I came here on Saturday night. To-day is Wednesday, and I am already
much better. I have attached an excellent donkey and his master, a
delightful youth called Hassan, to my household for fifteen piastres
(under two shillings) a day. They live at the door, and Hassan cleans
the stairs and goes errands during the heat of the day, and I ride out
very early, at six or seven, and again at five. The air is delicious
now. It is very hot for a few hours, but not stifling, and the breeze
does not chill one as it does at Alexandria. I live all day and all
night with open windows, and plenty of fresh warm air is the best of
remedies. I can do no better than stay here till the heat becomes too
great. I left little Zeyneb at Alexandria with Janet's maid Ellen who
quite loves her, and begged to keep her 'for company,' and also to help
in their removal to the new house. She clung about me and made me
promise to come back to her, but was content to stop with Ellen, whose
affection she of course returns. It was pleasant to see her so happy,
and how she relished being 'put to bed' with a kiss by Ellen or Sally.
Her Turkish master, whom she pronounces to have been _batal_ (bad),
called her Salaam es-Sidi (the Peace of her Master); but she said that in
her own village she used to be Zeyneb, and so we call her. She has grown
fatter and, if possible, blacker. Mahbrooka (Good Fortune), the elder
wife of Hegab, the confectioner, was much interested in her, as her fate
had been the same. She was bought by an Italian who lived with her till
his death, when she married Hegab. She is a pious Muslimeh, and invoked
the intercession of Seyidna Mohammad for me when I told her I had no
intention of baptizing Zeyneb by force, as had been done to her.
The fault of my lodging here is the noise. We are on the road from the
railway and there is no quiet except in the few hot hours, when nothing
is heard but the cool tinkle of the Sakka's brass cup as he sells water
in the street, or perchance _erksoos_ (liquorice-water), or caroub or
raisin sherbet. The _erksoos_ is rather bitter and very good. I drink
it a good deal, for drink one must; a gulleh of water is soon gone. A
gulleh is a wide-mouthed porous jar, and Nile water drunk out of it
without the intervention of a glass is delicious. Omar goes to market
every morning with a donkey--I went too, and was much amused--and cooks,
and in the evening goes out with me if I want him. I told him I had
recommended him highly, and hoped he would get good employment; but he
declares that he will go with no one else so long as I come to Egypt,
whatever the difference of wages may be. 'The bread I eat with you is
sweet'--a pretty little unconscious antithesis to Dante. I have been
advising his brother Hajjee Ali to start a hotel at Thebes for invalids,
and he has already set about getting a house there; there is _one_. Next
winter there will be steamers twice a week--to Assouan! Juvenal's
distant Syene, where he died in banishment. My old washerwoman sent me a
fervent entreaty through Omar that I would dine with her one day, since I
had made Cairo delightful with my presence. If one will only devour
these people's food, they are enchanted; they like that much better than
a present. So I will honour her house some day. Good old Hannah, she is
divorced for being too fat and old, and replaced by a young Turk whose
family sponge on Hajjee Ali and are condescending. If I could afford it,
I would have a sketch of a beloved old mosque of mine, falling to decay,
and with three palm-trees growing in the middle of it. Indeed, I would
have a book full, for all is exquisite, and alas, all is going. The old
Copt quarter is _entame_, and hideous, shabby French houses, like the one
I live in, are being run up; and in this weather how much better would be
the Arab courtyard, with its mastabah and fountain!
There is a quarrel now in the street; how they talk and gesticulate, and
everybody puts in a word; a boy has upset a cake-seller's tray, '_Naal
Abu'k_!' (Curses on your father) he claims six piastres damages, and
everyone gives an opinion _pour ou contre_. We all look out of the
window; my opposite neighbour, the pretty Armenian woman, leans out, and
her diamond head-ornaments and earrings glitter as she laughs like a
child. The Christian dyer is also very active in the row, which, like
all Arab rows, ends in nothing; it evaporates in fine theatrical gestures
and lots of talk. Curious! In the street they are so noisy, but get the
same men in a coffee-shop or anywhere, and they are the quietest of
mankind. Only one man speaks at a time, the rest listen, and never
interrupt; twenty men don't make the noise of three Europeans.
Hekekian Bey is my near neighbour, and he comes in and we _fronder_ the
Government. His heart is sore with disinterested grief for the
sufferings of the people. 'Don't they deserve to be decently governed,
to be allowed a little happiness and prosperity? They are so docile, so
contented; are they not a good people?' Those were his words as he was
recounting some new iniquity. Of course half these acts are done under
pretext of improving and civilizing, and the Europeans applaud and say,
'Oh, but nothing could be done without forced labour,' and the poor
Fellaheen are marched off in gangs like convicts, and their families
starve, and (who'd have thought it) the population keeps diminishing. No
wonder the cry is, 'Let the English Queen come and take us.' You see, I
don't see things quite as Ross does, but mine is another _standpunkt_,
and my heart is with the Arabs. I care less about opening up the trade
with the Soudan and all the new railways, and I should like to see person
and property safe, which no one's is here (Europeans, of course,
excepted). Ismail Pasha got the Sultan to allow him to take 90,000
feddans of uncultivated land for himself as private property, very well,
but the late Viceroy Said granted eight years ago certain uncultivated
lands to a good many Turks, his _employes_, in hopes of founding a landed
aristocracy and inducing them to spend their capital in cultivation.
They did so, and now Ismail Pasha takes their improved land and gives
them feddan for feddan of his new land, which will take five years to
bring into cultivation, instead. He forces them to sign a _voluntary_
deed of exchange, or they go off to Fazogloo, a hot Siberia whence none
return. The Sultan also left a large sum of money for religious
institutions and charities--Muslim, Jew, and Christian. None have
received a foddah. It is true the Sultan and his suite plundered the
Pasha and the people here; but from all I hear the Sultan really wishes
to do good. What is wanted here is hands to till the ground, and wages
are very high; food, of course, gets dearer, and the forced labour
inflicts more suffering than before, and the population will decrease yet
faster. This appears to me to be a state of things in which it is no use
to say that public works must be made at any cost. The wealth will
perhaps be increased, if meanwhile the people are not exterminated.
Then, every new Pasha builds a huge new palace while those of his
predecessors fall to ruin. Mehemet Ali's sons even cut down the trees of
his beautiful botanical garden and planted beans there; so money is
constantly wasted more than if it were thrown into the Nile, for then the
Fellaheen would not have to spend their time, so much wanted for
agriculture, in building hideous barrack-like so-called palaces. What
chokes me is to hear English people talk of the stick being 'the only way
to manage Arabs' as if anyone could doubt that it is the easiest way to
manage any people where it can be used with impunity.
_Sunday_.--I went to a large unfinished new Coptic church this morning.
Omar went with me up to the women's gallery, and was discreetly going
back when he saw me in the right place, but the Coptic women began to
talk to him and asked questions about me all the time I was looking down
on the strange scene below. I believe they celebrate the ancient
mysteries still. The clashing of cymbals, the chanting, a humming unlike
any sound I ever heard, the strange yellow copes covered with stranger
devices--it was _wunderlich_. At the end everyone went away, and I went
down and took off my shoes to go and look at the church. While I was
doing so a side-door opened and a procession entered. A priest dressed
in the usual black robe and turban of all Copts carrying a trident-shaped
sort of candlestick, another with cymbals, a lot of little boys, and two
young ecclesiastics of some sort in the yellow satin copes (contrasting
queerly with the familiar tarboosh of common life on their heads), these
carried little babies and huge wax tapers, each a baby and a taper. They
marched round and round three times, the cymbals going furiously, and
chanting a jig tune. The dear little tiny boys marched just in front of
the priest with such a pretty little solemn, consequential air. Then
they all stopped in front of the sanctuary, and the priest untied a sort
of broad-coloured tape which was round each of the babies, reciting
something in Coptic all the time, and finally touched their foreheads and
hands with water. This is a ceremony subsequent to baptism after I don't
know how many days, but the priest ties and then unties the bands. Of
what is this symbolical? _Je m'y perds_. Then an old man gave a little
round cake of bread, with a cabalistic-looking pattern on it, both to
Omar and to me, which was certainly baked for Isis. A lot of
closely-veiled women stood on one side in the aisle, and among them the
mothers of the babies who received them from the men in yellow copes at
the end of the ceremony. One of these young men was very handsome, and
as he stood looking down and smiling on the baby he held, with the light
of the torch sharpening the lines of his features, would have made a
lovely picture. The expression was sweeter than St. Vincent de Paul,
because his smile told that he could have played with the baby as well as
have prayed for it. In this country one gets to see how much more
beautiful a perfectly natural expression is than any degree of the
mystical expression of the best painters, and it is so refreshing that no
one tries to look pious. The Muslim looks serious, and often warlike, as
he stands at prayer. The Christian just keeps his everyday face. When
the Muslim gets into a state of devotional frenzy he does not think of
making a face, and it is quite tremendous. I don't think the Copt has
any such ardours, but the scene this morning was all the more touching
that no one was 'behaving him or herself' at all. A little acolyte
peeped into the sacramental cup and swigged off the drops left in it with
the most innocent air, and no one rebuked him, and the quite little
children ran about in the sanctuary--up to seven they are privileged--and
only they and the priests enter it. It is a pretty commentary on the
words 'Suffer the little children,' etc.
I am more and more annoyed at not being able to ask questions for myself,
as I don't like to ask through a Muslim and no Copts speak any foreign
language, or very very few. Omar and Hassan had been at five this
morning to the tomb of Sittina Zeyneb, one of the daughters of the
Prophet, to 'see her' (Sunday is her day of reception), and say the
Fathah at her tomb. Next Friday the great Bairam begins and every Muslim
eats a bit of meat at his richer neighbour's expense. It is the day on
which the pilgrims go up the sacred mount near Mecca, to hear the sermon
which terminates the Haj. Yesterday I went to call on pretty Mrs.
Wilkinson, she is an Armenian of the Greek faith, and was gone to pray at
the convent of Mar Girgis (St. George) to cure the pains a bad rheumatic
fever has left in her hands. Evidently Mar Girgis is simply Ammon Ra,
the God of the Sun and great serpent-slayer, who is still revered in
Egypt by all sects, and Seyd el-Bedawee is as certainly one form of
Osiris. His festivals, held twice a year at Tanta, still display the
symbol of the Creator of all things. All is thus here--the women wail
the dead, as on the old sculptures, all the ceremonies are pagan, and
would shock an Indian Mussulman as much as his objection to eat with a
Christian shocks an Arab. This country is a palimpsest, in which the
Bible is written over Herodotus, and the Koran over that. In the towns
the Koran is most visible, in the country Herodotus. I fancy it is most
marked and most curious among the Copts, whose churches are shaped like
the ancient temples, but they are so much less accessible than the Arabs
that I know less of their customs.
Now I have filled such a long letter I hardly know if it is worth
sending, and whether you will be amused by my commonplaces of Eastern
life. I kill a sheep next Friday, and Omar will cook a stupendous dish
for the poor Fellaheen who are lying about the railway-station, waiting
to be taken to work somewhere. That is to be my Bairam, and Omar hopes
for great benefit for me from the process.