_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
ALEXANDRIA,
_October_ 19, 1863.
We had a wretched voyage, good weather, but such a _petaudiere_ of a
ship. I am competent to describe the horrors of the middle
passage--hunger, suffocation, dirt, and such _canaille_, high and low, on
board. The only gentleman was a poor Moor going to Mecca (who stowed his
wife and family in a spare boiler on deck). I saw him washing his
children in the morning! '_Que c'est degoutant_!' was the cry of the
French spectators. If an Arab washes he is a _sale cochon_--no wonder!
A delicious man who sat near me on deck, when the sun came round to our
side, growled between his clenched teeth: '_Voila un tas d'intrigants a
l'ombre tandis que le soleil me grille, moi_,' a good resume of French
politics, methinks. Well, on arriving at noon of Friday, I was consoled
for all by seeing Janet in a boat looking as fresh and bright and merry
as ever she could look. The heat has evidently not hurt her at all.
Omar's joy was intense. He has had an offer of a place as messenger with
the mails to Suez and back, 60 pounds a year; and also his brother wanted
him for Lady Herbert of Lea, who has engaged Hajjee Ali, and Ali promised
high pay, but Omar said that he could not leave me. 'I think my God give
her to me to take care of her, how then I leave her if she not well and
not very rich? I can't speak to my God if I do bad things like that.' I
am going to his house to-day to see the baby and Hajjee Hannah, who is
just come down from Cairo. Omar is gone to try to get a dahabieh to go
up the river, as I hear that the half-railway, half-steamer journey is
dreadfully inconvenient and fatiguing, and the sight of the overflowing
Nile is said to be magnificent, it is all over the land and eight miles
of the railway gone. Omar kisses your hand and is charmed with the
knife, but far more that my family should know his name and be satisfied
with my servant.
I cannot live in Thayer's house because the march of civilization has led
a party of French and Wallachian women into the ground-floor thereof to
instruct the ignorant Arabs in drinking, card-playing, and other vices.
So I will consult Hajjee Hannah to-day; she may know of an empty house
and would make divan cushions for me. Zeyneb is much grown and very
active and intelligent, but a little louder and bolder than she was owing
to the maids here wanting to christianize her, and taking her out
unveiled, and letting her be among the men. However, she is as
affectionate as ever, and delighted at the prospect of going with me. I
have replaced the veil, and Sally has checked her tongue and scolded her
sister Ellen for want of decorum, to the amazement of the latter. Janet
has a darling Nubian boy. Oh dear! what an elegant person Omar seemed
after the French 'gentleman,' and how noble was old Hamees's (Janet's
doorkeeper) paternal but reverential blessing! It is a real comfort to
live in a nation of truly well-bred people and to encounter kindness
after the savage incivility of France.
_Tuesday_, _October_ 20.
Omar has got a boat for 13 pounds, which is not more than the railway
would cost now that half must be done by steamer and a bit on donkeys or
on foot. Poor Hajjee Hannah was quite knocked up by the journey down; I
shall take her up in my boat. Two and a half hours to sit grilling at
noonday on the banks, and two miles to walk carrying one's own baggage is
hard lines for a fat old woman. Everything is almost double in price
owing to the cattle murrain and the high Nile. Such an inundation as
this year was never known before. Does the blue God resent Speke's
intrusion on his privacy? It will be a glorious sight, but the damage to
crops, and even to the last year's stacks of grain and beans, is
frightful. One sails among the palm-trees and over the submerged
cotton-fields. Ismail Pasha has been very active, but, alas! his 'eye is
bad,' and there have been as many calamities as under Pharaoh in his
short reign. The cattle murrain is fearful, and is now beginning in
Cairo and Upper Egypt. Ross reckons the loss at twelve millions sterling
in cattle. The gazelles in the desert have it too, but not horses, asses
or goats.