At last I hope I shall get off in a few days. I have had one delay and
bother after another, chiefly caused by relying on the fine speeches of
Mr. D. On applying straight to the French Consulate at Alexandria, Janet
got me the loan of the _Maison de France_ at Thebes at once. M. Mounier,
the agent to Halim Pasha, is going up to Esneh, and will let me travel in
the steamer which is to tow his dahabieh. It will be dirty, but will
cost little and take me out of this dreadful cold weather in five or six
days.
_December_ 22.--I wrote the above five days ago, since when I have had to
turn out of Thayer's house, as his new Vice-Consul wanted it, and am back
at Briggs'. M. Mounier is waiting in frantic impatience to set off, and
I ditto; but Ismail Pasha keeps him from day to day. The worry of
depending on anyone in the East is beyond belief. Tell your mother that
Lady Herbert is gone up the river; her son was much the better for Cairo.
I saw Pietro, her courier, who is stupendously grand, he offered Omar 8
pounds a month to go with them; you may imagine how Pietro despised his
heathenish ignorance in preferring to stay with me for 3 pounds. It
quite confirmed him in his contempt for the Arabs.
You would have laughed to hear me buying a carpet. I saw an old broker
with one on his shoulder in the bazaar, and asked the price, 'eight
napoleons'--then it was unfolded and spread in the street, to the great
inconvenience of passers-by, just in front of a coffee-shop. I look at
it superciliously, and say, 'Three hundred piastres, O uncle,' the poor
old broker cries out in despair to the men sitting outside the
coffee-shop: 'O Muslims, hear that and look at this excellent carpet.
Three hundred piastres! By the faith, it is worth two thousand!' But
the men take my part and one mildly says: 'I wonder that an old man as
thou art should tell us that this lady, who is a traveller and a person
of experience, values it at three hundred--thinkest thou we will give
thee more?' Then another suggests that if the lady will consent to give
four napoleons, he had better take them, and that settles it. Everybody
gives an opinion here, and the price is fixed by a sort of improvised
jury.
_Christmas Day_.--At last my departure is fixed. I embark to-morrow
afternoon at Boulak, and we sail--or steam, rather--on Sunday morning
early, and expect to reach Thebes in eight days. I heard a curious
illustration of Arab manners to-day. I met Hassan, the janissary of the
American Consulate, a very respectable, good man. He told me he had
married another wife since last year--I asked what for. It was the widow
of his brother who had always lived with him in the same house, and who
died leaving two boys. She is neither young nor handsome, but he
considered it his duty to provide for her and the children, and not to
let her marry a stranger. So you see that polygamy is not always sensual
indulgence, and a man may practise greater self-sacrifice so than by
talking sentiment about deceased wives' sisters. Hassan has 3 pounds a
month, and two wives come expensive. I said, laughing, to Omar as we
left him, that I did not think the two wives sounded very comfortable.
'Oh no! not comfortable at all for the man, but he take care of the
women, that's what is proper--that is the good Mussulman.'
I shall have the company of a Turkish Effendi on my voyage--a
Commissioner of Inland Revenue, in fact, going to look after the
tax-gatherers in the Saeed. I wonder whether he will be civil. Sally is
gone with some English servants out to the Virgin's tree, the great
picnic frolic of Cairene Christians, and, indeed, of Muslimeen also at
some seasons. Omar is gone to a _Khatmeh_--a reading of the Koran--at
Hassan the donkey-boy's house. I was asked, but am afraid of the night
air. A good deal of religious celebration goes on now, the middle of the
month of Regeb, six weeks before Ramadan. I rather dread Ramadan as Omar
is sure to be faint and ill, and everybody else cross during the first
five days or so; then their stomachs get into training. The new
passenger-steamers have been promised ever since the 6th, and will not
now go till after the races--6th or 7th of next month. Fancy the Cairo
races! It is growing dreadfully Cockney here, I must go to Timbuctoo:
and we are to have a railway to Mecca, and take return tickets for the
_Haj_ from all parts of the world.