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 Hassan 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
Hassan, 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
cucumbers 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
amusement 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 pounds 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 scrapes 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.