1} when they took a house
in Queen Square, Westminster, close to James Mill, the historian of
British India, and next door to Jeremy Bentham, whose pupil Mr. Austin
was. Here, it may be said, the Utilitarian philosophy of the nineteenth
century was born. Jeremy Bentham's garden became the playground of the
young Mills and of Lucie Austin; his coach-house was converted into a
gymnasium, and his flower-beds were intersected by tapes and threads to
represent the passages of a panopticon prison. The girl grew in vigour
and in sense, with a strong tinge of originality and independence and an
extreme love of animals. About 1826 the Austins went to Germany, Mr.
Austin having been nominated Professor of Civil Law in the new London
University, and wishing to study Roman Law under Niebuhr and Schlegel at
Bonn. 'Our dear child,' writes Mrs. Austin to Mrs. Grote, 'is a great
joy to us. She grows wonderfully, and is the happiest thing in the
world. Her German is very pretty; she interprets for her father with
great joy and naivete. God forbid that I should bring up a daughter
here! But at her present age I am most glad to have her here, and to
send her to a school where she learns--_well_, writing, arithmetic,
geography, and, as a matter of course, German.' Lucie returned to
England transformed into a little German maiden, with long braids of hair
down her back, speaking German like her own language, and well grounded
in Latin. Her mother, writing to Mrs. Reeve, her sister, says: 'John
Mill is ever my dearest child and friend, and he really dotes on Lucie,
and can do anything with her. She is too wild, undisciplined, and
independent, and though she knows a great deal, it is in a strange, wild
way. She reads everything, composes German verses, has imagined and put
together a fairy world, dress, language, music, everything, and talks to
them in the garden; but she is sadly negligent of her own appearance, and
is, as Sterling calls her, Miss Orson. . . . Lucie now goes to a Dr.
Biber, who has five other pupils (boys) and his own little child. She
seems to take to Greek, with which her father is very anxious to have her
thoroughly imbued. As this scheme, even if we stay in England, cannot
last many years, I am quite willing to forego all the feminine parts of
her education for the present. The main thing is to secure her
independence, both with relation to her own mind and outward
circumstances. She is handsome, striking, and full of vigour and
animation.'
From the very first Lucie Austin possessed a correct and vigorous style,
and a nice sense of language, which were hereditary rather than
implanted, and to these qualities was added a delightful strain of
humour, shedding a current of original thought all through her writings.
That her unusual gifts should have been so early developed is hardly
surprising with one of her sympathetic temperament when we remember the
throng of remarkable men and women who frequented the Austins' house.
The Mills, the Grotes, the Bullers, the Carlyles, the Sterlings, Sydney
Smith, Luttrell, Rogers, Jeremy Bentham, and Lord Jeffrey, were among the
most intimate friends of her parents, and 'Toodie,' as they called her,
was a universal favourite with them. Once, staying at a friend's house,
and hearing their little girl rebuked for asking questions, she said:
'_My_ mamma never says "I don't know" or "Don't ask questions."'
In 1834 Mr. Austin's health, always delicate, broke down, and with his
wife and daughter he went to Boulogne. Mrs. Austin made many friends
among the fishermen and their wives, but 'la belle Anglaise,' as they
called her, became quite a heroine on the occasion of the wreck of the
_Amphitrite_, a ship carrying female convicts to Botany Bay. She stood
the whole night on the beach in the howling storm, saved the lives of
three sailors who were washed up by the breakers, and dashed into the sea
and pulled one woman to shore. Lucie was with her mother, and showed the
same cool courage that distinguished her in after life. It was during
their stay at Boulogne that she first met Heinrich Heine; he sat next her
at the _table d'hote_, and, soon finding out that she spoke German
perfectly, told her when she returned to England she could tell her
friends she had met Heinrich Heine. He was much amused when she said:
'And who is Heinrich Heine?' The poet and the child used to lounge on
the pier together; she sang him old English ballads, and he told her
stories in which fish, mermaids, water-sprites, and a very funny old
French fiddler with a poodle, who was diligently taking three sea-baths a
day, were mixed up in a fanciful manner, sometimes humorous, often very
pathetic, especially when the water-sprites brought him greetings from
the North Sea. He afterwards told her that one of his most charming
poems,
'Wenn ich am deinem Hause
Des Morgens voruber geh',
So freut's mich, du liebe Kleine,
Wenn ich dich am Fenster seh',' etc.,
was meant for her whose magnificent eyes he never forgot.
Two years later Mr. Austin was appointed Royal Commissioner to inquire
into the grievances of the Maltese. His wife accompanied him, but so hot
a climate was not considered good for a young girl, and Lucie was sent to
a school at Bromley. She must have been as great a novelty to the school
as the school-life was to her, for with a great deal of desultory
knowledge she was singularly deficient in many rudiments of ordinary
knowledge. She wrote well already at fifteen, and corresponded often
with Mrs. Grote and other friends of her parents. {4} At sixteen she
determined to be baptized and confirmed as a member of the Church of
England (her parents and relations were Unitarians). Lord Monteagle was
her sponsor and it was chiefly owing, I believe, to the influence of
himself and his family, with whom she was very intimate in spite of her
Radical ideas, that she took this step.
[Picture: Lucie Austin, aged fifteen, from a sketch by a school friend]
When the Austins returned from Malta in 1838, Lucie began to appear in
the world; all the old friends flocked round them, and many new friends
were made, among them Sir Alexander Duff Gordon whom she first met at
Lansdowne House. Left much alone, as her mother was always hard at work
translating, writing for various periodicals and nursing her husband, the
two young people were thrown much together, and often walked out alone.
One day Sir Alexander said to her: 'Miss Austin, do you know people say
we are going to be married?' Annoyed at being talked of, and hurt at his
brusque way of mentioning it, she was just going to give a sharp answer,
when he added: 'Shall we make it true?' With characteristic
straightforwardness she replied by the monosyllable, 'Yes,' and so they
were engaged. Before her marriage she translated Niebuhr's 'Greek
Legends,' which were published under her mother's name.
On the 16th May, 1840, Lucie Austin and Sir Alexander Duff Gordon were
married in Kensington Old Church, and the few eye-witnesses left still
speak with enthusiasm of the beauty of bridegroom and bride. They took a
house in Queen Square, Westminster, (No 8, with a statue of Queen Anne at
one corner), and the talent, beauty, and originality, joined with a
complete absence of affectation of Lady Duff Gordon, soon attracted a
remarkable circle of friends. Lord Lansdowne, Lord Monteagle, Mrs.
Norton, Thackeray, Dickens, Elliot Warburton, Tennyson, Tom Taylor,
Kinglake, Henry Taylor, and many more, were habitues, and every foreigner
of distinction sought an introduction to the Duff Gordons. I remember as
a little child seeing Leopold Ranke walking up and down the drawing-room,
and talking vehemently in an _olla-podrida_ of English, French, German,
Italian, and Spanish, with now and then a Latin quotation in between; I
thought he was a madman. When M. Guizot escaped from France on the
outbreak of the Revolution, his first welcome and dinner was in Queen
Square.
The first child was born in 1842, and soon afterwards Lady Duff Gordon
began her translation of 'The Amber Witch'; the 'French in Algiers' by
Lamping, and Feuerbach's 'Remarkable Criminal Trials,' followed in quick
succession; and together my father and mother translated Ranke's 'Memoirs
of the House of Brandenburg' and 'Sketches of German Life.' A remarkable
novel by Leon de Wailly, 'Stella and Vanessa,' had remained absolutely
unnoticed in France until my mother's English version appeared, when it
suddenly had a great success which he always declared he owed entirely to
Lady Duff Gordon.
In a letter written to Mrs. Austin from Lord Lansdowne's beautiful villa
at Richmond, which he lent to the Duff Gordons after a severe illness of
my father's, my mother mentions Hassan el Bakkeet (a black boy): 'He is
an inch taller for our grandeur; _peu s'en faut_, he thinks me a great
lady and himself a great butler.' Hassan was a personage in the
establishment. One night, on returning from a theatrical party at
Dickens', my mother found the little boy crouching on the doorstep. His
master had turned him out of doors because he was threatened with
blindness, and having come now and then with messages to Queen Square, he
found his way, as he explained, 'to die on the threshold of the beautiful
pale lady.' His eyes were cured, and he became my mother's devoted slave
and my playmate, to the horror of Mr. Hilliard, the American author. I
perfectly recollect how angry I was when he asked how Lady Duff Gordon
could let a negro touch her child, whereupon she called us to her, and
kissed me first and Hassan afterwards. Some years ago I asked our dear
friend Kinglake about my mother and Hassan, and received the following
letter: 'Can I, my dear Janet, how can I trust myself to speak of your
dear mother's beauty in the phase it had reached when first I saw her?
The classic form of her features, the noble poise of her head and neck,
her stately height, her uncoloured yet pure complexion, caused some of
the beholders at first to call her beauty statuesque, and others to call
it majestic, some pronouncing it to be even imperious; but she was so
intellectual, so keen, so autocratic, sometimes even so impassioned in
speech, that nobody feeling her powers could go on feebly comparing her
to a statue or a mere Queen or Empress. All this touches only the
beauteous surface; the stories (which were told me by your dear mother
herself) are incidentally illustrative of her kindness to
fellow-creatures in trouble or suffering. Hassan, it is supposed, was a
Nubian, and originally, as his name implies, a Mahometan, he came into
the possession of English missionaries (who had probably delivered him
from slavery), and it resulted that he not only spoke English well and
without foreign accent, but was always ready with phrases in use amongst
pious Christians, and liked, when he could, to apply them as means of
giving honour and glory to his beloved master and mistress; so that if,
for example, it happened that, when they were not at home, a visitor
called on a Sunday, he was sure to be told by Hassan that Sir Alexander
and Lady Duff Gordon were at church, or even--for his diction was equal
to this--that they were "attending Divine service." Your mother had
valour enough to practise true Christian kindness under conditions from
which the bulk of "good people" might too often shrink; when on hearing
that a "Mary" once known to the household had brought herself into
trouble by omitting the precaution of marriage, my lady determined to
secure the girl a good refuge by taking her as a servant. Before taking
this step, however, she assembled the household, declared her resolve to
the servants, and ordered that, on pain of instant dismissal, no one of
them should ever dare say a single unkind word to Mary. Poor Hassan,
small, black as jet, but possessed with an idea of the dignity of his
sex, conceived it his duty to become the spokesman of the household, and
accordingly, advancing a little in front of the neat-aproned, tall,
wholesome maid-servants, he promised in his and their name a full and
careful obedience to the mistress's order, but then, wringing his hands
and raising them over his head, he added these words: "What a lesson to
us all, my lady."' On the birth of a little son Hassan triumphantly
announced to all callers: 'We have got a boy.' Another of his delightful
speeches was made one evening when Prince Louis Napoleon (the late
Emperor of the French) dropt in unexpectedly to dinner. 'Please, my
lady,' said he, on announcing that dinner was ready, 'I ran out and
bought two pen'orth of sprats for the honour of the house.'
Though I was only six I distinctly remember the Chartist riots in 1848.
William Bridges Adams, the engineer, an old friend of my great-uncle,
Philip Taylor, had a workshop at Bow, and my mother helped to start a
library for the men, and sometimes attended meetings and discussed
politics with them. They adored her, and when people talked of possible
danger she would smile and say: 'My men will look after me.' On the
evening of April 9 a large party of stalwart men in fustian jackets
arrived at our house and had supper; Tom Taylor made speeches and
proposed toasts which were cheered to the echo, and at last my mother
made a speech too, and wound up by calling the men her 'Gordon
volunteers.' The 'Hip, hip, hurrah!' with which it was greeted startled
the neighbours, who for a moment thought the Chartists had invaded the
quiet precincts of the square.
To Mrs. Austin, who was then in Paris, her daughter wrote, on April 10:
DEAREST MUTTER,
'I had only time to write once yesterday, as all hands were full of
bustle in entertaining our guests. I never wish to see forty better
gentlemen than we had here last night. As all was quiet, we had
supper--cold beef, bread and beer--with songs, sentiments and toasts,
such as "Success to the roof we are under," "Liberty, brotherhood and
order." Then they bivouacked in the different houses till five this
morning, when they started home. Among the party was a stray
policeman, who looked rather wonder-struck. Tom Taylor was capital,
made short speeches, told stories, and kept all in high good-humour;
and Alick came home from patrolling as a special constable, and was
received with great glee and affection. All agreed that the fright,
to us at least, was well made up by the kindly and pleasant evening.
As no one would take a penny, we shall send books to the library, or
a contribution to the school, all our neighbours being quite anxious
to pay, though not willing to fraternise. I shall send cravats as a
badge to the "Gordon volunteers."
'I enclose a letter from Eothen [Kinglake] about Paris, which will
interest you. My friends of yesterday unanimously decided that Louis
Blanc would "just suit the 'lazy set.'"
'We had one row, which, however, ceased on the appearance of our
stalwart troop; indeed, I think one Birmingham smith, a handsome
fellow six feet high, whose vehement disinterestedness would neither
allow to eat, drink, or sleep in the house, would have scattered
them.'
Mr. and Mrs. Austin established themselves at Weybridge in a low,
rambling cottage, and we spent some summers with them. The house was
cold and damp, and our dear Hassan died in 1850 from congestion of the
lungs. I always attributed my mother's bad health to the incessant colds
she caught there. I can see before me now her beautiful pale face
bending over poor Hassan as she applied leeches to his chest, which a new
maid refused to do, saying, with a toss of her head, 'Lor! my lady, I
couldn't touch either of 'em!' The flash of scorn with which she
regarded the girl softened into deep affection and pity when she looked
down on her faithful Nubian servant.
In 1851 my father took a house at Esher, which was known as 'The Gordon
Arms,' and much frequented by our friends. In a letter, written about
that time to C. J. Bayley, then secretary to the Governor of the
Mauritius, Lady Duff Gordon gives the first note of alarm as to her
health: 'I fear you would think me very much altered since my illness; I
look thin, ill, and old, and my hair is growing gray. This I consider
hard upon a woman just over her thirtieth birthday. I continue to like
Esher very much; I don't think we could have placed ourselves better.
Kinglake has given Alick a great handsome chestnut mare, so he is well
mounted, and we ride merrily. I expressed such exultation at the idea of
your return that my friends, all but Alick, refused to sympathize.
Philips, Millais, and Dicky Doyle talked of jealousy, and Tom Taylor
muttered something about a "hated rival." Meanwhile, all send friendly
greetings to you.'
One summer Macaulay was often at Esher, his brother-in-law having taken a
house near ours. He shared my mother's admiration for Miss Austen's
novels, and they used to talk of her personages as though they were
living friends. If, perchance, my grandfather Austin was there, the talk
grew indeed fast and furious, as all three were vehement, eloquent, and
enthusiastic talkers.
When my mother went to Paris in the summer of 1857 she saw Heine again.
As she entered the room he exclaimed 'Oh! Lucie has still the great
brown eyes!' He remembered every little incident and all the people who
had been in the inn at Boulogne. 'I, for my part, could hardly speak to
him,' my mother wrote to Lord Houghton, who asked her to give him some
recollections of the poet for his 'Monographs,' 'so shocked was I by his
appearance. He lay on a pile of mattresses, his body wasted so that it
seemed no bigger than a child's under the sheet that covered him, the
eyes closed and the face altogether like the most painful and wasted
_Ecce Homo_ ever painted by some old German painter. His voice was very
weak, and I was astonished at the animation with which he talked;
evidently his mind had wholly survived his body.' He wished to give my
mother the copyright of all his works, made out lists how to arrange
them, and gave her _carte-blanche_ to cut out what she pleased, and was
especially eager that she should do a prose translation of his songs
against her opinion of its practicability. To please him she translated
'Almanzor' and several short poems into verse--the best translations I
know.
After trying Ventnor for two winters, my mother went out to the Cape of
Good Hope in a sailing vessel, but on her return was unfortunately
persuaded to go to Eaux Bonnes in the autumn of 1862, which did her great
harm. Thence she went to Egypt, where the dry hot climate seemed to
arrest the malady for a short time. The following memoir written by Mrs.
Norton in the _Times_ gives a better picture of her than could any words
of mine, the two talented and beautiful women were intimate friends, and
few mourned more deeply for Lucie Duff Gordon than Caroline Norton:
'"In Memoriam." The brief phrase whose solemnity prefaced millions of
common place epitaphs before Tennyson taught grief to speak, lamenting
his dead friend in every phase and variety of regret. With such
gradation and difference of sorrow will the recent death of a very
remarkable woman, Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon, be mourned for by all who knew
her, and with such a sense of blank loss will they long continue to
lament one whose public success as an author was only commensurate with
the charm of her private companionship. Inheriting from both parents the
intellectual faculties which she so nobly exercised, her work has been
ended in the very noontide of life by premature failure of health; and
the long exile she endured for the sake of a better climate has failed to
arrest, though it delayed, the doom foretold by her physicians. To that
exile we owe the most popular, perhaps, of her contributions to the
literature of her country, "Letters from the Cape," and "Letters from
Egypt," the latter more especially interesting from the vivid, life-like
descriptions of the people among whom she dwelt, her aspirations for
their better destiny, and the complete amalgamation of her own pursuits
and interests with theirs. She was a settler, not a traveller among
them. Unlike Lady Hester Stanhope, whose fantastic and half-insane
notions of rulership and superiority have been so often recorded for our
amazement, Lady Duff Gordon kept the simple frankness of heart and desire
to be of service to her fellow-creatures without a thought of self or a
taint of vanity in her intercourse with them. Not for lack of flattery
or of real enthusiastic gratitude on their part. It is known that when
at Thebes, on more than one of her journeys, the women raised the "cry of
joy" as she passed along, and the people flung branches and raiment on
her path, as in the old Biblical descriptions of Eastern life. The
source of her popularity was in the liberal kindliness of spirit with
which she acted on all occasions, more especially towards those she
considered the victims of bad government and oppressive laws. She says
of herself: "one's pity becomes a perfect passion when one sits among the
people as I do, and sees all they endure. Least of all can I forgive
those among Europeans and Christians who can help to break these bruised
reeds." And again: "Would that I could excite the interest of my country
in their suffering! Some conception of the value of public opinion in
England has penetrated even here." Sympathizing, helping, doctoring
their sick, teaching their children, learning the language, Lady Duff
Gordon lived in Egypt, and in Egypt she has died, leaving a memory of her
greatness and goodness such as no other European woman ever acquired in
that country. It is touching to trace her lingering hopes of life and
amended health in her letters to her husband and her mother, and to see
how, as they faded out, there rose over those hopes the grander light of
fortitude and submission to the will of God.
'Gradually--how gradually the limits of this notice forbid us to
follow--hope departs, and she begins bravely to face the inevitable
destiny. And then comes the end of all, the strong yet tender
announcement of her own conviction that there would be no more meetings,
but a grave opened to receive her in a foreign land.
'"DEAREST ALICK,
'"Do not think of coming here, as you dread the climate. Indeed, it
would be almost too painful to me to part from you again; and as it
is, I can wait patiently for the end, among people who are kind and
loving enough to be comfortable without too much feeling of the pain
of parting. The leaving Luxor was rather a distressing scene, as
they did not think to see me again. The kindness of all the people
was really touching, from the Cadi, who made ready my tomb among his
own family, to the poorest fellaheen."
'Such are the tranquil and kindly words with which she prefaces her
death. Those who remember her in her youth and beauty, before disease
rather than time had altered the pale heroic face, and bowed the slight,
stately figure, may well perceive some strange analogy between soul and
body in the Spartan firmness which enabled her to pen that last farewell
so quietly.
'But to the last her thought was for others, and for the services she
could render. In this very letter, written, as it were, on the verge of
the tomb, she speaks with gratitude and gladness of the advancement of
her favourite attendant, Omar. This Omar had been recommended to her by
the janissary of the American Consul-General, and so far back as 1862,
when in Alexandria, she mentions having engaged him, and his hopeful
prophecy of the good her Nile life is to do her. "My cough is bad; but
Omar says I shall lose it and 'eat plenty' as soon as I see a crocodile."
'Omar "could not leave her," and he had his reward. One of the last
events in the life of this gifted and liberal-minded Englishwoman was the
visit to her dahabeeyeh, or Nile boat, of the Prince and Princess of
Wales. Then poor Omar's simple and faithful service to his dying
mistress was rewarded in a way he could scarcely have dreamt; and Lady
Duff Gordon thus relates the incident: "Omar sends you his heartfelt
thanks, and begs the boat may remain registered at the Consulate in your
name, as a protection, for his use and benefit. The Prince has appointed
him his dragoman, but he is sad enough, poor fellow! all his prosperity
does not console him for the loss of "the mother he found in the world."
Mahomed at Luxor wept bitterly, and said: "Poor I--poor my children--poor
all the people!" and kissed my hand passionately; and the people at Esneh
asked leave to touch me "for a blessing," and everyone sent delicate
bread and their best butter and vegetables and lambs. They are kinder
than ever now that I can no longer be of any use to them. If I live till
September I will go up to Esneh, where the air is softest and I cough
less; I would rather die among my own people on the Saeed than here. Can
you thank the Prince for Omar, or shall I write? He was most pleasant
and kind, and the Princess too; she is the most perfectly simple-mannered
girl I ever saw; she does not even try to be civil like other great
people, but asks blunt questions and looks at one so heartily with her
clear, honest eyes, that she must win all hearts. They were more
considerate than any people I have seen, and the Prince, instead of being
gracious, was, if I may say so, quite respectful in manner: he is very
well bred and pleasant, and has, too, the honest eyes that make one sure
he has a kind heart. My sailors were so proud at having the honour of
rowing him in _our own boat_ and of singing to him. I had a very good
singer in the boat."
'Long will her presence be remembered and wept for among the
half-civilized friends of her exile, the poor, the sick, the needy and
the oppressed. She makes the gentle, half-playful boast in one of her
letters from the Nile that she is "very popular," and has made many cures
as a Hakeem, or doctor, and that a Circassian had sat up with a dying
Englishman because she had nursed his wife.
'The picture of the Circassian sitting up with the dying Englishman
because an English lady had nursed his wife is infinitely touching, and
had its parallel in the speech of an old Scottish landlady known to the
writer of this notice, whose son had died in the West Indies among
strangers. "And they were so good to him," said she, "that I vowed if
ever I had a lodger sick I would do my best for that stranger in
remembrance." In remembrance! Who shall say what seeds of kindly
intercommunion that dying Englishwoman of whom and of whose works we have
been speaking may have planted in the arid Eastern soil? Or what "bread
she may have cast" on those Nile waters, "which shall be found again
after many days"? "Out of evil cometh good," and certainly out of her
sickness and suffering good came to all within her influence.
'Lady Duff Gordon's printed works were many. She was an excellent German
scholar, and had the advantage in her translations from that difficult
language of her labours being shared by her husband. Ranke, Niebuhr,
Feuerbach, Moltke, and others, owe their introduction to our
English-reading public to the industry and talent of her pen. She was
also a classic scholar of no mean pretensions. Perhaps no woman of our
own time, except Mrs. Somerville and Mrs. Browning in their very
different styles, combined so much erudition with so much natural
ability. She was the daughter of Mr. Austin, the well-known professor of
jurisprudence, and his gifted wife, Sarah Austin, whose name is familiar
to thousands of readers, and whose social brilliancy is yet remembered
with extreme admiration and regret by the generation immediately
preceding our own.
'That Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon, inherited the best of the intellect and
qualities of both these parents will, we think, hardly be disputed, and
she had besides, of her own, a certain generosity of spirit, a widespread
sympathy for humanity in general, without narrowness or sectarianism,
which might well prove her faith modelled on the sentence which appeals
too often in vain from the last page of the printed Bible to resenting
and dissenting religionists, "Multae terricolis linguae, coelestibus
una."'
* * * * *
The last two years of my mother's life were one long struggle against
deadly disease. The last winter was cheered by the presence of my
brother, but at her express desire he came home in early summer to
continue his studies, and my father and I were going out to see her, when
the news came of her death at Cairo on July 14, 1869. Her desire had
been to be among her 'own people' at Thebes, but when she felt she would
never see Luxor again, she gave orders to be buried as quietly as
possible in the cemetery at Cairo. The memory of her talent, simplicity,
stately beauty, and extraordinary eloquence, and her almost passionate
pity for any oppressed creature, will not easily fade. She bore great
pain, and what was almost a greater trial, absence from her husband, her
little daughter Urania, and her many friends, uncomplainingly, gleaning
what consolation she could by helping her poor Arab neighbours, who
adored her, and have not, I am told, forgotten the 'Great Lady' who was
so good to them.
* * * * *
The first volume of Lady Duff Gordon's 'Letters from Egypt' was published
by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. in May, 1865, with a preface by her mother,
Mrs. Austin, who edited them, and was obliged to omit much that might
have given offence and made my mother's life uncomfortable--to say the
least--in Egypt. Before the end of the year the book went through three
editions.
In 1875 a volume containing the 'Last Letters from Egypt,' to which were
added 'Letters from the Cape,' reprinted from 'Vacation Tourists' (1864),
with a Memoir of my mother by myself, was published by Messrs. Macmillan
and Co. A second edition appeared in 1876.
I have now copied my mother's letters as they were written, omitting only
the purely family matter which is of no interest to the public. Edward
Lear's drawing of Luxor was printed in 'Three Generations of
Englishwomen,' edited by Mrs. Ross, but the other illustrations are now
reproduced for the first time.
The names of villages alluded to in the 'Letters' have been spelt as in
the Atlas published by the Egyptian Exploration Fund.
JANET ROSS.
LETTERS FROM EGYPT
November 11, 1862: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
GRAND CAIRO,
_Tuesday_, _November_ 11, 1862.
DEAREST MUTTER,
I write to you out of the real Arabian Nights. Well may the Prophet
(whose name be exalted) smile when he looks on Cairo. It is a golden
existence, all sunshine and poetry, and, _I_ must add, kindness and
civility. I came up last Thursday by railway with the American
Consul-General, a charming person, and had to stay at this horrid
Shepheard's Hotel. But I do little but sleep here. Hekekian Bey, a
learned old Armenian, takes care of me every day, and the Amerian
Vice-Consul is my sacrifice. I went on Sunday to his child's
christening, and heard Sakna, the 'Restorer of Hearts.' She is
wonderfully like Rachel, and her singing is _hinreisend_ from expression
and passion. Mr. Wilkinson (the Consul) is a Levantine, and his wife
Armenian, so they had a grand fantasia; people feasted all over the house
and in the street. Arab music _schmetterte_, women yelled the
_zaghareet_, black servants served sweetmeats, pipes, and coffee, and
behaved as if they belonged to the company, and I was strongly under the
impression that I was at Nurreddin's wedding with the Vizier's daughter.
Yesterday I went to Heliopolis with Hekekian Bey and his wife, and
visited an Armenian country lady close by.
My servant Omar turns out a jewel. He has _deterre_ an excellent boat
for the Nile voyage, and I am to be mistress of a captain, a mate, eight
men and a cabin boy for 25 pounds a month. I went to Boulak, the port of
Cairo, and saw various boats, and admired the way in which the English
travellers pay for their insolence and caprices. Similar boats cost
people with dragomans 50 to 65 pounds. But, then, 'I shall lick the
fellows,' etc., is what I hear all round. The dragoman, I conclude,
pockets the difference. The owner of the boat, Sid Achmet el-Berberi,
asked 30 pounds, whereupon I touched my breast, mouth and eyes, and
stated through Omar that I was not, like other Ingeleez, made of money,
but would give 20 pounds. He then showed another boat at 20 pounds, very
much worse, and I departed (with fresh civilities) and looked at others,
and saw two more for 20 pounds; but neither was clean, and neither had a
little boat for landing. Meanwhile Sid Achmet came after me and
explained that, if I was not like other Ingeleez in money, I likewise
differed in politeness, and had refrained from abuse, etc., etc., and I
should have the boat for 25 pounds. It was so very excellent in all
fittings, and so much larger, that I thought it would make a great
difference in health, so I said if he would go before the American
Vice-Consul (who is looked on as a sharp hand) and would promise all he
said to me before him, it should be well.
Mr. Thayer, the American Consul-General, gives me letters to every
consular agent depending on him; and two Coptic merchants whom I met at
the fantasia have already begged me to 'honour their houses.' I rather
think the poor agents, who are all Armenians and Copts, will think I am
the republic in person. The weather has been all this time like a
splendid English August, and I hope I shall get rid of my cough in time,
but it has been very bad. There is no cold at night here as at the Cape,
but it is nothing like so clear and bright.
Omar took Sally sightseeing all day while I was away, into several
mosques; in one he begged her to wait a minute while he said a prayer.
They compare notes about their respective countries and are great
friends; but he is put out at my not having provided her with a husband
long ago, as is one's duty towards a 'female servant,' which almost
always here means a slave.
Of all the falsehoods I have heard about the East, that about women being
old hags at thirty is the biggest. Among the poor fellah women it may be
true enough, but not nearly as much as in Germany; and I have now seen a
considerable number of Levantine ladies looking very handsome, or at
least comely, till fifty. Sakna, the Arab Grisi, is fifty-five--an ugly
face, I am told (she was veiled and one only saw the eyes and glimpses of
her mouth when she drank water), but the figure of a leopard, all grace
and beauty, and a splendid voice of its kind, harsh but thrilling like
Malibran's. I guessed her about thirty, or perhaps thirty-five. When
she improvised, the finesse and grace of her whole _Wesen_ were
ravishing. I was on the point of shouting out 'Wallah!' as heartily as
the natives. The eight younger Halmeh (_i.e._, learned women, which the
English call Almeh and think is an improper word) were ugly and
screeched. Sakna was treated with great consideration and quite as a
friend by the Armenian ladies with whom she talked between her songs.
She is a Muslimeh and very rich and charitable; she gets 50 pounds for a
night's singing at least.
It would be very easy to learn colloquial Arabic, as they all speak with
such perfect distinctness that one can follow the sentences and catch the
words one knows as they are repeated. I think I know forty or fifty
words already, besides my 'salaam aleikum' and 'backsheesh.'
The reverse of the brilliant side of the medal is sad enough: deserted
palaces, and crowded hovels scarce good enough for pigstyes. 'One day
man see his dinner, and one other day none at all,' as Omar observes; and
the children are shocking from bad food, dirt and overwork, but the
little pot-bellied, blear-eyed wretches grow up into noble young men and
women under all their difficulties. The faces are all sad and rather
what the Scotch call 'dour,' not _mechant_ at all, but harsh, like their
voices. All the melody is in walk and gesture; they are as graceful as
cats, and the women have exactly the 'breasts like pomegranates' of their
poetry. A tall Bedaween woman came up to us in the field yesterday to
shake hands and look at us. She wore a white sackcloth shift and veil,
_und weiter nichts_, and asked Mrs. Hekekian a good many questions about
me, looked at my face and hands, but took no notice of my rather smart
gown which the village women admired so much, shook hands again with the
air of a princess, wished me health and happiness, and strode off across
the graveyard like a stately ghost. She was on a journey all alone, and
somehow it looked very solemn and affecting to see her walking away
towards the desert in the setting sun like Hagar. All is so Scriptural
in the country here. Sally called out in the railroad, 'There is Boaz,
sitting in the cornfield'; and so it was, and there he has sat for how
many thousand years,--and Sakna sang just like Miriam in one war-song.
_Wednesday_.--My contract was drawn up and signed by the American
Vice-Consul to-day, and my Reis kissed my hand in due form, after which I
went to the bazaar to buy the needful pots and pans. The transaction
lasted an hour. The copper is so much per oka, the workmanship so much;
every article is weighed by a sworn weigher and a ticket sent with it.
More Arabian Nights. The shopkeeper compares notes with me about
numerals, and is as much amused as I. He treats me to coffee and a pipe
from a neighbouring shop while Omar eloquently depreciates the goods and
offers half the value. A water-seller offers a brass cup of water; I
drink, and give the huge sum of twopence, and he distributes the contents
of his skin to the crowd (there always is a crowd) in my honour. It
seems I have done a pious action. Finally a boy is called to carry the
_batterie de cuisine_, while Omar brandishes a gigantic kettle which he
has picked up a little bruised for four shillings. The boy has a donkey
which I mount astride _a l'Arabe_, while the boy carries all the copper
things on his head. We are rather a grand procession, and quite enjoy
the fury of the dragomans and other leeches who hang on the English at
such independent proceedings, and Omar gets reviled for spoiling the
trade by being cook, dragoman, and all in one.
I went this morning with Hekekian Bey to the two earliest mosques. The
Touloun is exquisite--noble, simple, and what ornament there is is the
most delicate lacework and embossing in stone and wood. This Arab
architecture is even more lovely than our Gothic. The Touloun is now a
vast poorhouse, a nest of paupers. I went into three of their lodgings.
Several Turkish families were in a large square room neatly divided into
little partitions with old mats hung on ropes. In each were as many bits
of carpet, mat and patchwork as the poor owner could collect, and a small
chest and a little brick cooking-place in one corner of the room with
three earthern pipkins for I don't know how many people;--that was
all--they possess no sort of furniture, but all was scrupulously clean
and no bad smell whatever. A little boy seized my hand and showed where
he slept, ate and cooked with the most expressive pantomime. As there
were women, Hekekian could not come in, but when I came out an old man
told us they received three loaves (cakes as big as a sailor's biscuit),
four piastres a month--_i.e._, eightpence per adult--a suit of clothes a
year, and on festive occasions lentil soup. Such is the almshouse here.
A little crowd belonging to the house had collected, and I gave sixpence
to an old man, who transferred it to the first old man to be _divided_
among them all, ten or twelve people at least, mostly blind or lame. The
poverty wrings my heart. We took leave with salaams and politeness like
the best society, and then turned into an Arab hut stuck against the
lovely arches. I stooped low under the door, and several women crowded
in. This was still poorer, for there were no mats or rags of carpet, a
still worse cooking-place, a sort of dog-kennel piled up of loose stones
to sleep in, which contained a small chest and the print of human forms
on the stone floor. It was, however, quite free from dust, and perfectly
sweet. I gave the young woman who had led me in sixpence, and here the
difference between Turk and Arab appeared. The division of this created
a perfect storm of noise, and we left the five or six Arab women
out-shrieking a whole rookery. I ought to say that no one begged at all.
_Friday_.--I went to-day on a donkey to a mosque in the bazaar, of what
we call Arabesque style, like the Alhambra, very handsome. The Kibleh
was very beautiful, and as I was admiring it Omar pulled a lemon out of
his breast and smeared it on the porphyry pillar on one side of the arch,
and then entreated me to lick it. It cures all diseases. The old man
who showed the mosque pulled eagerly at my arm to make me perform this
absurd ceremony, and I thought I should have been forced to do it. The
base of the pillar was clogged with lemon-juice. I then went to the
tombs of the Khalifah; one of the great ones had such arches and such
wondrous cupolas but all in ruins. There are scores of these noble
buildings, any one of which is a treasure, falling to decay. The next,
strange to say, was in perfect repair. I got off the donkey, and Omar
fidgeted and hesitated a little and consulted with a woman who had the
key. As there were no overshoes I pulled my boots off, and was rewarded
by seeing the footprints of Mohammed on two black stones, and a lovely
little mosque, a sort of _Sainte Chapelle_. Omar prayed with ardent
fervour and went out backwards, saluting the Prophet aloud. To my
surprise the woman was highly pleased with sixpence, and did not ask for
more. When I remarked this, Omar said that no Frank had ever been inside
to his knowledge. A mosque-keeper of the sterner sex would not have let
me in. I returned home through endless streets and squares of Moslem
tombs, those of the Memlooks among them. It was very striking; and it
was getting so dark that I thought of Nurreddin Bey, and wondered if a
Jinn would take me anywhere if I took up my night's lodging in one of the
comfortable little cupola-covered buildings.
My Coptic friend has just called in to say that his brother expects me at
Kenneh. I find nothing but civility and a desire to please. My boat is
the _Zint el Bachreyn_, and I carry the English flag and a small American
distinguishing pennant as a signal to my consular agents. We sail next
Wednesday. Good-bye for the present, dearest Mutter.
November 21, 1862: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
BOAT OFF EMBABEH,
_November_ 21, 1862.
DEAREST ALICK,
We embarked yesterday, and after the fashion of Eastern caravans are
abiding to-day at a village opposite Cairo; it is Friday, and therefore
would be improper and unlucky to set out on our journey. The scenes on
the river are wonderfully diverting and curious, so much life and
movement. But the boatmen are sophisticated; my crew have all sported
new white drawers in honour of the Sitti Ingleezee's supposed modesty--of
course compensation will be expected. Poor fellows! they are very well
mannered and quiet in their rags and misery, and their queer little
humming song is rather pretty, 'Eyah Mohammad, eyah Mohammad,' _ad
infinitum_, except when an energetic man cries 'Yallah!'--_i.e._, 'O
God!'--which means 'go it' in everyday life. Omar is gone to fetch one
or two more 'unconsidered trifles,' and I have been explaining the
defects to be remedied in the cabin door, broken window, etc., to my Reis
with the help of six words of Arabic and dumb show, which they understand
and answer with wonderful quickness.
The air on the river is certainly quite celestial--totally unlike the
damp, chilly feeling of the hotel and Frank quarter of Cairo. The
Isbekeeyeh, or public garden, where all the Franks live, was a lake, I
believe, and is still very damp.
I shall go up to the second Cataract as fast as possible, and return back
at leisure. Hekekian Bey came to take leave yesterday, and lent me
several books; pray tell Senior what a kindness his introduction was. It
would have been rather dismal in Cairo--if one could be dismal
there--without a soul to speak to. I was sorry to know no Turks or
Arabs, and have no opportunity of seeing any but the tradesman of whom I
bought my stores but that was very amusing. The young man of whom I
bought my _finjaans_ was so handsome, elegant and melancholy that I know
he was the lover of the Sultan's favourite slave. How I wish you were
here to enjoy all this, so new, so beautiful, and yet so familiar,
life--and you would like the people, poor things! they are complete
children, but amiable children.
I went into the village here, where I was a curiosity, and some women
took me into their houses and showed me their sleeping-place, cookery,
poultry, etc.; and a man followed me to keep off the children, but no
backsheesh was asked for, which showed that Europeans were rare there.
The utter destitution is terrible to see, though in this climate of
course it matters less, but the much-talked-of dirt is simply utter
poverty. The poor souls are as clean as Nile mud and water will make
their bodies, and they have not a second shirt, or any bed but dried mud.
Give my love to my darlings, and don't be uneasy if you don't get
letters. My cough has been better now for five days without a bad return
of it, so I hope it is really better; it is the first reprieve for so
long. The sun is so hot, a regular broil, November 21, and all doors and
windows open in the cabin--a delicious breeze.
November 30, 1862: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
FESHN,
_Monday_, _November_ 30, 1862.
DEAREST MUTTER,
I have now been enjoying this most delightful way of life for ten days,
and am certainly much better. I begin to eat and sleep again, and cough
less. My crew are a great amusement to me. They are mostly men from
near the first Cataract above Assouan, sleek-skinned, gentle, patient,
merry black fellows. The little black Reis is the very picture of
good-nature and full of fun, 'chaffing' the girls as we pass the
villages, and always smiling. The steersman is of lighter complexion,
also very cheery, but decidedly pious. He prays five times a day and
utters ejaculations to the apostle Rusool continually. He hurt his ankle
on one leg and his instep on the other with a rusty nail, and they
festered. I dressed them with poultices, and then with lint and
strapping, with perfect success, to the great admiration of all hands,
and he announced how much better he felt, 'Alhamdulillah,
kieth-el-hairack khateer ya Sitti' (Praise be to God and thanks without
end O Lady), and everyone echoed, 'kieth-el-hairack khateer.' The most
important person is the 'weled'--boy--Achmet. The most merry, clever,
omnipresent little rascal, with an ugly little pug face, a shape like an
antique Cupid, liberally displayed, and a skin of dark brown velvet. His
voice, shrill and clear, is always heard foremost; he cooks for the crew,
he jumps overboard with the rope and gives advice on all occasions,
grinds the coffee with the end of a stick in a mortar, which he holds
between his feet, and uses the same large stick to walk proudly before
me, brandishing it if I go ashore for a minute, and ordering everybody
out of the way. 'Ya Achmet!' resounds all day whenever anybody wants
anything, and the 'weled' is always ready and able. My favourite is
Osman, a tall, long-limbed black who seems to have stepped out of a
hieroglyphical drawing, shirt, skull-cap and all. He has only those two
garments, and how anyone contrives to look so inconceivably 'neat and
respectable' (as Sally truly remarked) in that costume is a mystery. He
is always at work, always cheerful, but rather silent--in short, the able
seaman and steady, respectable 'hand' _par excellence_. Then we have El
Zankalonee from near Cairo, an old fellow of white complexion and a
valuable person, an inexhaustible teller of stories at night and always
_en train_, full of jokes and remarkable for a dry humour much relished
by the crew. I wish I understood the stories, which sound delightful,
all about Sultans and Efreets, with effective 'points,' at which all
hands exclaim 'Mashallah!' or 'Ah!' (as long as you can drawl it). The
jokes, perhaps, I may as well be ignorant of. There is a certain Shereef
who does nothing but laugh and work and be obliging; helps Omar with one
hand and Sally with the other, and looks like a great innocent black
child. The rest of the dozen are of various colours, sizes and ages,
some quite old, but all very quiet and well-behaved.
We have had either dead calm or contrary wind all the time and the men
have worked very hard at the tow-rope. On Friday I proclaimed a halt in
the afternoon at a village at prayer-time for the pious Muslims to go to
the mosque; this gave great satisfaction, though only five went, Reis,
steersman, Zankalonee and two old men. The up-river men never pray at
all, and Osman occupied himself by buying salt out of another boat and
stowing it away to take up to his family, as it is terribly dear high up
the river. At Benisouef we halted to buy meat and bread, it is _comme
qui dirait_ an assize town, there is one butcher who kills one sheep a
day. I walked about the streets escorted by Omar in front and two
sailors with huge staves behind, and created a sensation accordingly. It
is a dull little country town with a wretched palace of Said Pasha. On
Sunday we halted at Bibbeh, where I caught sight of a large Coptic church
and sallied forth to see whether they would let me in. The road lay past
the house of the headman of the village, and there 'in the gate' sat a
patriarch, surrounded by his servants and his cattle. Over the gateway
were crosses and queer constellations of dots, more like Mithraic symbols
than anything Christian, but Girgis was a Copt, though the chosen head of
the Muslim village. He rose as I came up, stepped out and salaamed, then
took my hand and said I must go into his house before I saw the church
and enter the hareem. His old mother, who looked a hundred, and his
pretty wife, were very friendly; but, as I had to leave Omar at the door,
our talk soon came to an end, and Girgis took me out into the divan,
without the sacred precincts of the hareem. Of course we had pipes and
coffee, and he pressed me to stay some days, to eat with him every day
and to accept all his house contained. I took the milk he offered, and
asked him to visit me in the boat, saying I must return before sunset
when it gets cold, as I was ill. The house was a curious specimen of a
wealthy man's house--I could not describe it if I tried, but I felt I was
acting a passage of the Old Testament. We went to the church, which
outside looked like nine beehives in a box. Inside, the nine domes
resting on square pillars were very handsome. Girgis was putting it into
thorough repair at his own expense, and it will cost a good deal, I
think, to repair and renew the fine old wood panelling of such minute and
intricate workmanship. The church is divided by three screens; one in
front of the eastern three domes is impervious and conceals the holy of
holies. He opened the horseshoe door for me to look in, but explained
that no Hareem might cross the threshold. All was in confusion owing to
the repairs which were actively going on without the slightest regard to
Sunday; but he took up a large bundle, kissed it, and showed it me. What
it contained I cannot guess, and I scrupled to inquire through a Muslim
interpreter. To the right of this sanctum is the tomb of a Muslim saint!
enclosed under the adjoining dome. Here we went in and Girgis kissed the
tomb on one side while Omar salaamed it on the other--a pleasant sight.
They were much more particular about our shoes than in the mosques. Omar
wanted to tie handkerchiefs over my boots like at Cairo, but the priest
objected and made me take them off and march about in the brick and
mortar rubbish in my stockings. I wished to hear the service, but it was
not till sunset, and, as far as I could make out, not different on Sunday
to other days. The Hareems are behind the screen furthest removed from
the holy screen, behind a third screen where also was the font, locked up
and shaped like a Muslim tomb in little. (Hareem is used here just like
the German _Frauenzimmer_, to mean a respectable woman. Girgis spoke of
me to Omar as 'Hareem.') The Copts have but one wife, but they shut her
up much closer than the Arabs. The children were sweetly pretty, so
unlike the Arab brats, and the men very good-looking. They did not seem
to acknowledge me at all as a _co-religionnaire_, and asked whether we of
the English religion did not marry our brothers and sisters.
The priest then asked me to drink coffee at his house close by, and there
I 'sat in the gate'--_i.e._, in a large sort of den raised 2 feet from
the ground and matted, to the left of the gate. A crowd of Copts
collected and squatted about, and we were joined by the mason who was
repairing the church, a fine, burly, rough-bearded old Mussulman, who
told how the Sheykh buried in the church of Bibbeh had appeared to him
three nights running at Cairo and ordered him to leave his work and go to
Bibbeh and mend his church, and how he came and offered to do so without
pay if the Copts would find the materials. He spoke with evident pride,
as one who had received a Divine command, and the Copts all confirmed the
story and everyone was highly gratified by the miracle. I asked Omar if
he thought it was all true, and he had no doubt of it. The mason he knew
to be a respectable man in full work, and Girgis added that he had tried
to get a man to come for years for the purpose without success. It is
not often that a dead saint contrives to be equally agreeable to
Christians and Mussulmans, and here was the staunch old 'true believer'
working away in the sanctuary which they would not allow an English
fellow-Christian to enter.
Whilst we sat hearing all these wonders, the sheep and cattle pushed in
between us, coming home at eve. The venerable old priest looked so like
Father Abraham, and the whole scene was _so_ pastoral and Biblical that I
felt quite as if my wish was fulfilled to live a little a few thousands
of years ago. They wanted me to stay many days, and then Girgis said I
must stop at Feshn where he had a fine house and garden, and he would go
on horseback and meet me there, and would give me a whole troop of
Fellaheen to pull the boat up quick. Omar's eyes twinkled with fun as he
translated this, and said he knew the Sitt would cry out, as she always
did about the Fellaheen, as if she were hurt herself. He told Girgis
that the English customs did not allow people to work without pay, which
evidently seemed very absurd to the whole party.
GEBEL SHEYK EMBARAK,
_Thursday_.
I stopped last night at Feshn, but finding this morning that my Coptic
friends were not expected till the afternoon, I would not spend the whole
day, and came on still against wind and stream. If I could speak Arabic
I should have enjoyed a few days with Girgis and his family immensely, to
learn their _Ansichten_ a little; but Omar's English is too imperfect to
get beyond elementary subjects. The thing that strikes me most is the
tolerant spirit that I see everywhere. They say 'Ah! it is your custom,'
and express no sort of condemnation, and Muslims and Christians appear
perfectly good friends, as my story of Bibbeh goes to prove. I have yet
to see the much-talked-of fanaticism, at present I have not met with a
symptom of it. There were thirteen Copt families at Bibbeh and a
considerable Muslim population, who had elected Girgis their headman and
kissed his hand very heartily as our procession moved through the
streets. Omar said he was a very good man and much liked.
The villages look like slight elevations in the mud banks cut into square
shapes. The best houses have neither paint, whitewash, plaster, bricks
nor windows, nor any visible roofs. They don't give one the notion of
human dwellings at all at first, but soon the eye gets used to the
absence of all that constitutes a house in Europe, the impression of
wretchedness wears off, and one sees how picturesque they are, with
palm-trees and tall pigeon-houses, and here and there the dome over a
saint's tomb. The men at work on the river-banks are exactly the same
colour as the Nile mud, with just the warmer hue of the blood circulating
beneath the skin. Prometheus has just formed them out of the universal
material at hand, and the sun breathed life into them. Poor
fellows--even the boatmen, ragged crew as they are--say 'Ah, Fellaheen!'
with a contemptuous pity when they see me watch the villagers at work.
The other day four huge barges passed us towed by a steamer and crammed
with hundreds of the poor souls torn from their homes to work at the
Isthmus of Suez, or some palace of the Pasha's, for a nominal piastre a
day, and find their own bread and water and cloak. One of my crew,
Andrasool, a black savage whose function is always to jump overboard
whenever the rope gets entangled or anything is wanted, recognised some
relations of his from a village close to Assouan. There was much
shouting and poor Andrasool looked very mournful all day. It may be his
turn next. Some of the crew disloyally remarked that they were sure the
men there wished they were working for a Sitti Ingleez, as Andrasool told
them he was. Think too what splendid pay it must be that the boat-owner
can give out of 25 pounds a month to twelve men, after taking his own
profits, the interest of money being enormous.
When I call my crew black, don't think of negroes. They are
elegantly-shaped Arabs and all gentlemen in manners, and the black is
transparent, with amber _reflets_ under it in the sunshine; a negro looks
_blue_ beside them. I have learned a great deal that is curious from
Omar's confidences, who tells me his family affairs and talks about the
women of his family, which he would not to a man. He refused to speak to
his brother, a very grand dragoman, who was with the Prince of Wales, and
who came up to us in the hotel at Cairo and addressed Omar, who turned
his back on him. I asked the reason, and Omar told me how his brother
had a wife, 'An old wife, been with him long time, very good wife.' She
had had three children--all dead. All at once the dragoman, who is much
older than Omar, declared he would divorce her and marry a young woman.
Omar said, 'No, don't do that; keep her in your house as head of your
home, and take one of your two black slave girls as your Hareem.' But
the other insisted, and married a young Turkish wife; whereupon Omar took
his poor old sister-in-law to live with him and his own young wife, and
cut his grand brother dead. See how characteristic!--the urging his
brother to take the young slave girl 'as his Hareem,' like a respectable
man--that would have been all right; but what he did was 'not good.'
I'll trouble you (as Mrs. Grote used to say) to settle these questions to
everyone's satisfaction. I own Omar seemed to me to take a view against
which I had nothing to say. His account of his other brother, a
confectioner's household with two wives, was very curious. He and they,
with his wife and sister-in-law, all live together, and one of the
brother's wives has six children--three sleep with their own mother and
three with their _other_ mother--and all is quite harmonious.
SIOUT,
_December_ 10.
I could not send a letter from Minieh, where we stopped, and I visited a
sugar manufactory and a gentlemanly Turk, who superintended the district,
the Moudir. I heard a boy singing a _Zikr_ (the ninety-nine attributes
of God) to a set of dervishes in a mosque, and I think I never heard
anything more beautiful and affecting. Ordinary Arab singing is harsh
and nasal, but it can be wonderfully moving. Since we left Minieh we
have suffered dreadfully from the cold; the chickens died of it, and the
Arabs look blue and pinched. Of course it is _my weather_ and there
never was such cold and such incessant contrary winds known. To-day was
better, and Wassef, a Copt here, lent me his superb donkey to go up to
the tomb in the mountain. The tomb is a mere cavern, so defaced, but the
view of beautiful Siout standing in the midst of a loop of the Nile was
ravishing. A green deeper and brighter than England, graceful minarets
in crowds, a picturesque bridge, gardens, palm-trees, then the river
beyond it, the barren yellow cliffs as a frame all around that. At our
feet a woman was being carried to the grave, and the boys' voices rang
out the Koran full and clear as the long procession--first white turbans
and then black veils and robes--wound along. It is all a dream to me.
You can't think what an odd effect it is to take up an English book and
read it and then look up and hear the men cry, 'Yah Mohammad.' 'Bless
thee, Bottom, how art thou translated;' it is the reverse of all one's
former life when one sat in England and read of the East. '_Und nun sitz
ich mitten drein_' in the real, true Arabian Nights, and don't know
whether 'I be I as I suppose I be' or not.
Tell Alick the news, for I have not written to any but you. I do so long
for my Rainie. The little Copt girls are like her, only pale; but they
don't let you admire them for fear of the evil-eye.
December 20, 1862: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
THEBES,
_December_ 20, 1862.
DEAR ALICK,
I have had a long, dawdling voyage up here, but enjoyed it much, and have
seen and heard many curious things. I only stop here for letters and
shall go on at once to Wady Halfeh, as the weather is very cold still,
and I shall be better able to enjoy the ruins when I return about a month
hence, and shall certainly prefer the tropics now. I can't describe the
kindness of the Copts. The men I met at a party in Cairo wrote to all
their friends and relations to be civil to me. Wassef's attentions
consisted first in lending me his superb donkey and accompanying me about
all day. Next morning arrived a procession headed by his clerk, a
gentlemanly young Copt, and consisting of five black memlooks carrying a
live sheep, a huge basket of the most delicious bread, a pile of
cricket-balls of creamy butter, a large copper caldron of milk and a cage
of poultry. I was confounded, and tried to give a good baksheesh to the
clerk, but he utterly declined. At Girgeh one Mishrehgi was waiting for
me, and was in despair because he had only time to get a few hundred
eggs, two turkeys, a heap of butter and a can of milk. At Keneh one Issa
(Jesus) also lent a donkey, and sent me three boxes of delicious Mecca
dates, which Omar thought stingy. Such attentions are agreeable here
where good food is not to be had except as a gift. They all made me
promise to see them again on my return and dine at their houses, and
Wassef wanted to make a fantasia and have dancing girls. How you would
love the Arab women in the country villages. I wandered off the other
day alone, while the men were mending the rudder, and fell in with a
troop of them carrying water-jars--such sweet, graceful beings, all
smiles and grace. One beautiful woman pointed to the village and made
signs of eating and took my hand to lead me. I went with her, admiring
them as they walked. Omar came running after and wondered I was not
afraid. I laughed, and said they were much too pretty and kindly-looking
to frighten anyone, which amused them immensely when he told them so.
They all wanted me to go and eat in their houses, and I had a great mind
to it, but the wind was fair and the boat waiting, so I bid my beautiful
friends farewell. They asked if we wanted anything--milk or eggs--for
they would give it with pleasure, it was not their custom to sell things,
they said, I offered a bit of money to a little naked child, but his
mother would not let him take it. I shall never forget the sweet,
engaging creatures at that little village, or the dignified politeness of
an old weaver whose loom I walked in to look at, and who also wished to
'set a piece of bread before me.' It is the true poetical pastoral life
of the Bible in the villages where the English have not been, and happily
they don't land at the little places. Thebes has become an English
watering-place. There are now nine boats lying here, and the great
object is to _do the Nile_ as fast as possible. It is a race up to Wady
Halfeh or Assouan. I have gained so much during this month that I hope
the remaining three will do real good, as the weather will improve with
the new year they tell me. All the English stay here and 'make
Christmas,' as Omar calls it, but I shall go on and do my devotions with
the Copts at Esneh or Edfou. I found that their seeming disinclination
to let one attend their service arose from an idea that we English would
not recognise them as Christians. I wrote a curious story of a miracle
to my mother, I find that I was wrong about the saint being a Mussulman
(and so is Murray); he is no less than Mar Girghis, our own St. George
himself. Why he selected a Mussulman mason I suppose he best knows.
In a week I shall be in Nubia. Some year we must all make this voyage;
you would revel in it. Kiss my darlings for me.
February 11, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
THEBES,
_February_ 11, 1863.
DEAREST ALICK,
On arriving here last night I found one letter from you, dated December
10, and have received nothing else. Pray write again forthwith to Cairo
where I hope to stay some weeks. A clever old dragoman I met at Philae
offers to lend me furniture for a lodging or a tent for the desert, and
when I hesitated he said he was very well off and it was not his business
to sell things, but only to be paid for his services by rich people, and
that if I did not accept it as he meant it he should be quite hurt. This
is what I have met with from everything Arab--nothing but kindness and
politeness. I shall say farewell to Egypt with real feeling; among other
things, it will be quite a pang to part with Omar who has been my shadow
all this time and for whom I have quite an affection, he is so thoroughly
good and amiable.
I am really much better I hope and believe, though only within the last
week or two. We have had the coldest winter ever known in Nubia, such
bitter north-east winds, but when the wind by great favour did not blow,
the weather was heavenly. If the millennium really does come I shall
take a good bit of mine on the Nile. At Assouan I had been strolling
about in that most poetically melancholy spot, the granite quarry of old
Egypt and burial-place of Muslim martyrs, and as I came homewards along
the bank a party of slave merchants, who had just loaded their goods for
Senaar from the boat on the camels, asked me to dinner, and, oh! how
delicious it felt to sit on a mat among the camels and strange bales of
goods and eat the hot tough bread, sour milk and dates, offered with such
stately courtesy. We got quite intimate over our leather cup of sherbet
(brown sugar and water), and the handsome jet-black men, with features as
beautiful as those of the young Bacchus, described the distant lands in a
way which would have charmed Herodotus. They proposed to me to join
them, 'they had food enough,' and Omar and I were equally inclined to go.
It is of no use to talk of the ruins; everybody has said, I suppose, all
that can be said, but Philae surpassed my expectations. No wonder the
Arab legends of Ans el Wogood are so romantic, and Abou Simbel and many
more. The scribbling of names is quite infamous, beautiful paintings are
defaced by Tomkins and Hobson, but worst of all Prince Puckler Muskau has
engraved his and his _Ordenskreuz_ in huge letters on the naked breast of
that august and pathetic giant who sits at Abou Simbel. I wish someone
would kick him for his profanity.
I have eaten many odd things with odd people in queer places, dined in a
respectable Nubian family (the castor-oil was trying), been to a Nubian
wedding--such a dance I saw. Made friends with a man much looked up to
in his place (Kalabshee--notorious for cutting throats), inasmuch as he
had killed several intrusive tax-gatherers and recruiting officers. He
was very gentlemanly and kind and carried me up a place so steep I could
not have reached it. Just below the cataract--by-the-by going up is
nothing but noise and shouting, but coming down is fine fun--_Fantasia
khateer_ as my excellent little Nubian pilot said. My sailors all prayed
away manfully and were horribly frightened. I confess my pulse
quickened, but I don't think it was fear. Well, below the cataract I
stopped for a religious fete, and went to a holy tomb with the darweesh,
so extraordinarily handsome and graceful--the true _feingemacht_ noble
Bedaween type. He took care of me through the crowd, who never had seen
a Frank woman before and crowded fearfully, and pushed the true believers
unmercifully to make way for me. He was particularly pleased at my not
being afraid of Arabs; I laughed, and asked if he was afraid of us. 'Oh
no! he would like to come to England; when there he would work to eat and
drink, and then sit and sleep in the church.' I was positively ashamed
to tell my religious friend that with us the 'house of God' is not the
house of the poor stranger. I asked him to eat with me but he was
holding a preliminary Ramadan (it begins next week), and could not; but
he brought his handsome sister, who was richly dressed, and begged me to
visit him and eat of his bread, cheese and milk. Such is the treatment
one finds if one leaves the highroad and the backsheesh-hunting
parasites. There are plenty of 'gentlemen' barefooted and clad in a
shirt and cloak ready to pay attentions which you may return with a civil
look and greeting, and if you offer a cup of coffee and a seat on the
floor you give great pleasure, still more if you eat the dourah and
dates, or bread and sour milk with an appetite.
At Koom Ombo we met a Rifaee darweesh with his basket of tame snakes.
After a little talk he proposed to initiate me, and so we sat down and
held hands like people marrying. Omar sat behind me and repeated the
words as my 'Wakeel,' then the Rifaee twisted a cobra round our joined
hands and requested me to spit on it, he did the same and I was
pronounced safe and enveloped in snakes. My sailors groaned and Omar
shuddered as the snakes put out their tongues--the darweesh and I smiled
at each other like Roman augurs. I need not say the creatures were
toothless.
It is worth going to Nubia to see the girls. Up to twelve or thirteen
they are neatly dressed in a bead necklace and a leather fringe 4 inches
wide round the loins, and anything so absolutely perfect as their shapes
or so sweetly innocent as their look can't be conceived. My pilot's
little girl came in the dress mentioned before carrying a present of
cooked fish on her head and some fresh eggs; she was four years old and
so _klug_. I gave her a captain's biscuit and some figs, and the little
pet sat with her little legs tucked under her, and ate it so _manierlich_
and was so long over it, and wrapped up some more white biscuit to take
home in a little rag of a veil so carefully. I longed to steal her, she
was such a darling. Two beautiful young Nubian women visited me in my
boat, with hair in little plaits finished off with lumps of yellow clay
burnished like golden tags, soft, deep bronze skins, and lips and eyes
fit for Isis and Hathor. Their very dress and ornaments were the same as
those represented in the tombs, and I felt inclined to ask them how many
thousand years old they were. In their house I sat on an ancient
Egyptian couch with the semicircular head-rest, and drank out of crockery
which looked antique, and they brought a present of dates in a basket
such as you may see in the British Museum. They are dressed in drapery
like Greek statues, and are as perfect, but have hard, bold faces, and,
though far handsomer, lack the charm of the Arab women; and the men,
except at Kalabshee and those from far up the country, are not such
gentlemen as the Arabs.
Everyone is cursing the French here. Forty thousand men always at work
at the Suez Canal at starvation-point, does not endear them to the Arabs.
There is great excitement as to what the new Pasha will do. If he ceases
to give forced labour, the Canal, I suppose, must be given up. Well, I
must leave off and send my letter to Mustapha Aga to forward. I shall
stay here ten days or so, and then return slowly to Cairo on March 10,
the last day of Ramadan. I will stay a short time at Cairo, and then
take a small boat and drop down to Alexandria and see Janet. How I did
wish for my darling Rainie to play with Achmet in the boat and see the
pretty Nubian boys and girls. I have seen and heard so much, that like
M. de Conti _je voudrais etre leve pour l'aller dire_. I long to bore
you with traveller's tales. Pray write soon.
Omar wanted to hear all that 'the gentleman' said about 'weled and bint'
(boy and girl), and was quite delighted to hear of Maurice's good report
at school, he thinks that the 'Abou el welad' (father of the
children--you, to wit) will send a sheep to the 'fikee' who teaches him.
I have learned a new code of propriety altogether--_cela a du bon et du
mauvais_, like ours. When I said 'my husband' Omar blushed and gently
corrected me; when my donkey fell in the streets he cried with vexation,
and on my mentioning the fall to Hekekian Bey he was quite indignant.
'Why you say it, ma'am? that shame'--a _faux pas_ in fact. On the other
hand they mention all that belongs to the production of children with
perfect satisfaction and pleasure. A very pleasing, modest and handsome
Nubian young woman, wishing to give me the best present she could think
of, brought me a mat of her own making, and which had been her
marriage-bed. It was a gift both friendly and honourable, and I treasure
it accordingly. Omar gave me a description of his own marriage,
appealing to my sympathy about the distress of absence from his wife. I
intimated that English people were not accustomed to some words and might
be shocked, on which he said, 'Of course I not speak of my Hareem to
English gentleman, but to good Lady can speak it.'
Good-bye, dear Alick, no, that is improper: I must say 'O my Lord' or
'Abou Maurice.'
March 7, 1863: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
A FEW MILES BELOW GIRGEH,
_March_ 7, 1863.
DEAREST MUTTER,
I was so glad to find from your letter (which Janet sent me to Thebes by
a steamer) that mine from Siout had reached you safely. First and
foremost I am wonderfully better. In Cairo the winter has been terribly
cold and damp, as the Coptic priest told me yesterday at Girgeh. So I
don't repent the expense of the boat for _j'en ai pour mon argent_--I am
_all_ the money better and really think of getting well. Now that I know
the ways of this country a little, which Herodotus truly says is like no
other, I see that I might have gone and lived at Thebes or at Keneh or
Assouan on next to nothing, but then how could I know it? The English
have raised a mirage of false wants and extravagance which the servants
of the country of course, some from interest and others from mere
ignorance, do their best to keep up. As soon as I had succeeded in
really persuading Omar that I was not as rich as a Pasha and had no wish
to be thought so, he immediately turned over a new leaf as to what must
be had and said 'Oh, if I could have thought an English lady would have
eaten and lived and done the least like Arab people, I might have hired a
house at Keneh for you, and we might have gone up in a clean passenger
boat, but I thought no English could bear it.' At Cairo, where we shall
be, Inshallaha, on the 19th, Omar will get a lodging and borrow a few
mattresses and a table and chair and, as he says, 'keep the money in our
pockets instead of giving it to the hotel.' I hope Alick got my letter
from Thebes, and that he told you that I had dined with 'the blameless
Ethiopians.' I have seen all the temples in Nubia and down as far as I
have come, and nine of the tombs at Thebes. Some are wonderfully
beautiful--Abou Simbel, Kalabshee, Room Ombo--a little temple at El Kab,
lovely--three tombs at Thebes and most of all Abydos; Edfou and Dendera
are the most perfect, Edfou quite perfect, but far less beautiful. But
the most lovely object my eyes ever saw is the island of Philae. It
gives one quite the supernatural feeling of Claude's best landscapes,
only not the least like them--_ganz anders_. The Arabs say that Ans el
Wogood, the most beautiful of men, built it for his most beautiful
beloved, and there they lived in perfect beauty and happiness all alone.
If the weather had not been so cold while I was there I should have lived
in the temple, in a chamber sculptured with the mystery of Osiris' burial
and resurrection. Omar cleaned it out and meant to move my things there
for a few days, but it was too cold to sleep in a room without a door.
The winds have been extraordinarily cold this year, and are so still. We
have had very little of the fine warm weather, and really been pinched
with cold most of the time. On the shore away from the river would be
much better for invalids.
Mustapha Aga, the consular agent at Thebes, has offered me a house of
his, up among the tombs in the finest air, if ever I want it. He was
very kind and hospitable indeed to all the English there. I went into
his hareem, and liked his wife's manners very much. It was charming to
see that she henpecked her handsome old husband completely. They had
fine children and his boy, about thirteen or so, rode and played Jereed
one day when Abdallah Pasha had ordered the people of the neighbourhood
to do it for General Parker. I never saw so beautiful a performance.
The old General and I were quite excited, and he tried it to the great
amusement of the Sheykh el Beled. Some young Englishmen were rather
grand about it, but declined mounting the horses and trying a throw. The
Sheykh and young Hassan and then old Mustapha wheeled round and round
like beautiful hawks, and caught the palm-sticks thrown at them as they
dashed round. It was superb, and the horses were good, though the
saddles and bridles were rags and ends of rope, and the men mere
tatterdemalions. A little below Thebes I stopped, and walked inland to
Koos to see a noble old mosque falling to ruin. No English had ever been
there and we were surrounded by a crowd in the bazaar. Instantly five or
six tall fellows with long sticks improvised themselves our body-guard
and kept the people off, who _du reste_ were perfectly civil and only
curious to see such strange 'Hareem,' and after seeing us well out of the
town evaporated as quietly as they came without a word. I gave about
ten-pence to buy oil, as it is Ramadan and the mosque ought to be
lighted, and the old servant of the mosque kindly promised me full
justice at the Day of Judgment, as I was one of those Nasranee of whom
the Lord Mohammed said that they are not proud and wish well to the
Muslimeen. The Pasha had confiscated all the lands belonging to the
mosque, and allowed 300 piastres--not 2 pounds a month--for all expenses;
of course the noble old building with its beautiful carving and arabesque
mouldings must fall down. There was a smaller one beside it, where he
declared that anciently forty girls lived unmarried and recited the
Koran--Muslim nuns, in fact. I intend to ask the Alim, for whom I have a
letter from Mustapha, about such an anomaly.
Some way above Bellianeh Omar asked eagerly leave to stop the boat as a
great Sheyk had called to us, and we should inevitably have some disaster
if we disobeyed. So we stopped and Omar said, 'come and see the Sheyk,
ma'am.' I walked off and presently found about thirty people, including
all my own men, sitting on the ground round St. Simon Stylites--without
the column. A hideous old man like Polyphemus, utterly naked, with the
skin of a rhinoceros all cracked with the weather, sat there, and had sat
day and night, summer and winter, motionless for twenty years. He never
prays, he never washes, he does not keep Ramadan, and yet he is a saint.
Of course I expected a good hearty curse from such a man, but he was
delighted with my visit, asked me to sit down, ordered his servant to
bring me sugar-cane, asked my name and tried to repeat it over and over
again, and was quite talkative and full of jokes and compliments, and
took no notice of anyone else. Omar and my crew smiled and nodded, and
all congratulated me heartily. Such a distinction proves my own
excellence (as the Sheyk knows all people's thoughts), and is sure to be
followed by good fortune. Finally Omar proposed to say the Fathah in
which all joined except the Sheykh, who looked rather bored by the
interruption, and desired us not to go so soon, unless I were in a hurry.
A party of Bedaween came up on camels with presents for the holy man, but
he took no notice of them, and went on questioning Omar about me, and
answering my questions. What struck me was the total absence of any
sanctimonious air about the old fellow, he was quite worldly and jocose;
I suppose he knew that his position was secure, and thought his dirt and
nakedness proved his holiness enough. Omar then recited the Fathah
again, and we rose and gave the servants a few foddahs--the saint takes
no notice of this part of the proceeding--but he asked me to send him
twice my hand full of rice for his dinner, an honour so great that there
was a murmur of congratulation through the whole assembly. I asked Omar
how a man could be a saint who neglected all the duties of a Muslim, and
I found that he fully believed that Sheykh Seleem could be in two places
at once, that while he sits there on the shore he is also at Mecca,
performing every sacred function and dressed all in green. 'Many people
have seen him there, ma'am, quite true.'
From Bellianeh we rode on pack-donkeys without bridles to Abydos, six
miles through the most beautiful crops ever seen. The absence of weeds
and blight is wonderful, and the green of Egypt, where it is green, would
make English green look black. Beautiful cattle, sheep and camels were
eating the delicious clover, while their owners camped there in reed huts
during the time the crops are growing. Such a lovely scene, all
sweetness and plenty. We ate our bread and dates in Osiris' temple, and
a woman offered us buffalo milk on our way home, which we drank warm out
of the huge earthen pan it had been milked in. At Girgeh I found my
former friend Mishregi absent, but his servants told some of his friends
of my arrival, and about seven or eight big black turbans soon gathered
in the boat. A darling little Coptic boy came with his father and wanted
a '_kitaab_' (book) to write in, so I made one with paper and the cover
of my old pocket-book, and gave him a pencil. I also bethought me of
showing him 'pickys' in a book, which was so glorious a novelty that he
wanted to go with me to my town, 'Beled Ingleez,' where more such books
were to be found.
SIOUT,
_March_ 9.
I found here letters from Alick, telling me of dear Lord Lansdowne's
death. Of course I know that his time was come, but the thought that I
shall never see his face again, that all that kindness and affection is
gone out of my life, is a great blow. No friend could leave such a blank
to me as that old and faithful one, though the death of younger ones
might be more tragic; but so many things seem gone with him into the
grave. Many indeed will mourn that kind, wise, steadfast man--_Antiqua
fides_. No one nowadays will be so noble with such unconsciousness and
simplicity. I have bought two Coptic turbans to make a black dress out
of. I thought I should like to wear it for him--here, where 'compliment'
is out of the question.
I also found a letter from Janet, who has been very ill; the account was
so bad that I have telegraphed to hear how she is, and shall go at once
to Alexandria if she is not better. If she is I shall hold to my plan
and see Beni Hassan and the Pyramids on my way to Cairo. I found my kind
friend the Copt Wassef kinder than ever. He went off to telegraph to
Alexandria for me, and showed so much feeling and real kindness that I
was quite touched.
I was grieved to hear that you had been ill again, dearest Mutter. The
best is that I feel so much better that I think I may come home again
without fear; I still have an irritable cough, but it has begun to have
lucid intervals, and is far less frequent. I can walk four or five miles
and my appetite is good. All this in spite of really cold weather in a
boat where nothing shuts within two fingers' breadths. I long to be
again with my own people.
Please send this to Alick, to whom I will write again from Cairo.
March 10, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
_March_ 10, 1863.
'If in the street I led thee, dearest,
Though the veil hid thy face divine,
They who beheld thy graceful motion
Would stagger as though drunk with wine.
Nay, e'en the holy Sheykh, while praying
For guidance in the narrow way,
Must needs leave off, and on the traces
Of thine enchanting footsteps stray.
O ye who go down in the boats to Dumyat,
Cross, I beseech ye, the stream to Budallah;
Seek my beloved, and beg that she will not
Forget me, I pray and implore her by Allah.
'Fair as two moons is the face of my sweetheart,
And as to her neck and her bosom--Mashallah.
And unless to my love I am soon reunited
Death is my portion--I swear it by Allah.'
Thus sings Ali Asleemee, the most _debraille_ of my crew, a _hashshash_,
{48} but a singer and a good fellow. The translation is not free, though
the sentiments are. I merely rhymed Omar's literal word-for-word
interpretation. The songs are all in a similar strain, except one funny
one abusing the 'Sheykh el-Beled, may the fleas bite him.' Horrid
imprecation! as I know to my cost, for after visiting the Coptic monks at
Girgeh I came home to the boat with myriads. Sally said she felt like
Rameses the Great, so tremendous was the slaughter of the active enemy.
I had written the first page just as I got to Siout and was stopped by
bad news of Janet; but now all is right again, and I am to meet her in
Cairo, and she proposes a jaunt to Suez and to Damietta. I have got a
superb illumination to-night, improvised by Omar in honour of the Prince
of Wales's marriage, and consequently am writing with flaring candles, my
lantern being on duty at the masthead, and the men are singing an
epithalamium and beating the tarabookeh as loud as they can.
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.
The passage under the railway-bridge at Tantah (which is only opened once
in two days) was most exciting and pretty. Such a scramble and dash of
boats--two or three hundred at least. Old Zedan, the steersman, slid
under the noses of the big boats with my little _Cangia_ and through the
gates before they were well open, and we saw the rush and confusion
behind us at our ease, and headed the whole fleet for a few miles. Then
we stuck, and Zedan raged; but we got off in an hour and again overtook
and passed all. And then we saw the spectacle of devastation--whole
villages gone, submerged and melted, mud to mud, and the people with
their animals encamped on spits of sand or on the dykes in long rows of
ragged makeshift tents, while we sailed over where they had lived.
Cotton rotting in all directions and the dry tops crackling under the
bows of the boat. When we stopped to buy milk, the poor woman exclaimed:
'Milk! from where? Do you want it out of my breasts?' However, she took
our saucepan and went to get some from another family. No one refuses it
if they have a drop left, for they all believe the murrain to be a
punishment for churlishness to strangers--by whom committed no one can
say. Nor would they fix a price, or take more than the old rate. But
here everything has doubled in price.
Never did a present give such pleasure as Mme. De Leo's bracelet. De Leo
came quite overflowing with gratitude at my having remembered such a
trifle as his attending me and coming three times a day! He thinks me
looking better, and advises me to stay on here till I feel it cold. Mr.
Thayer's underling has been doing Levantine rogueries, selling the
American protege's claims to the Egyptian Government, and I witnessed a
curious phase of Eastern life. Omar, when he found him in _my_ house,
went and ordered him out. I was ill in bed, and knew nothing till it was
done, and when I asked Omar how he came to do it, he told me to be civil
to him if I saw him as it was not for me to know what he was; that was
his (Omar's) business. At the same time Mr. Thayer's servant sent him a
telegram so insolent that it amounted to a kicking. Such is the Nemesis
for being a rogue here. The servants know you, and let you feel it. I
was quite 'flabbergasted' at Omar, who is so reverential to me and to the
Rosses, and who I fancied trembled before every European, taking such a
tone to a man in the position of a 'gentleman.' It is a fresh proof of
the feeling of actual equality among men that lies at the bottom of such
great inequality of position. Hekekian Bey has seen a Turkish Pasha's
shins kicked by his own servants, who were cognizant of his misdeeds.
Finally, on Thursday we got the keys of the house, and Omar came with two
_ferashes_ and shovelled out the Levantine dirt, and scoured and
scrubbed; and on Friday afternoon (yesterday) we came in. Zeyneb has
been very good ever since she has been with us, she will soon be a
complete 'dragowoman,' for she is learning Arabic from Omar and English
from us fast. In Janet's house she only heard a sort of 'lingua franca'
of Greek, Italian, Nubian and English. She asked me 'How piccolo bint?'
(How's the little girl?) a fine specimen of Alexandrian. Ross is here,
and will dine with me to-night before starting by an express train which
Ismail Pasha gives him.
On Thursday evening I rode to the Abbassieh, and met all the schoolboys
going home for their Friday. Such a pretty sight! The little Turks on
grand horses with velvet trappings and two or three sais running before
them, and the Arab boys fetched--some by proud fathers on handsome
donkeys, some by trusty servants on foot, some by poor mothers astride on
shabby donkeys and taking up their darlings before them, some two and
three on one donkey, and crowds on foot. Such a number of lovely
faces--all dressed in white European-cut clothes and red tarbooshes.
Last night we had a wedding opposite. A pretty boy, about Maurice's
size, or rather less, with a friend of his own size, dressed like him in
a scarlet robe and turban, on each side, and surrounded by men carrying
tapers and singing songs, and preceded by cressets flaring. He stepped
along like Agag, very slowly and mincingly, and looked very shy and
pretty. My poor Hassan (donkey-driver) is ill--I fear very ill. His
father came with the donkey for me, and kept drawing his sleeve over his
eyes and sighing so heavily. '_Yah Hassan meskeen_! _yah Hassan ibn_!'
(Oh poor Hassan! oh Hassan my son!); and then, in a resigned tone,
'_Allah kereem_' (God is merciful). I will go and see him this morning,
and have a doctor to him 'by force,' as Omar says, if he is very bad.
There is something heart-rending in the patient, helpless suffering of
these people.
_Sunday_.--Abu Hassan reported his son so much better that I did not go
after him, having several things to do, and Omar being deep in cooking a
_festin de Balthazar_ because Ross was to dine with me. The weather is
delicious--much what we had at Bournemouth in summer--but there is a
great deal of sickness, and I fear there will be more, from people
burying dead cattle on their premises inside the town. It costs 100
_gersh_ to bury one outside the town. All labour is rendered scarce,
too, as well as food dear, and the streets are not cleaned and water hard
to get. My _sakka_ comes very irregularly, and makes quite a favour of
supplying us with water. All this must tell heavily on the poor.
Hekekian's wife had seventy head of cattle on her farm--one wretched
bullock is left; and, of seven to water the house in Cairo, also one
left, and that expected to die. I wonder what ill-conditioned fellow of
a Moses is at the bottom of it. Hajjee Ali has just been here, and
offers me his tents if I like to go up to Thebes and not live in a boat,
so that I may not be dependent on getting a house there. He is engaged
by Lady Herbert of Lea, so will not go to Syria this year and has all his
tents to spare. I fancy I might be very comfortable among the tombs of
the Kings or in the valley of Assaseef with good tents. It is never cold
at all among the hills at Thebes--_au contraire_. On the sunny side of
the valley you are broiled and stunned with heat in January, and in the
shade it is heavenly. How I do wish you could come too, how you would
enjoy it! I shall rather like the change from a boat life to a Bedawee
one, with my own sheep and chickens and horse about the tent, and a small
following of ragged retainers; moreover, it will be considerably cheaper,
I think.
November 21, 1863: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
CAIRO,
_November_ 21, 1863.
DEAREST MUTTER,
I shall stay on here till it gets colder, and then go up the Nile either
in a steamer or a boat. The old father of my donkey-boy, Hassan, gave me
a fine illustration of Arab feeling towards women to-day. I asked if Abd
el-Kader was coming here, as I had heard; he did not know, and asked me
if he were not _Achul en-Benat_, a brother of girls. I prosaically said
I did not know if he had sisters. 'The Arabs, O lady, call that man a
"brother of girls" to whom God has given a clean heart to love all women
as his sisters, and strength and courage to fight for their protection.'
Omar suggested a 'thorough gentleman' as the equivalent of Abou Hassan's
title. Our European _galimatias_ about the 'smiles of the fair,' etc.,
look very mean beside 'Achul en Benat,' methinks. Moreover, they carry
it into common life. Omar was telling me of some little family
tribulations, showing that he is not a little henpecked. His wife wanted
all his money. I asked how much she had of her own, as I knew she had
property. 'Oh, ma'am! I can't speak of that, shame for me if I ask what
money she got.' A man married at Alexandria, and took home the daily
provisions for the first week; after that he neglected it for two days,
and came home with a lemon in his hand. He asked for some dinner, and
his wife placed the stool and the tray and the washing basin and napkin,
and in the tray the lemon cut in quarters. 'Well, and the dinner?'
'Dinner! you want dinner? Where from? What man are you to want women
when you don't keep them? I am going to the Cadi to be divorced from
you;' and she did. The man must provide all necessaries for his Hareem,
and if she has money or earns any she spends it in dress; if she makes
him a skullcap or a handkerchief he must pay her for her work. _Tout
n'est pas roses_ for these Eastern tyrants, not to speak of the unbridled
license of tongue allowed to women and children. Zeyneb hectors Omar and
I cannot persuade him to check her. 'How I say anything to it, that one
child?' Of course, the children are insupportable, and, I fancy, the
women little better.
A poor neighbour of mine lost his little boy yesterday, and came out in
the streets, as usual, for sympathy. He stood under my window leaning
his head against the wall, and sobbing and crying till, literally, his
tears wetted the dust. He was too grieved to tear off his turban or to
lament in form, but clasped his hands and cried, 'Yah weled, yah weled,
yah weled' (O my boy, my boy). The bean-seller opposite shut his shop,
the dyer took no notice but smoked his pipe. Some people passed on, but
many stopped and stood round the poor man, saying nothing, but looking
concerned. Two were well-dressed Copts on handsome donkeys, who
dismounted, and all waited till he went home, when about twenty men
accompanied him with a respectful air. How strange it seems to us to go
out into the street and call on the passers-by to grieve with one! I was
at the house of Hekekian Bey the other day when he received a parcel from
his former slave, now the Sultan's chief eunuch. It contained a very
fine photograph of the eunuch--whose face, though negro, is very
intelligent and of charming expression--a present of illustrated English
books, and some printed music composed by the Sultan, Abd el Aziz,
himself. _O tempera_! _O mores_! one was a waltz. The very ugliest and
scrubbiest of street dogs has adopted me--like the Irishman who wrote to
Lord Lansdowne that he had selected him as his patron--and he guards the
house and follows me in the street. He is rewarded with scraps, and
Sally cost me a new tin mug by letting the dog drink out of the old one,
which was used to scoop the water from the jars, forgetting that Omar and
Zeyneb could not drink after the poor beast.
_Monday_.--I went yesterday to the port of Cairo, Boulak, to see
Hassaneyn Effendi about boats. He was gone up the Nile, and I sat with
his wife--a very nice Turkish woman who speaks English to perfection--and
heard all sorts of curious things. I heard the whole story of an unhappy
marriage made by Leyla, my hostess's sister, and much Cairo gossip. Like
all Eastern ladies that I have seen she complains of indigestion, and
said she knew she ought to go out more and to walk, but custom _e contra
il nostro decoro_.
Mr. Thayer will be back in Egypt on December 15, so I shall embark about
that time, as he may want his house here. It is now a little fresh in
the early morning, but like fine English summer weather.
_Tuesday_.--Since I have been here my cough is nearly gone, and I am
better for having good food again. Omar manages to get good mutton, and
I have discovered that some of the Nile fish is excellent. The _abyad_,
six or eight feet long and very fat, is delicious, and I am told there
are still better; the eels are delicate and good too. Maurice might hook
an _abyad_, but how would he land him? The worst is that everything is
just double the price of last year, as, of course, no beef can be eaten
at all, and the draught oxen being dead makes labour dear as well. The
high Nile was a small misfortune compared to the murrain. There is a
legend about it, of course. A certain Sheykh el-Beled (burgomaster) of
some place--not mentioned--lost his cattle, and being rich defied God,
said he did not care, and bought as many more; they died too, and he
continued impenitent and defiant, and bought on till he was ruined, and
now he is sinking into the earth bodily, though his friends dig and dig
without ceasing night and day. It is curious how like the German legends
the Arab ones are. All those about wasting bread wantonly are almost
identical. If a bit is dirty, Omar carefully gives it to the dog; if
clean, he keeps it in a drawer for making breadcrumbs for cutlets; not a
bit must fall on the floor. In other things they are careless enough,
but _das liebe Brod_ is sacred--_vide_ Grimm's _Deutsche Sagen_. I am
constantly struck with resemblances to German customs. A Fellah wedding
is very like the German _Bauern hochzeit_ firing of guns and display of
household goods, only on a camel instead of a cart. I have been trying
to get a teacher of Arabic, but it is very hard to find one who knows any
European language, and the consular dragoman asks four dollars a lesson.
I must wait till I get to Thebes, where I think a certain young Said can
teach me. Meanwhile I am beginning to understand rather more and to
speak a very little. Please direct to me to Briggs and Co. at Cairo; if
I am gone, the letters will follow up the river.
December 1, 1863: Mrs. Ross
_To Mrs. Ross_.
CAIRO,
_December_ 1, 1863.
DEAREST JANET,
I should much like to go with Thayer if his times and seasons will suit
mine; but I cannot wait indefinitely, still less come down the river
before the end of April. But most likely the Pasha will give him a boat.
It is getting cold here and I feel my throat sore to-day. I went to see
Hassan yesterday, he is much better, but very weak and pale. It is such
a nice family--old father, mother, and sister, all well-bred and pleasing
like Hassan himself. He almost shrieked at hearing of your fall, and is
most anxious to see you when you come here. Zeyneb, after behaving very
well for three weeks, has turned quietly sullen and displays great
religious intolerance. It would seem that the Berberi men have put it
into her head that we are inferior beings, and she pretends not to be
able to eat because she thinks everything is pig. Omar's eating the food
does not convince her. As she evidently does not like us I will offer
her to Mrs. Hekekian Bey, and if she does not do there, in a household of
black Mussulman slaves, they must pass her on to a Turkish house. She is
very clever and I am sorry, but to keep a sullen face about me is more
than I can endure, as I have shown her every possible kindness. I think
she despises Omar for his affection towards me. How much easier it is to
instil the bad part of religion than the good; it is really a curious
phenomenon in so young a child. She waits capitally at table, and can do
most things, but she won't move if the fancy takes her except when
ordered, and spends her time on the terrace. One thing is that the life
is dull for a child, and I think she will be happier in a larger, more
bustling house. I don't know whether, after the fearful example of Mrs.
B., I can venture to travel up the Nile with such a _seducteur_ as our
dear Mr. Thayer. What do you think? Will gray hairs on my side and
_mutual_ bad lungs guarantee our international virtue; or will someone
ask the Pater when he means to divorce me? Would it be considered that
Yankeedoodle had 'stuck a feather in his cap' by leading a British matron
and grandmother astray?
December 2, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
CAIRO,
_December_ 2, 1863.
DEAREST ALICK,
It is beginning to be cold here, and I only await the results of my
inquiries about possible houses at Thebes to hire a boat and depart.
Yesterday I saw a camel go through the eye of a needle--_i.e._, the low
arched door of an enclosure; he must kneel and bow his head to creep
through--and thus the rich man must humble himself. See how a false
translation spoils a good metaphor, and turns a familiar simile into a
ferociously communist sentiment. I expect Henry and Janet here in four
or five days when her ancle allows her to travel. If I get a house at
Thebes, I will only hire a boat up and dismiss it, and trust to Allah for
my return. There are rumours of troubles at Jeddah, and a sort of
expectation of fighting somewhere next spring; even here people are
buying arms to a great extent, I think the gunsmiths' bazaar looks
unusually lively. I do look forward to next November and your coming
here; I know you would donkey-ride all day in a state of ecstasy. I
never saw so good a servant as Omar and such a nice creature, so pleasant
and good. When I hear and see what other people spend here in travelling
and in living, and what bother they have, I say: 'May God favour Omar and
his descendants.'
I stayed in bed yesterday for a cold, and my next-door neighbour, a
Coptic merchant, kept me awake all night by auditing his accounts with
his clerk. How would you like to chant your rows of figures? He had
just bought lots of cotton, and I had to get into my door on Monday over
a camel's back, the street being filled with bales.
* * * * *
[The house at Thebes of which my mother speaks in the following letter
was built about 1815, over the ancient temple of Khem, by Mr. Salt,
English Consul-General in Egypt. He was an archaeologist and a student
of hieroglyphics, and when Belzoni landed at Alexandria was struck by his
ability, and sent him up to Thebes to superintend the removal of the
great bust of Memnon, now in the British Museum. Belzoni, I believe,
lived for some time in Mr. Salt's house, which afterwards became the
property of the French Government, and was known as the _Maison de
France_; it was pulled down in 1884 when the great temple of Luxor was
excavated by M. Maspero. My late friend Miss A. B. Edwards wrote a
description of his work in the _Illustrated London News_, from which I
give a few extracts:
'Squatters settled upon the temple like a swarm of mason bees; and
the extent of the mischief they perpetrated in the course of
centuries may be gathered from the fact that they raised the level of
the surrounding soil to such a height that the obelisks, the colossi,
and the entrance pylon were buried to a depth of 40 feet, while
inside the building the level of the native village was 50 feet above
the original pavement. Seven months ago the first court contained
not only the local mosque, but a labyrinthine maze of mud structures,
numbering some thirty dwellings, and eighty strawsheds, besides
yards, stables, and pigeon-towers, the whole being intersected by
innumerable lanes and passages. Two large mansions--real mansions,
spacious and, in Arab fashion, luxurious,--blocked the great
Colonnade of Horembebi; while the second court, and all the open
spaces and ruined parts of the upper end of the Temple, were
encumbered by sheepfolds, goat-yards, poultry-yards, donkey-sheds,
clusters of mud huts, refuse-heaps, and piles of broken pottery.
Upon the roof of the portico there stood a large, rambling, ruinous
old house, the property of the French Government, and known as the
"Maison de France" . . . Within its walls the illustrious
Champollion and his ally Rosellini lived and worked together in 1829,
during part of their long sojourn at Thebes. Here the naval officers
sent out by the French in 1831 to remove the obelisk which now stands
in the Place de la Concorde took up their temporary quarters. And
here, most interesting to English readers, Lady Duff Gordon lingered
through some of her last winters, and wrote most of her delightful
"Letters from Egypt." A little balcony with a broken veranda and a
bit of lattice-work parapet, juts out above some mud walls at the end
of the building. Upon that balcony she was wont to sit in the cool
of the evening, watching the boats upon the river and the magical
effect of the after-glow upon the Libyan mountains opposite. All
these buildings--"Maison de France," stores, yards, etc. . . . are
all swept away.']
December 17, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
CAIRO,
_December_ 17, 1863.
DEAREST ALICK,
At last I hope I shall get off in a few days. I have had one delay and
bother after another, chiefly caused by relying on the fine speeches of
Mr. D. On applying straight to the French Consulate at Alexandria, Janet
got me the loan of the _Maison de France_ at Thebes at once. M. Mounier,
the agent to Halim Pasha, is going up to Esneh, and will let me travel in
the steamer which is to tow his dahabieh. It will be dirty, but will
cost little and take me out of this dreadful cold weather in five or six
days.
_December_ 22.--I wrote the above five days ago, since when I have had to
turn out of Thayer's house, as his new Vice-Consul wanted it, and am back
at Briggs'. M. Mounier is waiting in frantic impatience to set off, and
I ditto; but Ismail Pasha keeps him from day to day. The worry of
depending on anyone in the East is beyond belief. Tell your mother that
Lady Herbert is gone up the river; her son was much the better for Cairo.
I saw Pietro, her courier, who is stupendously grand, he offered Omar 8
pounds a month to go with them; you may imagine how Pietro despised his
heathenish ignorance in preferring to stay with me for 3 pounds. It
quite confirmed him in his contempt for the Arabs.
You would have laughed to hear me buying a carpet. I saw an old broker
with one on his shoulder in the bazaar, and asked the price, 'eight
napoleons'--then it was unfolded and spread in the street, to the great
inconvenience of passers-by, just in front of a coffee-shop. I look at
it superciliously, and say, 'Three hundred piastres, O uncle,' the poor
old broker cries out in despair to the men sitting outside the
coffee-shop: 'O Muslims, hear that and look at this excellent carpet.
Three hundred piastres! By the faith, it is worth two thousand!' But
the men take my part and one mildly says: 'I wonder that an old man as
thou art should tell us that this lady, who is a traveller and a person
of experience, values it at three hundred--thinkest thou we will give
thee more?' Then another suggests that if the lady will consent to give
four napoleons, he had better take them, and that settles it. Everybody
gives an opinion here, and the price is fixed by a sort of improvised
jury.
_Christmas Day_.--At last my departure is fixed. I embark to-morrow
afternoon at Boulak, and we sail--or steam, rather--on Sunday morning
early, and expect to reach Thebes in eight days. I heard a curious
illustration of Arab manners to-day. I met Hassan, the janissary of the
American Consulate, a very respectable, good man. He told me he had
married another wife since last year--I asked what for. It was the widow
of his brother who had always lived with him in the same house, and who
died leaving two boys. She is neither young nor handsome, but he
considered it his duty to provide for her and the children, and not to
let her marry a stranger. So you see that polygamy is not always sensual
indulgence, and a man may practise greater self-sacrifice so than by
talking sentiment about deceased wives' sisters. Hassan has 3 pounds a
month, and two wives come expensive. I said, laughing, to Omar as we
left him, that I did not think the two wives sounded very comfortable.
'Oh no! not comfortable at all for the man, but he take care of the
women, that's what is proper--that is the good Mussulman.'
I shall have the company of a Turkish Effendi on my voyage--a
Commissioner of Inland Revenue, in fact, going to look after the
tax-gatherers in the Saeed. I wonder whether he will be civil. Sally is
gone with some English servants out to the Virgin's tree, the great
picnic frolic of Cairene Christians, and, indeed, of Muslimeen also at
some seasons. Omar is gone to a _Khatmeh_--a reading of the Koran--at
Hassan the donkey-boy's house. I was asked, but am afraid of the night
air. A good deal of religious celebration goes on now, the middle of the
month of Regeb, six weeks before Ramadan. I rather dread Ramadan as Omar
is sure to be faint and ill, and everybody else cross during the first
five days or so; then their stomachs get into training. The new
passenger-steamers have been promised ever since the 6th, and will not
now go till after the races--6th or 7th of next month. Fancy the Cairo
races! It is growing dreadfully Cockney here, I must go to Timbuctoo:
and we are to have a railway to Mecca, and take return tickets for the
_Haj_ from all parts of the world.
December 27, 1863: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
BOULAK, ON BOARD A RIVER STEAM-BOAT,
_December_ 27, 1863.
DEAREST MUTTER,
After infinite delays and worries, we are at last on board, and shall
sail to-morrow morning. After all was comfortably settled, Ismail Pasha
sent for _all_ the steamers up to Rhoda, near Minieh, and at the same
time ordered a Turkish General to come up instantly somehow. So Latif
Pasha, the head of the steamers, had to turn me out of the best cabin,
and if I had not come myself, and taken rather forcible possession of the
forecastle cabin, the servants of the Turkish General would not have
allowed Omar to embark the baggage. He had been waiting all the morning
in despair on the bank; but at four I arrived, and ordered the _hammals_
to carry the goods into the forecabin, and walked on board myself, where
the Arab captain pantomimically placed me in his right eye and on the top
of his head. Once installed, this has become a hareem, and I may defy
the Turkish Effendi with success. I have got a good-sized cabin with
good, clean divans round three sides for Sally and myself. Omar will
sleep on deck and cook where he can. A poor Turkish lady is to inhabit a
sort of dusthole by the side of my cabin; if she seems decent, I will
entertain her hospitably. There is no furniture of any sort but the
divan, and we cook our own food, bring our own candles, jugs, basins,
beds and everything. If Sally and I were not such complete Arabs we
should think it very miserable; but as things stand this year we say,
_Alhamdulillah_ it is no worse! Luckily it is a very warm night, so we
can make our arrangements unchilled. There is no door to the cabin, so
we nail up an old plaid, and, as no one ever looks into a hareem, it is
quite enough. All on board are Arabs--captain, engineer, and men. An
English Sitt is a novelty, and the captain is unhappy that things are not
_alla Franca_ for me. We are to tow three dahabiehs--M. Mounier's, one
belonging to the envoy from the Sultan of Darfour, and another. Three
steamers were to have done it, but the Pasha had a fancy for all the
boats, and so our poor little craft must do her best. Only fancy the
Queen ordering all the river steamers up to Windsor!
At Minieh the Turkish General leaves us, and we shall have the boat to
ourselves, so the captain has just been down to tell me. I should like
to go with the gentlemen from Darfor, as you may suppose. See what
strange combinations of people float on old Nile. Two Englishwomen, one
French (Mme. Mounier), one Frenchman, Turks, Arabs, Negroes, Circassians,
and men from Darfor, all in one party; perhaps the third boat contains
some other strange element. The Turks are from Constantinople and can't
speak Arabic, and make faces at the muddy river water, which, indeed, I
would rather have filtered.
I hope to have letters from home to-morrow morning. Hassan, my faithful
donkey-boy, will go to the post as soon as it is open and bring them down
to Boulak. Darling Rainie sent me a card with a cock robin for
Christmas; how terribly I miss her dear little face and talk! I am
pretty well now; I only feel rather weaker than before and more easily
tired. I send you a kind letter of Mme. Tastu's, who got her son to lend
me the house at Thebes.
January 3, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
ON BOARD THE STEAMER, NEAR SIOUT,
_Sunday_, _January_ 3, 1864.
DEAREST ALICK,
We left Cairo last Sunday morning, and a wonderfully queer company we
were. I had been promised all the steamer to myself, but owing to Ismail
Pasha's caprices our little steamer had to do the work of three--_i.e._,
to carry passengers, to tow M. Mounier's dahabieh, and to tow the oldest,
dirtiest, queerest Nubian boat, in which the young son of the Sultan of
Darfoor and the Sultan's envoy, a handsome black of Dongola (not a
negro), had visited Ismail Pasha. The best cabin was taken by a sulky
old one-eyed Turkish Pasha, so I had the fore-cabin, luckily a large one,
where I slept with Sally on one divan and I on the other, and Omar at my
feet. He tried sleeping on deck, but the Pasha's Arnouts were too bad
company, and the captain begged me to 'cover my face' and let my servant
sleep at my feet. Besides, there was a poor old asthmatic Turkish
Effendi going to collect the taxes, and a lot of women in the
engine-room, and children also. It would have been insupportable but for
the hearty politeness of the Arab captain, a regular 'old salt,' and
owing to his attention and care it was only very amusing.
At Benisouef, the first town above Cairo (seventy miles), we found no
coals: the Pasha had been up and taken them all. So we kicked our heels
on the bank all day, with the prospect of doing so for a week. The
captain brought H.R.H. of Darfoor to visit me, and to beg me to make him
hear reason about the delay, as I, being English, must know that a
steamer could not go without coals. H.R.H. was a pretty imperious little
nigger about eleven or twelve, dressed in a yellow silk kuftan and a
scarlet burnous, who cut the good old captain short by saying, 'Why, she
is a woman; she can't talk to me.' 'Wallah! wallah! what a way to talk
to English Hareem!' shrieked the captain, who was about to lose his
temper; but I had a happy idea and produced a box of French sweetmeats,
which altered the young Prince's views at once. I asked if he had
brothers. 'Who can count them? they are like mice.' He said that the
Pasha had given him only a few presents, and was evidently not pleased.
Some of his suite are the most formidable-looking wild beasts in human
shape I ever beheld--bulldogs and wild-boars black as ink, red-eyed, and,
ye gods! such jowls and throats and teeth!--others like monkeys, with
arms down to their knees.
The Illyrian Arnouts on board our boat are revoltingly white--like fish
or drowned people, no pink in the tallowy skin at all. There were Greeks
also who left us at Minieh (second large town), and the old Pasha left
this morning at Rodah. The captain at once ordered all my goods into the
cabin he had left and turned out the Turkish Effendi, who wanted to stay
and sleep with us. No impropriety! he said he was an old man and sick,
and my company would be agreeable to him; then he said he was ashamed
before the people to be turned out by an English woman. So I was civil
and begged him to pass the day and to dine with me, and that set all
right, and now after dinner he has gone off quite pleasantly to the
fore-cabin and left me here. I have a stern-cabin, a saloon and an
anteroom here, so we are comfortable enough--only the fleas! Never till
now did I know what fleas could be; even Omar groaned and tossed in his
sleep, and Sally and I woke every ten minutes. Perhaps this cabin may be
better, some fleas may have landed in the beds of the Turks. I send a
dish from my table every day henceforth to the captain; as I take the
place of a Pasha it is part of my dignity to do so; and as I occupy the
kitchen and burn the ship's coals, I may as well let the captain dine a
little at my expense. In the day I go up and sit in his cabin on deck,
and we talk as well as we can without an interpreter. The old fellow is
sixty-seven, but does not look more than forty-five. He has just the air
and manner of a seafaring-man with us, and has been wrecked four
times--the last in the Black Sea during the Crimean War, when he was
taken prisoner by the Russians and sent to Moscow for three years, until
the peace. He has a charming boy of eleven with him, and he tells me he
has twelve children in all, but only one wife, and is as strict a
monogamist as Dr. Primrose, for he told me he should not marry again if
she died, nor he believed would she. He is surprised at my gray hair.
There are a good many Copts on board too, of a rather low class and not
pleasant. The Christian gentlemen are very pleasant, but the low are
_low_ indeed compared to the Muslimeen, and one gets a feeling of
dirtiness about them to see them eat all among the coals, and then squat
there and pull out their beads to pray without washing their hands even.
It does look nasty when compared to the Muslim coming up clean washed,
and standing erect and manly--looking to his prayers; besides they are
coarse in their manners and conversation and have not the Arab respect
for women. I only speak of the common people--not of educated Copts.
The best fun was to hear the Greeks (one of whom spoke English) abusing
the Copts--rogues, heretics, schismatics from the Greek Church, ignorant,
rapacious, cunning, impudent, etc., etc. In short, they narrated the
whole fable about their own sweet selves. I am quite surprised to see
how well these men manage their work. The boat is quite as clean as an
English boat as crowded could be kept, and the engine in beautiful order.
The head-engineer, Achmet Effendi, and indeed all the crew and captain
too, wear English clothes and use the universal 'All right, stop
her--fooreh (full) speed, half speed--turn her head,' etc. I was
delighted to hear 'All right--go ahead--_el-Fathah_' in one breath. Here
we always say the _Fathah_ (first chapter of the Koran, nearly identical
with the Lord's Prayer) when starting on a journey, concluding a bargain,
etc. The combination was very quaint. There are rats and fleas on
board, but neither bugs nor cockroaches. Already the climate has
changed, the air is sensibly drier and clearer and the weather much
warmer, and we are not yet at Siout. I remarked last year that the
climate changed most at Keneh, forty miles below Thebes. The banks are
terribly broken and washed away by the inundation, and the Nile far
higher even now than it was six weeks earlier last year.
At Benisouef, which used to be the great cattle place, not a buffalo was
left, and we could not get a drop of milk. But since we left Minieh we
see them again, and I hear the disease is not spreading up the river.
Omar told me that the poor people at Benisouef were complaining of the
drought and prospect of scarcity, as they could no longer water the land
for want of oxen. I paid ten napoleons passage-money, and shall give
four or five more as backsheesh, as I have given a good deal of trouble
with all my luggage, beddings, furniture, provisions for four months,
etc., and the boat's people have been more than civil, really kind and
attentive to us; but a bad dahabieh would have cost forty, so I am
greatly the gainer. Nothing can exceed the muddle, uncertainty and
carelessness of the 'administration' at Cairo: no coals at the depots,
boats announced to sail and dawdling on three weeks, no order and no care
for anybody's convenience but the Pasha's own. But the subordinates on
board the boats do their work perfectly well. We go only half as quickly
as we ought because we have two very heavy dahabiehs in tow instead of
one; but no time is lost, as long as the light lasts we go, and start
again as soon as the moon rises. The people on board have promoted me in
rank--and call me 'el-Ameereh,' an obsolete Arab title which the engineer
thinks is the equivalent of 'Ladysheep,' as he calls it. 'Sitti,' he
said, was the same as 'Meessees.' I don't know how he acquired his ideas
on the subject of English precedence.
Omar has just come in with coffee, and begs me to give his best salaam to
his big master and his little master and lady, and not to forget to tell
them he is their servant and my memlook (slave) 'from one hand to the
other' (the whole body). If we stay at all at Siout, I will ride a
donkey up to Wassef's house, and leave this letter for him to send down
with his next opportunity to Cairo. At Keneh we must try to find time to
buy two filters and some gullehs (water-coolers); they are made there.
At Thebes nothing can be got.
How I do wish you were here to enjoy all the new and strange sights! I
am sure it would amuse you, and as the fleas don't bite you there would
be no drawback. Janet sent me a photo of dear little Rainie; it is ugly,
but very like the 'zuweyeh' (little one). Give her no end of kisses, and
thank her for the cock robin, which pleased me quite as much as she
thought it would.
January 5, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
_Tuesday_, _January_ 5, 1864.
We left Siout this afternoon. The captain had announced that we should
start at ten o'clock, so I did not go into the town, but sent Omar to buy
food and give my letter and best salaam to Wassef. But the men of
Darfoor all went off declaring that they would stop, promising to cut off
the captain's head if he went without them. Hassan Effendi, the Turk,
was furious, and threatened to telegraph his complaints to Cairo if we
did not go directly, and the poor captain was in a sad quandary. He
appealed to me, peaceably sitting on the trunk of a palm-tree with some
poor _fellaheen_ (of whom more anon). I uttered the longest sentence I
could compose in Arabic, to the effect that he was captain, and that
while on the boat we were all bound to obey him. '_Mashallah_! one
English Hareem is worth more than ten men for sense; these Ingeleez have
only one word both for themselves and for other people:
_doghree_--_doghree_ (right is right); this Ameereh is ready to obey like
a memlook, and when she has to command--whew!'--with a most expressive
toss back of the head. The bank was crowded with poor _fellaheen_ who
had been taken for soldiers and sent to await the Pasha's arrival at
Girgeh; three weeks they lay there, and were then sent down to Soohaj
(the Pasha wanted to see them himself and pick out the men he liked);
eight days more at Soohaj, then to Siout eight days more, and meanwhile
Ismail Pasha has gone back to Cairo and the poor souls may wait
indefinitely, for no one will venture to remind the Pasha of their
trifling existence. _Wallah_, _wallah_!
While I was walking on the bank with M. and Mme. Mounier, a person came
up and saluted them whose appearance puzzled me. Don't call me a Persian
when I tell you it was an eccentric Bedawee young lady. She was eighteen
or twenty at most, dressed like a young man, but small and feminine and
rather pretty, except that one eye was blind. Her dress was handsome,
and she had women's jewels, diamonds, etc., and a European watch and
chain. Her manner was excellent, quite _ungenirt_, and not the least
impudent or swaggering, and I was told--indeed, I could hear--that her
language was beautiful, a thing much esteemed among Arabs. She is a
virgin and fond of travelling and of men's society, being very clever, so
she has her dromedary and goes about quite alone. No one seemed
surprised, no one stared, and when I asked if it was _proper_, our
captain was surprised. 'Why not? if she does not wish to marry, she can
go alone; if she does, she can marry--what harm? She is a virgin and
free.' She went to breakfast with the Mouniers on their boat (Mme. M. is
Egyptian born, and both speak Arabic perfectly), and the young lady had
many things to ask them, she said. She expressed her opinions pretty
freely as far as I could understand her. Mme. Mounier had heard of her
before, and said she was much respected and admired. M. Mounier had
heard that she was a spy of the Pasha's, but the people on board the boat
here say that the truth was that she went before Said Pasha herself to
complain of some tyrannical Moodir who ground and imprisoned the
_fellaheen_--a bold thing for a girl to do. To me she seems, anyhow, far
the most curious thing I have yet seen.
The weather is already much warmer, it is nine in the evening, we are
steaming along and I sit with the cabin window open. My cough is, of
course, a great deal better. _Inshallah_! Above Keneh (about another
150 miles) it will go away. To-day, for the first time, I pulled my
cloak over my head in the sun, it was so stinging hot--quite delicious,
and it is the 5th of January. _Poveri voi_ in the cold! Our captain was
prisoner for three years at Moscow and at Bakshi Serai, and declares he
never saw the sun at all--hard lines for an Egyptian. Do you remember
the cigarettes you bought for me at Eaux Bonnes? Well, I gave them to
the old Turkish Effendi, who is dreadfully asthmatic, and he is
enchanted; of course five other people came to be cured directly. The
rhubarb pills are a real comfort to travellers, for they can't do much
harm, and inspire great confidence.
Luckily we left all the fleas behind in the fore-cabin, for the benefit
of the poor old Turk, who, I hear, suffers severely. The divans were all
brand-new, and the fleas came in the cotton stuffing, for there are no
live things of any sort in the rest of the boat.
GIRGEH,
_January_ 9, 1864.
We have put in here for the night. To-day we took on board three
convicts in chains, two bound for Fazogloo, one for calumny and perjury,
and one for manslaughter. Hard labour for life in that climate will soon
dispose of them. The third is a petty thief from Keneh who has been a
year in chains in the Custom-house of Alexandria, and is now being taken
back to be shown in his own place in his chains. The _causes celebres_
of this country would be curious reading; they do their crimes so
differently to us. If I can get hold of anyone who can relate a few
cases well, I'll write them down. Omar has told me a few, but he may not
know the details quite exactly.
I made further inquiries about the Bedawee lady, who is older than she
looks, for she has travelled constantly for ten years. She is rich and
much respected, and received in all the best houses, where she sits with
the men all day and sleeps in the hareem. She has been in the interior
of Africa and to Mecca, speaks Turkish, and M. Mounier says he found her
extremely agreeable, full of interesting information about all the
countries she had visited. As soon as I can talk I must try and find her
out; she likes the company of Europeans.
Here is a contribution to folk-lore, new even to Lane I think. When the
coffee-seller lights his stove in the morning, he makes two cups of
coffee of the best and nicely sugared, and pours them out all over the
stove, saying, 'God bless or favour Sheykh Shadhilee and his
descendants.' The blessing on the saint who invented coffee of course I
knew, and often utter, but the libation is new to me. You see the
ancient religion crops up even through the severe faith of Islam. If I
could describe all the details of an Arab, and still more of a Coptic,
wedding, you would think I was relating the mysteries of Isis. At one
house I saw the bride's father looking pale and anxious, and Omar said,
'I think he wants to hold his stomach with both hands till the women tell
him if his daughter makes his face white.' It was such a good phrase for
the sinking at heart of anxiety. It certainly seems more reasonable that
a woman's misconduct should blacken her father's face than her husband's.
There are a good many things about hareem here which I am barbarian
enough to think extremely good and rational. An old Turk of Cairo, who
had been in Europe, was talking to an Englishman a short time ago, who
politely chaffed him about Mussulman license. The venerable Muslim
replied, 'Pray, how many women have you, who are quite young, seen (that
is the Eastern phrase) in your whole life?' The Englishman could not
count--of course not. 'Well, young man, I am old, and was married at
twelve, and I have seen in all my life seven women; four are dead, and
three are happy and comfortable in my house. _Where are all yours_?'
Hassaneyn Effendi heard the conversation, which passed in French, and was
amused at the question.
I find that the criminal convicted of calumny accused, together with
twenty-nine others not in custody, the Sheykh-el-Beled of his place of
murdering his servant, and produced a basket full of bones as proof, but
the Sheykh-el-Beled produced the living man, and his detractor gets hard
labour for life. The proceeding is characteristic of the childish
_ruses_ of this country. I inquired whether the thief who was dragged in
chains through the streets would be able to find work, and was told, 'Oh,
certainly; is he not a poor man? For the sake of God everyone will be
ready to help him.' An absolute uncertainty of justice naturally leads
to this result. Our captain was quite shocked to hear that in my country
we did not like to employ a returned convict.
LUXOR,
_January_ 13, 1864.
We spent all the afternoon of Saturday at Keneh, where I dined with the
English Consul, a worthy old Arab, who also invited our captain, and we
all sat round his copper tray on the floor and ate with our fingers, the
captain, who sat next me, picking out the best bits and feeding me and
Sally with them. After dinner the French Consul, a Copt, one Jesus
Buktor, sent to invite me to a fantasia at his house, where I found the
Mouniers, the Moudir, and some other Turks, and a disagreeable Italian,
who stared at me as if I had been young and pretty, and put Omar into a
great fury. I was glad to see the dancing-girls, but I liked old Seyyid
Achmet's patriarchal ways much better than the tone of the Frenchified
Copt. At first I thought the dancing queer and dull. One girl was very
handsome, but cold and uninteresting; one who sang was also very pretty
and engaging, and a dear little thing. But the dancing was contortions,
more or less graceful, _very_ wonderful as gymnastic feats, and no more.
But the captain called out to one Latifeh, an ugly, clumsy-looking wench,
to show the Sitt what she could do. And then it was revealed to me. The
ugly girl started on her feet and became the 'serpent of old Nile,'--the
head, shoulders and arms eagerly bent forward, waist in, and haunches
advanced on the bent knees--the posture of a cobra about to spring. I
could not call it _voluptuous_ any more than Racine's _Phedre_. It is
_Venus toute entiere a sa proie attachee_, and to me seemed tragic. It
is far more realistic than the 'fandango,' and far less coquettish,
because the thing represented is _au grande serieux_, not travestied,
_
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