Letters from Egypt Part 21

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

_Tuesday_, _March_ 6, 1866.

DEAREST ALICK,

I write to be ready for the last _down_ steamer which will be here in a few days. Mr. and Miss North are here working hard at sketching, and M.

Brune will take a place in their Dahabieh (my old Zint el Bahreyn), and leave me in six or seven days. I shall quite grieve to lose his company.

If ever you or yours fall in with him, pray cultivate his acquaintance, he is very clever, very hard working, and a 'thorough-bred gentleman' as Omar declares. We are quite low-spirited at parting after a month spent together at Thebes.

I hear that Olagnier has a big house in Old Cairo and will lodge me. The Norths go to-day (Thursday) and M. Brune does not go with them as he intended, but will stay on and finish a good stroke of work and take his chance of a conveyance.

I spent yesterday out in Mustapha's tent among the bean gatherers, and will go again. I think it does me good and is not too long a ride. The weather has set in suddenly very hot, which rather tries everybody, but gloriously fine clear air. I hope you will get this, as old fat Ha.s.san will take it to the office in Cairo himself-for the post is very insecure indeed. I have written very often, if you don't get my letters I suppose they interest the court of Pharaoh.

March 17, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

THEBES, _March_ 17, 1866.

DEAREST ALICK,

The high winds have begun with a vengeance and a great bore they are.

I went a few days ago out to Medarnoot, and lunched in Mustapha's tent, among his bean harvest. I was immensely amused by the man who went with me on to Medarnoot, one Sheriff, formerly an ill.u.s.trious robber, now a watchman and very honest man. He rode a donkey, about the size of Stirling's wee pony, and I laughed, and said, 'The man should carry the a.s.s.' No sooner said than done, Sheriff dismounted, or rather let his beast down from between his legs, shouldered the donkey, and ran on. His way of keeping awake is original; the nights are still cold, so he takes off all his clothes, rolls them up and lays them under his head, and the cold keeps him quite lively. I never saw so powerful, active and healthy an animal. He was full of stories how he had had 1,000 stripes of the courbash on his feet and 500 on his loins at one go. 'Why?' I asked.

'Why, I stuck a knife into a cawa.s.s who ordered me to carry water-melons; I said I was not his donkey; he called me worse: my blood got up, and so!-and the Pasha to whom the cawa.s.s belonged beat me. Oh, it was all right, and I did not say "ach" once, did I?' (addressing another). He clearly bore no malice, as he felt no shame. He has a grand romance about a city two days' journey from here, in the desert, which no one finds but by chance, after losing his way; and where the ground is strewed with valuable _anteekehs_ (antiquities). I laughed, and said, 'Your father would have seen gold and jewels.' 'True,' said he, 'when I was young, men spit on a statue or the like, when they turned it up in digging, and now it is a fortune to find one.'

March 31, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

_March_ 31, 1866.

DEAREST ALICK,

As for me I am much better again; the cough has subsided, I really think the Arab specific, camel's milk, has done me great good. I have mended ever since I took it. It has the merit of being quite delicious.

Yesterday I was much amused when I went for my afternoon's drink, to find Sheriff in a great taking at having been robbed by a woman, under his very nose. He saw her gathering hummuz from a field under his charge, and went to order her off, whereupon she coolly dropped the end of her _boordeh_ which covered the head and shoulders, effectually preventing him from going near her; made up her bundle and walked off. His respect for the Hareem did not, however, induce him to refrain from strong language.

M. Brune has made very pretty drawings of the mosque here, both outside and in; it is a very good specimen of modern Arab architecture; and he won't believe it could be built without ground plan, elevations, etc., which amuses the people here, who build without any such inventions.

The harvest here is splendid this year, such beans and wheat, and prices have fallen considerably in both: but meat, b.u.t.ter, etc., remain very dear. My fame as a Hakeemeh has become far too great, and on market-days I have to shut up shop. Yesterday a very handsome woman came for medicine to make her beautiful, as her husband had married another who teazed her, and he rather neglected her. And a man offered me a camel load of wheat if I would read something over him and his wife to make them have children. I don't try to explain to them how very irrational they are but use the more intelligible argument that all such practices savour of the _Ebu er Rukkeh_ (equivalent to black art), and are _haram_ to the greatest extent; besides, I add, being 'all lies' into the bargain. The applicants for child-making and charm-reading are Copts or Muslims, quite in equal numbers, and appear alike indifferent as to what 'Book': but all but one have been women; the men are generally perfectly rational about medicine and diet.

I find there is a good deal of discontent among the Copts with regard to their priests and many of their old customs. Several young men have let out to me at a great rate about the folly of their fasts, and the badness and ignorance of their priests. I believe many turn Muslim from a real conviction that it is a better religion than their own, and not as I at first thought merely from interest; indeed, they seldom gain much by it, and often suffer tremendous persecution from their families; even they do not escape the rationalizing tendencies now abroad in Christendom. Then their early and indissoluble marriages are felt to be a hardship: a boy is married at eight years old, perhaps to his cousin aged seventeen (I know one here in that case), and when he grows up he wishes it had been let alone. A clever lad of seventeen propounded to me his dissatisfaction, and seemed to lean to Islam. I gave him an Arabic New Testament, and told him to read that first, and judge for himself whether he could not still conform to the Church of his own people, and inwardly believe and try to follow the Gospels. I told him it was what most Christians had to do, as every man could not make a sect for himself, while few could believe everything in any Church. I suppose I ought to have offered him the Thirty-nine Articles, and thus have made a Muslim of him out of hand. He pushed me a little hard about several matters, which he says he does not find in 'the Book': but on the whole he is well satisfied with my advice.

_Coptic Palm Sunday_, _April_ 1.

We hear that Fadil Pasha received orders at a.s.souan to go up to Khartoum in Giaffar Pasha's place: it is a civil way of killing a fat old Turk, if it is true. He was here a week or two ago. My informant is one of my old crew who was in Fadil Pasha's boat.

I shall wait to get a woman-servant till I go to Cairo, the women here cannot iron or sew; so, meanwhile, the wife of Abd el-Kader, does my washing, and Omar irons; and we get on capitally. Little Achmet waits, etc., and I think I am more comfortable so than if I had a maid,-it would be no use to buy a slave, as the trouble of teaching her would be greater than the work she would do for me.

My medical reputation has become far too great, and all my common drugs-Epsom salts, senna, aloes, rhubarb, qua.s.sia-run short. Especially do all the poor, tiresome, ugly old women adore me, and bore me with their aches and pains. They are always the doctor's greatest plague.

The mark of confidence is that they now bring the sick children, which was never known before, I believe, in these parts. I am sure it would pay a European doctor to set up here; the people would pay him a little, and there would be good profit from the boats in the winter. I got turkeys when they were worth six or eight shillings apiece in the market, and they were forced upon me by the fellaheen. I must seal up this for fear the boat should come; it will only pick up M. Brune and go on.

April, 1866: Mrs. Ross

_To Mrs. Ross_.

EED EL KEBEER, _Wednesday_, _April_, 1866.

DEAREST JANET,

I had not heard a word of Henry's illness till Mr. Palgrave arrived and told me, and also that he was better. Alhamdulillah! I only hope that you are not knocked up, my darling. I am not ill, but still feel unaccountably weak and listless. I don't cough much, and have got fatter on my _regime_ of camel's milk,-so I hope I may get over the languor.

The box has not made its appearance. What a clever fellow Mr. Palgrave is! I never knew such a hand at languages. The folks here are in admiration at his Arabic. I hope you will see M. Brune. I am sure you would like him. He is a very accomplished and gentlemanly man.

You have never told me your plans for this year or whether I shall find you when I go down. The last three days the great heat has begun and I am accordingly feeling better. I have just come home from the Bairam early prayer out in the burial-place, at which Palgrave also a.s.sisted.

He is unwell, and tells me he leaves Luxor to-morrow morning. I shall stay on till I am too hot here, as evidently the summer suits me.

Many thanks for Miss Berry and for the wine, which makes a very pleasant change from the rather bad claret I have got. Palgrave's book I have read through hard, as he wished to take it back for you. It is very amusing.

If you come here next winter Mustapha hopes you will bring a saddle, and ride 'all his horses.' I think I could get you a very good horse from a certain Sheykh Abdallah here.

Well, I must say good-bye. _Kulloo sana intee tayib_, love to Henry.

April, 1866: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

BAIRAM, _April_, 1866.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I write this to go down by Mr. Palgrave who leaves to-morrow. He has been with Mustapha Bey conducting an enquiry into Mustapha A'gha's business. Mariette Bey struck Mustapha, and I and some Americans took it ill and wrote a very strong complaint to our respective Consuls.

Mariette denied the blow and the words 'liar, and son of a dog'-so the American and English Consuls sent up Palgrave as commissioner to enquire into the affair, and the Pasha sent Mustapha Bey with him. Palgrave is very amusing of course, and his knowledge of languages is wonderful, Sheykh Yussuf says few _Ulema_ know as much of the literature and niceties of grammar and composition. Mustapha Bey is a darling; he knew several friends of mine, Ha.s.san Effendi, Mustapha Bey Soubky, and others, so we were friends directly.

I have not yet got a woman-servant, but I don't miss it at all; little Achmet is very handy, Mahommed's slave girl washes, and Omar irons and cleans the house and does housemaid, and I have kept on the meek cook, Abd el-Kader, whom I took while the Frenchman was here. I had not the heart to send him away; he is such a _meskeen_. He was a smart travelling waiter, but his brother died, leaving a termagant widow with four children, and poor Abd el-Kader felt it his duty to bend his neck to the yoke, married her, and has two more children. He is a most worthy, sickly, terrified creature.

I have heard that a decent Copt here wants to sell a black woman owing to reverses of fortune, and that she might suit me. Sheykh Yussuf is to negotiate the affair and to see if the woman herself likes me for a mistress, and I am to have her on trial for a time, and if I like her and she me, Sheykh Yussuf will buy her with my money in his name. I own I have very little scruple about the matter, as I should consider her price as an advance of two or three years' wages and tear the paper of sale as soon as she had worked her price out, which I think would be a fair bargain. But I must see first whether Felta.s.s (the Copt) really wants to sell her or only to get a larger price than is fair, in which case I will wait till I go to Cairo. Anything is better than importing a European who at once thinks one is at her mercy on account of the expense of the journey back.