Chapter 17
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 have fallen in pleasant places,' so long a time at the Cape or any Colony would have become intolerable. Best love to Janet, I really can't write, it's too hot and dusty. Omar desires his salaam to his great master and to that gazelle Sittee Ross.
August 13, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
LUXOR, _August_ 13, 1864.
DEAREST ALICK,
For the last month we have had a purgatory of hot wind and dust, such as I never saw--impossible to stir out of the house. So in despair I have just engaged a return boat--a _Gelegenheit_--and am off to Cairo in a day or two, where I shall stop till _Inshallah_! you come to me. Can't you get leave to come at the beginning of November? Do try, that is the pleasant time in Cairo.
I am a 'stupid, lazy Arab' now, as Omar says, having lain on a mat in a dark stone passage for six weeks or so, but my chest is no worse--better I think, and my health has not suffered at all--only I am stupid and lazy. I had a pleasant visit lately from a great doctor from Mecca--a man so learned that he can read the Koran in seven different ways, he is also a physician of European _Hekmeh_ (learning). Fancy my wonder when a great Alim in gorgeous Hegazee dress walked in and said: '_Madame, tout ce qu'on m'a dit de vous fait tellement l'eloge de votre coeur et de votre esprit que je me suis arrete pour tacher de me procurer le plaisir de votre connaissance_!' A lot of Luxor people came in to pay their respects to the great man, and he said to me that he hoped I had not been molested on account of religion, and if I had I must forgive it, as the people here were so very ignorant, and _barbarians were bigots everywhere_. I said, '_Wallahy_, the people of Luxor are my brothers!' and the Maohn said, 'True, the fellaheen are like oxen, but not such swine as to insult the religion of a lady who has served God among them like this one. She risked her life every day.' 'And if she _had_ died,' said the great theologian, 'her place was made ready among the martyrs of God, because she showed more love to her brothers than to herself!'
Now if this was humbug it was said in Arabic before eight or ten people, by a man of great religious authority.
Omar was _aux anges_ to hear his Sitt spoken of 'in such a grand way for the religion.' I believe that a great change is taking place among the Ulema, that Islam is ceasing to be a mere party flag, just as occurred with Christianity, and that all the moral part is being more and more dwelt on. My great Alim also said I had practised the precepts of the Koran, and then laughed and added, 'I suppose I ought to say the Gospel, but what matters it, _el Hakh_ (the truth) is one, whether spoken by Our Lord Jesus or by Our Lord Mahommed!' He asked me to go with him to Mecca next winter for my health, as it was so hot and dry there. I found he had fallen in with El-Bedrawee and the Khartoum merchant at Assouan. The little boy was well again, and I had been outrageously extolled by them. We are now sending off all the corn. I sat the other evening on Mustapha's doorstep and saw the Greeks piously and zealously attending to the divine command to spoil the Egyptians. Eight months ago a Greek bought up corn at 60 piastres the ardeb (he follows the Coptic tax-gatherer like a vulture after a crow), now wheat is at 170 piastres the ardeb here, and the fellah has paid 3.5 _per cent. a month_ besides. Reckon the profit! Two men I know are quite ruined, and have sold all they had. The cattle disease forced them to borrow at these ruinous rates, and now alas, the Nile is sadly lingering in its rise, and people are very anxious. Poor Egypt! or rather, poor Egyptians! Of course, I need not say that there is great improvidence in those who can be fleeced as they are fleeced. Mustapha's household is a pattern of muddling hospitality, and Mustapha is generous and mean by turns; but what chance have people like these, so utterly uncivilized and so isolated, against Europeans of unscrupulous characters.
I can't write more in the wind and dust. You shall hear again from Cairo.
October 9, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
CAIRO, _October_ 9, 1864.
DEAREST ALICK,
I have not written for a long time because I have had a fever. Now I am all right again, only weak. If you can come please bring the books in enclosed list for an American Egyptologist at Luxor--a friend of mine. My best love to Janet and my other chicks. I wish I could see my Maurice. Tell Janet that Hassan donkey boy, has married a girl of eleven, and Phillips that Hassan remembers him quite tenderly and is very proud of having had his 'face' drawn by him, 'certainly he was of the friends if not a brother of the Sitt, he so loved the things of the Arabs.' I went to the Hareem _soiree_ at Hassan's before the wedding--at that event I was ill. My good doctor was up the river, and Hekekian Bey is in Italy, so I am very lonely here. The weather is bad, so very damp; I stream with perspiration more than in June at Luxor, and I don't like civilization so very much. It keeps me awake at night in the grog shops and rings horrid bells and fights and quarrels in the street, and disturbs my Muslim nerves till I utter such epithets as _kelb_ (dog) and _khanseer_ (pig) against the Frangi, and wish I were in a 'beastly Arab' quarter.
October 21, 1864: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
CAIRO, _October_ 21, 1864.
DEAREST MUTTER,
I got your letter yesterday. I hope Alick got mine of two weeks ago before leaving, and told you I was better. I am still rather weak, however I ride my donkey and the weather has suddenly become gloriously dry and cool. I rather shiver with the thermometer at 79 degrees--absurd is it not, but I got so used to real heat.
I never wrote about my leaving Luxor or my journey, for our voyage was quite tempestuous after the three first days and I fell ill as soon as I was in my house here. I hired the boat for six purses (18 pounds) which had taken Greeks up to Assouan selling groceries and strong drinks, but the reis would not bring back their cargo of black slaves to dirty the boat and picked us up at Luxor. We sailed at daybreak having waited all one day because it was an unlucky day.
As I sat in the boat people kept coming to ask whether I was coming back very anxiously and bringing fresh bread, eggs and things as presents, and all the quality came to take leave and hope, _Inshallah_, I should soon 'come home to my village safe and bring the Master, please God, to see them,' and then to say the _Fattah_ for a safe journey and my health. In the morning the balconies of my house were filled with such a group to see us sail--a party of wild Abab'deh with their long Arab guns and flowing hair, a Turk elegantly dressed, Mohammed in his decorous brown robes and snow-white turban, and several fellaheen. As the boat moved off the Abab'deh blazed away with their guns and Osman Effendi with a sort of blunderbuss, and as we dropped down the river there was a general firing; even Todoros (Theodore), the Coptic Mallim, popped off his American revolver. Omar keeping up a return with Alick's old horse pistols which are much admired here on account of the excessive noise they make.
Poor old Ismain, who always thought I was Mme. Belzoni and wanted to take me up to Abou Simbel to meet my husband, was in dire distress that he could not go with me to Cairo. He declared he was still _shedeed_ (strong enough to take care of me and to fight). He is ninety-seven and only remembers fifty or sixty years ago and old wild times--a splendid old man, handsome and erect. I used to give him coffee and listen to his old stories which had won his heart. His grandson, the quiet, rather stately, Mohammed who is guard of the house I lived in, forgot all his Muslim dignity, broke down in the middle of his set speech and flung himself down and kissed and hugged my knees and cried. He had got some notion of impending ill-luck, I found, and was unhappy at our departure--and the backsheesh failed to console him. Sheykh Yussuf was to come with me, but a brother of his just wrote word that he was coming back from the Hejaz where he had been with the troops in which he is serving his time; I was very sorry to lose his company. Fancy how dreadfully irregular for one of the Ulema and a heretical woman to travel together. What would our bishops say to a parson who did such a thing? We had a lovely time on the river for three days, such moonlight nights, so soft and lovely; and we had a sailor who was as good as a professional singer, and who sang religious songs, which I observe excite people here far more than love songs. One which began 'Remove my sins from before thy sight Oh God' was really beautiful and touching, and I did not wonder at the tears which ran down Omar's face. A very pretty profane song was 'Keep the wind from me Oh Lord, I fear it will hurt me' (_wind_ means _love_, which is like the Simoom) 'Alas! it has struck me and I am sick. Why do ye bring the physician? Oh physician put back thy medicine in the canister, for only he who has hurt can cure me.' The masculine pronoun is always used instead of _she_ in poetry out of decorum--sometimes even in conversation.
_October_ 23.--Yesterday I met a Saedee--a friend of the brother of the Sheykh of the wild Abab'deh, and as we stood handshaking and kissing our fingers in the road, some of the Anglo-Indian travellers passed and gazed with fierce disgust; the handsome Hassan, being black, was such a flagrant case of a 'native.' Mutter dear, it is heart-breaking to see what we are sending to India now. The mail days are dreaded, we never know when some outrage may not excite 'Mussulman fanaticism.' The English tradesmen here complain as much as anyone, and I, who as the Kadee of Luxor said am 'not outside the family' (of Ishmael, I presume), hear what the Arabs really think. There are also crowds 'like lice' as one Mohammed said, of low Italians, French, etc., and I find my stalwart Hassan's broad shoulders no superfluous _porte-respect_ in the Frangee quarter. Three times I have been followed and insolently stared at (_a mon age_)!! and once Hassan had to speak. Fancy how dreadful to Muslims! I hate the sight of a hat here now.
I can't write more now my eyes are weak still. Omar begs me to give you his best salaam and say, _Inshallah_, he will take great care of your daughter, which he most zealously and tenderly does.
December 23, 1864: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
ON THE NILE, _Friday_, _December_ 23, 1864.
DEAREST MUTTER,
Here I am again between Benisouef and Minieh, and already better for the clear air of the river and the tranquil boat life; I will send you my Christmas Salaam from Siout. While Alick was with me I had as much to do as I was able and could not write for there was much to see and talk about. I think he was amused but I fear he felt the Eastern life to be very poor and comfortless. I have got so used to having nothing that I had quite forgotten how it would seem to a stranger.
I am quite sorry to find how many of my letters must have been lost from Luxor; in future I shall trust the Arab post which certainly is safer than English travellers. I send you my long plaits by Alick, for I had my hair cut short as it took to falling out by handfuls after my fever, and moreover it is more convenient Turkish hareem fashion.
Please tell Dean Stanley how his old dragoman Mahommed Gazawee cried with pleasure when he told me he had seen Sheykh Stanley's sister on her way to India, and the 'little ladies' _knew his name_ and shook hands with him, which evidently was worth far more than the backsheesh. I wondered who 'Sheykh' Stanley could be, and Mahommed (who is a darweesh and very pious) told me he was the _Gassis_ (priest) who was _Imam_ (spiritual guide) to the son of our Queen, 'and in truth,' said he, 'he is _really_ a Sheykh and one who teaches the excellent things of religion, why he was kind even to his horse! and it is of the mercies of God to the English that such a one is the Imam of your Queen and Prince.' I said laughing, 'How dost thou, a darweesh among Muslims, talk thus of a Nazarene priest?' 'Truly oh Lady,' he answered, 'one who loveth all the creatures of God, him God loveth also, there is no doubt of that.' Is any one bigot enough to deny that Stanley has done more for real religion in the mind of that Muslim darweesh than if he had baptised a hundred savages out of one fanatical faith into another?
There is no hope of a good understanding with Orientals until Western Christians can bring themselves to recognise the common faith contained in the two religions, the _real_ difference consists in all the class of notions and feelings (very important ones, no doubt) which we derive--not from the Gospels at all--but from Greece and Rome, and which of course are altogether wanting here.
Alick will tell you how curiously Omar illustrated the patriarchal feelings of the East by entirely dethroning me in favour of the 'Master.' 'That _our Master_, we all eat bread from his hand, and he work for _us_.' Omar and I were equal before _our Seedee_. He can sit at his ease at my feet, but when the Master comes in he must stand reverently, and gave me to understand that I too must be respectful.
I have got the boat of the American Mission at an outrageous price, 60 pounds, but I could get nothing under; the consolation is that the sailors profit, poor fellows, and get treble wages. My crew are all Nubians. Such a handsome reis and steersman--brothers--and there is a black boy, of fourteen or so, with legs and feet so sweetly beautiful as to be quite touching--at least I always feel those lovely round young innocent forms to be somehow affecting. Our old boat of last summer (Arthur Taylor's) is sailing in company with us, and stately old reis Mubharak hails me every morning with the Blessing of God and the Peace of the Prophet. Alee Kuptan, my steamboat captain will announce our advent at Thebes; he passed us to-day. This boat is a fine sailer, but iron built and therefore noisy, and not convenient. The crew encourage her with 'Get along, father of three,' because she has three sails, whereas two is the usual number. They are active good-humoured fellows--my men--but lack the Arab courtesy and _simpatico_ ways, and then I don't understand their language which is pretty and sounds a little like Caffre, rather bird-like and sing-song, instead of the clattering guttural Arabic. I now speak pretty tolerably for a stranger, _i.e._ I can keep up a conversation, and understand all that is said to me much better than I can speak, and follow about half what people say to each other. When I see you, _Inshallah_, next summer I shall be a good scholar, I hope.
January 2, 1865: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
LUXOR, _January_ 2, 1865.
DEAREST MUTTER,
I posted a letter for you at Girgeh, as we passed Siout with a good wind, I hope you will get it. My crew worked as I never saw men work, they were paid to get to Luxor, and for eighteen days they never rested or slept day or night, and all the time were merry and pleasant. It shows what power of endurance these 'lazy Arabs' have when there is good money at the end of a job, instead of the favourite panacea of 'stick.'
We arrived at midnight and next morning my boat had the air of being pillaged. A crowd of laughing, chattering fellows ran off to the house laden with loose articles snatched up at random, loaves of sugar, pots and pans, books, cushions, all helter-skelter. I feared breakages, but all was housed safe and sound. The small boys of an age licensed to penetrate into the cabin, went off with the oddest cargoes of dressing things and the like--of backsheesh not one word. _Alhamdulillah salaameh_! 'Thank God thou art in peace,' and _Ya Sitt, Ya Emeereh_, till my head went round. Old Ismaeen fairly hugged me and little Achmet hung close to my side. I went up to Mustapha's house while the unpacking took place and breakfasted there, and found letters from all of you, from you to darling Rainie, Sheykh Yussuf was charmed with her big writing and said he thought the news in that was the best of all.
The weather was intensely hot the first two days. Now it is heavenly, a fresh breeze and gorgeous sunshine. I brought two common Arab lanterns for the tomb of Abu-l-Hajjaj and his _moolid_ is now going on. Omar took them and lighted them up and told me he found several people who called on the rest to say the _Fathah_ for me. I was sitting out yesterday with the people on the sand looking at the men doing _fantasia_ on horseback for the Sheykh, and a clever dragoman of the party was relating about the death of a young English girl whom he had served, and so _de fil en aiguille_ we talked about the strangers buried here and how the bishop had extorted 100 pounds. I said, '_Maleysh_ (never mind) the people have been hospitable to me alive and they will not cease if I die, but give me a tomb among the Arabs.' One old man said, 'May I not see thy day, oh Lady, and indeed thou shouldest be buried as a daughter of the Arabs, but we should fear the anger of thy Consul and thy family, but thou knowest that wherever thou art buried thou wilt assuredly lie in a Muslim grave.' 'How so?' said I. 'Why, when a bad Muslim dies the angels take him out of his tomb and put in one of the good from among the Christians in his place.' This is the popular expression of the doctrine that the good are sure of salvation. Omar chimed in at once, 'Certainly there is no doubt of it, and I know a story that happened in the days of Mahommed Ali Pasha which proves it.' We demanded the story and Omar began. 'There was once a very rich man of the Muslims so stingy that he grudged everybody even so much as a "bit of the paper inside the date" (Koran). When he was dying he said to his wife, "Go out and buy me a lump of pressed dates," and when she had brought it he bade her leave him alone. Thereupon he took all his gold out of his sash and spread it before him, and rolled it up two or three pieces at a time in the dates, and swallowed it piece after piece until only three were left, when his wife came in and saw what he was doing and snatched them from his hand. Presently after he fell back and died and was carried out to the burial place and laid in his tomb. When the Kadee's men came to put the seal on his property and found no money they said, "Oh woman, how is this? we know thy husband was a rich man and behold we find no money for his children and slaves or for thee." So the woman told what had happened, and the Kadee sent for three other of the Ulema, and they decided that after three days she should go herself to her husband's tomb and open it, and take the money from his stomach; meanwhile a guard was put over the tomb to keep away robbers. After three days therefore the woman went, and the men opened the tomb and said, "Go in O woman and take thy money." So the woman went down into the tomb alone. When there, instead of her husband's body she saw a box (coffin) of the boxes of the Christians, and when she opened it she saw the body of a young girl, adorned with many ornaments of gold necklaces, and bracelets, and a diamond _Kurs_ on her head, and over all a veil of black muslin embroidered with gold. So the woman said within herself, "Behold I came for money and here it is, I will take it and conceal this business for fear of the Kadee." So she wrapped the whole in her _melayeh_ (a blue checked cotton sheet worn as a cloak) and came out, and the men said "Hast thou done thy business?"' and she answered "Yes" and returned home.
'In a few days she gave the veil she had taken from the dead girl to a broker to sell for her in the bazaar, and the broker went and showed it to the people and was offered one hundred piastres. Now there sat in one of the shops of the merchants a great Ma-allim (Coptic clerk) belonging to the Pasha, and he saw the veil and said, "How much asketh thou?" and the broker said "Oh thine honour the clerk whatever thou wilt." "Take from me then five hundred piastres and bring the person that gave thee the veil to receive the money." So the broker fetched the woman and the Copt, who was a great man, called the police and said, "Take this woman and fetch my ass and we will go before the Pasha," and he rode in haste to the palace weeping and beating his breast, and went before the Pasha and said, "Behold this veil was buried a few days ago with my daughter who died unmarried, and I had none but her and I loved her like my eyes and would not take from her her ornaments, and this veil she worked herself and was very fond of it, and she was young and beautiful and just of the age to be married; and behold the Muslims go and rob the tombs of the Christians and if thou wilt suffer this we Christians will leave Egypt and go and live in some other country, O Effendina, for we cannot endure this abomination."
'Then the Pasha turned to the woman and said, "Woe to thee O woman, art thou a Muslimeh and doest such wickedness?" And the woman spoke and told all that had happened and how she sought money and finding gold had kept it. So the Pasha said, "Wait oh Ma-allim, and we will discover the truth of this matter," and he sent for the three Ulema who had desired that the tomb should be opened at the end of three days and told them the case; and they said, "Open now the tomb of the Christian damsel." And the Pasha sent his men to do so, and when they opened it behold it was full of fire, and within it lay the body of the wicked and avaricious Mussulman.' Thus it was manifest to all that on the night of terror the angels of God had done this thing, and had laid the innocent girl of the Christians among those who have received direction, and the evil Muslim among the rejected. Admire how rapidly legends arise here. This story which everybody declared was quite true is placed no longer ago than in Mahommed Ali Pasha's time.
There are hardly any travellers this year, instead of a hundred and fifty or more boats, perhaps twenty. A son of one of the Rothschilds, a boy of fourteen, has just gone up like a royal prince in one of the Pasha's steamers--all his expenses paid and crowds of attendants. 'All that honour to the money of the Jew,' said an old fellah to me with a tone of scorn which I could not but echo in my heart. He has turned out his dragoman--a respectable elderly man, very sick, and paid him his bare wages and the munificent sum of 5 pounds to take him back to Cairo. On board there was a doctor and plenty of servants, and yet he abandons the man here on Mustapha's hands. I have brought Er-Rasheedee here (the sick man) as poor Mustapha is already overloaded with strangers. I am sorry the name of _Yahoodee_ (Jew) should be made to stink yet more in the nostrils of the Arabs. I am very well, indeed my cough is almost gone and I can walk quite briskly and enjoy it. I think, dear Mutter, I am really better. I never felt the cold so little as this winter since my illness, the chilly mornings and nights don't seem to signify at all now, and the climate feels more delicious than ever.