Letters from Egypt Part 5

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 Ha.s.san 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 Ha.s.san, 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 cuc.u.mbers 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 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 sc.r.a.pes 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 pa.s.sage-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 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 n.o.ble 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, 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 G.o.d 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, a.s.ses 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 coa.r.s.ely. 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 Ca.n.a.l. 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 pa.s.sed 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 d.y.k.es.

A Frenchman told me he was on board a Pasha's steamer under M. de Lesseps' command, and they pa.s.sed a flooded village where two hundred or so people stood on their roofs crying for help. Would you, could you, believe it that they pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed 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 d.y.k.es 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s?' 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 grat.i.tude 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 Abba.s.sieh, 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 Ha.s.san (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 Ha.s.san meskeen_! _yah Ha.s.san ibn_!'

(Oh poor Ha.s.san! oh Ha.s.san my son!); and then, in a resigned tone, '_Allah kereem_' (G.o.d 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 Ha.s.san 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 a.s.saseef 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.