Letters from Egypt

Then I went to visit my kind friend the Maohn's wife, and tell her all about her charming daughter and grandchildren. I was, of course, an hour in the streets salaaming, etc. '_...

Now for a little fact. The man who told me fourteen hundred had been beheaded was Hassan Sheykh of the Abab'deh who went to Gau to bring up the prisoners. The boat stopped a mil...

_Friday_.--We have had better weather again, easterly wind and pretty cool, and I am losing the cough and languor which the damp of the Simoom brought me. Sheykh Yussuf has just...

I am better again now and go on very comfortably with my two little boys. Omar is from dawn till night at work at my boat, so I have only Mahbrook and Achmet, and you would wond...

_Friday_, 22_nd_.--Yesterday I rode over to Karnac, with Mustapha's _sais_ running by my side. Glorious hot sun and delicious air. To hear the _sais_ chatter away, his tongue ru...

I am so glad to hear such good accounts of my Rainie and Maurice. I can hardly bear to think of another year without seeing them. However it is fortunate for me that 'my lines h...

My good friend the Maohn spent the evening with me, and told me all the story of his marriage, though quite 'unfit to meet the virtuous eyes of British propriety--' as I read th...

Don't be at all uneasy about me as to care. Omar knows exactly what to do as he showed the other day when I was taken ill. I had shown him the medicines and given him instructio...

Poor Mustapha has been very unwell and I stopped his Ramadan, gave him some physic and ordered him not to fast, for which I think he is rather grateful. The Imaam and Mufti alwa...

I told you how my purse had been stolen and the proceedings thereanent. Well, Mustapha asked me several times what I wished to be done with the thief, who spent twenty-one days...

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...

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 o...

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...

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...

_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 N...

It is quite heartrending about my letters. I have 'got the eye' evidently. The black slave of the poor dragoman who died in my house is here still, and like a dog that has lost...

My boat is being painted, but is nearly finished; as soon as it is done I shall move back into her. I got out into a little cangia but it swarmed with bugs and wasps, and was to...

Yesterday Sheykh Yussuf came again, the first time since his brother's death; he was evidently deeply affected, but spoke in the usual way, 'It is the will of God, we must all d...

I wish you all, 'may the year be good to thee' as we say here--and now for my history. We left Cairo on the 5th Decr. I was not well. No wind as usual, and we were a week gettin...

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 w...

Mr. Herbert, the painter, went back to Cairo from Farshoot below Keneh; so I have no 'Frangee' society at all. But Sheykh Yussuf and the Kadee drop in to tea very often and as t...

My boat has not yet made its appearance. I am very well indeed now, in spite, or perhaps because of, the great heat. But there is a great deal of sickness--chiefly dysentery. I...

I have only time for a few words by Giafar Pasha, who goes early to-morrow morning. My boat arrived all right and brought your tin box. The books and toys are very welcome. The...

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...

_July_ 15_th_.--Last night came the two _meneggets_ to pay a friendly visit, and sat and told stories; so I ordered coffee, and one took his sugar out of his pocket to put in hi...

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...

I wish the English could know how unpleasant and mischievous their manner of talking to their servants about religion is. Omar confided to me how bad it felt to be questioned, a...

I think you would enjoy, as I do, the peculiar sort of social equality which prevails here; it is the exact contrary of French _egalite_. There are the great and powerful people...

Seleem told me a very pretty grammatical quibble about 'son' and 'prophet' (apropos of Christ) on a verse in the Gospel, depending on the reduplicative sign [Arabic sign for she...

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 di...

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 o...

We have been here ten days, and I find the air quite the best for me. I cough much less, only I am weak and short of breath. I have got a most excellent young Reis for my boat,...