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.