We left Cairo last Sunday morning, and a wonderfully queer company we
were. I had been promised all the steamer to myself, but owing to Ismail
Pasha's caprices our little steamer had to do the work of three--_i.e._,
to carry passengers, to tow M. Mounier's dahabieh, and to tow the oldest,
dirtiest, queerest Nubian boat, in which the young son of the Sultan of
Darfoor and the Sultan's envoy, a handsome black of Dongola (not a
negro), had visited Ismail Pasha. The best cabin was taken by a sulky
old one-eyed Turkish Pasha, so I had the fore-cabin, luckily a large one,
where I slept with Sally on one divan and I on the other, and Omar at my
feet. He tried sleeping on deck, but the Pasha's Arnouts were too bad
company, and the captain begged me to 'cover my face' and let my servant
sleep at my feet. Besides, there was a poor old asthmatic Turkish
Effendi going to collect the taxes, and a lot of women in the
engine-room, and children also. It would have been insupportable but for
the hearty politeness of the Arab captain, a regular 'old salt,' and
owing to his attention and care it was only very amusing.
At Benisouef, the first town above Cairo (seventy miles), we found no
coals: the Pasha had been up and taken them all. So we kicked our heels
on the bank all day, with the prospect of doing so for a week. The
captain brought H.R.H. of Darfoor to visit me, and to beg me to make him
hear reason about the delay, as I, being English, must know that a
steamer could not go without coals. H.R.H. was a pretty imperious little
nigger about eleven or twelve, dressed in a yellow silk kuftan and a
scarlet burnous, who cut the good old captain short by saying, 'Why, she
is a woman; she can't talk to me.' 'Wallah! wallah! what a way to talk
to English Hareem!' shrieked the captain, who was about to lose his
temper; but I had a happy idea and produced a box of French sweetmeats,
which altered the young Prince's views at once. I asked if he had
brothers. 'Who can count them? they are like mice.' He said that the
Pasha had given him only a few presents, and was evidently not pleased.
Some of his suite are the most formidable-looking wild beasts in human
shape I ever beheld--bulldogs and wild-boars black as ink, red-eyed, and,
ye gods! such jowls and throats and teeth!--others like monkeys, with
arms down to their knees.
The Illyrian Arnouts on board our boat are revoltingly white--like fish
or drowned people, no pink in the tallowy skin at all. There were Greeks
also who left us at Minieh (second large town), and the old Pasha left
this morning at Rodah. The captain at once ordered all my goods into the
cabin he had left and turned out the Turkish Effendi, who wanted to stay
and sleep with us. No impropriety! he said he was an old man and sick,
and my company would be agreeable to him; then he said he was ashamed
before the people to be turned out by an English woman. So I was civil
and begged him to pass the day and to dine with me, and that set all
right, and now after dinner he has gone off quite pleasantly to the
fore-cabin and left me here. I have a stern-cabin, a saloon and an
anteroom here, so we are comfortable enough--only the fleas! Never till
now did I know what fleas could be; even Omar groaned and tossed in his
sleep, and Sally and I woke every ten minutes. Perhaps this cabin may be
better, some fleas may have landed in the beds of the Turks. I send a
dish from my table every day henceforth to the captain; as I take the
place of a Pasha it is part of my dignity to do so; and as I occupy the
kitchen and burn the ship's coals, I may as well let the captain dine a
little at my expense. In the day I go up and sit in his cabin on deck,
and we talk as well as we can without an interpreter. The old fellow is
sixty-seven, but does not look more than forty-five. He has just the air
and manner of a seafaring-man with us, and has been wrecked four
times--the last in the Black Sea during the Crimean War, when he was
taken prisoner by the Russians and sent to Moscow for three years, until
the peace. He has a charming boy of eleven with him, and he tells me he
has twelve children in all, but only one wife, and is as strict a
monogamist as Dr. Primrose, for he told me he should not marry again if
she died, nor he believed would she. He is surprised at my gray hair.
There are a good many Copts on board too, of a rather low class and not
pleasant. The Christian gentlemen are very pleasant, but the low are
_low_ indeed compared to the Muslimeen, and one gets a feeling of
dirtiness about them to see them eat all among the coals, and then squat
there and pull out their beads to pray without washing their hands even.
It does look nasty when compared to the Muslim coming up clean washed,
and standing erect and manly--looking to his prayers; besides they are
coarse in their manners and conversation and have not the Arab respect
for women. I only speak of the common people--not of educated Copts.
The best fun was to hear the Greeks (one of whom spoke English) abusing
the Copts--rogues, heretics, schismatics from the Greek Church, ignorant,
rapacious, cunning, impudent, etc., etc. In short, they narrated the
whole fable about their own sweet selves. I am quite surprised to see
how well these men manage their work. The boat is quite as clean as an
English boat as crowded could be kept, and the engine in beautiful order.
The head-engineer, Achmet Effendi, and indeed all the crew and captain
too, wear English clothes and use the universal 'All right, stop
her--fooreh (full) speed, half speed--turn her head,' etc. I was
delighted to hear 'All right--go ahead--_el-Fathah_' in one breath. Here
we always say the _Fathah_ (first chapter of the Koran, nearly identical
with the Lord's Prayer) when starting on a journey, concluding a bargain,
etc. The combination was very quaint. There are rats and fleas on
board, but neither bugs nor cockroaches. Already the climate has
changed, the air is sensibly drier and clearer and the weather much
warmer, and we are not yet at Siout. I remarked last year that the
climate changed most at Keneh, forty miles below Thebes. The banks are
terribly broken and washed away by the inundation, and the Nile far
higher even now than it was six weeks earlier last year.
At Benisouef, which used to be the great cattle place, not a buffalo was
left, and we could not get a drop of milk. But since we left Minieh we
see them again, and I hear the disease is not spreading up the river.
Omar told me that the poor people at Benisouef were complaining of the
drought and prospect of scarcity, as they could no longer water the land
for want of oxen. I paid ten napoleons passage-money, and shall give
four or five more as backsheesh, as I have given a good deal of trouble
with all my luggage, beddings, furniture, provisions for four months,
etc., and the boat's people have been more than civil, really kind and
attentive to us; but a bad dahabieh would have cost forty, so I am
greatly the gainer. Nothing can exceed the muddle, uncertainty and
carelessness of the 'administration' at Cairo: no coals at the depots,
boats announced to sail and dawdling on three weeks, no order and no care
for anybody's convenience but the Pasha's own. But the subordinates on
board the boats do their work perfectly well. We go only half as quickly
as we ought because we have two very heavy dahabiehs in tow instead of
one; but no time is lost, as long as the light lasts we go, and start
again as soon as the moon rises. The people on board have promoted me in
rank--and call me 'el-Ameereh,' an obsolete Arab title which the engineer
thinks is the equivalent of 'Ladysheep,' as he calls it. 'Sitti,' he
said, was the same as 'Meessees.' I don't know how he acquired his ideas
on the subject of English precedence.
Omar has just come in with coffee, and begs me to give his best salaam to
his big master and his little master and lady, and not to forget to tell
them he is their servant and my memlook (slave) 'from one hand to the
other' (the whole body). If we stay at all at Siout, I will ride a
donkey up to Wassef's house, and leave this letter for him to send down
with his next opportunity to Cairo. At Keneh we must try to find time to
buy two filters and some gullehs (water-coolers); they are made there.
At Thebes nothing can be got.
How I do wish you were here to enjoy all the new and strange sights! I
am sure it would amuse you, and as the fleas don't bite you there would
be no drawback. Janet sent me a photo of dear little Rainie; it is ugly,
but very like the 'zuweyeh' (little one). Give her no end of kisses, and
thank her for the cock robin, which pleased me quite as much as she
thought it would.