We have had our winter pretty sharp for three weeks, and everybody has
had violent colds and coughs--the Arabs, I mean.
I have been a good deal ailing, but have escaped any violent cold
altogether, and now the thermometer is up to 64 degrees, and it feels
very pleasant. In the sun it is always very hot, but that does not
prevent the air from being keen, and chapping lips and noses, and even
hands; it is curious how a temperature, which would be summer in England,
makes one shiver at Thebes--_Alhamdulillah_! it is over now.
My poor Sheykh Yussuf is in great distress about his brother, also a
young Sheykh (_i.e._, one learned in theology and competent to preach in
the mosque). Sheykh Mohammed is come home from studying in 'El-Azhar' at
Cairo--I fear to die. I went with Sheykh Yussuf, at his desire, to see
if I could help him, and found him gasping for breath and very, very ill.
I gave him a little soothing medicine, and put mustard plasters on him,
and as it relieved him, I went again and repeated them. All the family
and a lot of neighbours crowded in to look on. There he lay in a dark
little den with bare mud walls, worse off, to our ideas, than any pauper;
but these people do not feel the want of comforts, and one learns to
think it quite natural to sit with perfect gentlemen in places inferior
to our cattle-sheds. I pulled some blankets up against the wall, and put
my arm behind Sheykh Mohammed's back to make him rest while the poultices
were on him, whereupon he laid his green turban on my shoulder, and
presently held up his delicate brown face for a kiss like an affectionate
child. As I kissed him, a very pious old moollah said _Bismillah_ (In
the name of God) with an approving nod, and Sheykh Mohammed's old father,
a splendid old man in a green turban, thanked me with effusion, and
prayed that my children might always find help and kindness. I suppose
if I confessed to kissing a 'dirty Arab' in a 'hovel' the English
travellers would execrate me; but it shows how much there is in
'Mussulman bigotry, unconquerable hatred, etc.,' for this family are
Seyyids (descendents of the Prophet) and very pious. Sheykh Yussuf does
not even smoke, and he preaches on Fridays. You would love these
Saeedees, they are such thorough gentlemen. I rode over to the village a
few days ago to see a farmer named Omar. Of course I had to eat, and the
people were enchanted at my going alone, as they are used to see the
English armed and guarded. Sidi Omar, however, insisted on accompanying
me home, which is the civil thing here. He piled a whole stack of green
fodder on his little nimble donkey, and hoisted himself atop of it
without saddle or bridle (the fodder was for Mustapha A'gha), and we
trotted home across the beautiful green barley-fields, to the amazement
of some European young men out shooting. We did look a curious pair,
certainly, with my English saddle and bridle, habit, hat and feather, on
horseback, and Sidi Omar's brown shirt, brown legs and white turban,
guiding his donkey with his chibouque. We were laughing very merrily,
too, over my blundering Arabic.
Young Heathcote and Strutt called here, but were hurrying on up the
river. I shall see more of them when they come down. Young Strutt is so
like his mother I knew him in the street. I would like to give him a
fantasia, but it is not proper for a woman to send for the dancing-girls,
and as I am the friend of the Maohn (police magistrate), the Kadee, and
the respectable people here, I cannot do what is indecent in their eyes.
It is quite enough that they approve my unveiled face, and my associating
with men; that is 'my custom,' and they think no harm of it.
To-morrow or next day Ramadan begins at the first sight of the new moon.
It is a great nuisance, because everybody is cross. Omar did not keep it
last year, but this year he will, and if he spoils my dinners, who can
blame him? There was a wedding close by here last night, and about ten
o'clock all the women passed under my windows with crys of joy
'ez-zaghareet' down to the river. I find, on inquiry, that in Upper
Egypt, as soon as the bridegroom has 'taken the face' of his bride, the
women take her down to 'see the Nile.' They have not yet forgotten that
the old god is the giver of increase, it seems.
I have been reading Miss Martineau's book; the descriptions are
excellent, but she evidently knew and cared nothing about the people, and
had the feeling of most English people here, that the difference of
manners is a sort of impassable gulf, the truth being that their feelings
and passions are just like our own. It is curious that all the old books
of travels that I have read mention the natives of strange countries in a
far more natural tone, and with far more attempt to discriminate
character, than modern ones, _e.g._, Niebuhr's Travels here and in
Arabia, Cook's Voyages, and many others. _Have_ we grown so _very_
civilized since a hundred years that outlandish people seem like mere
puppets, and not like real human beings? Miss M.'s bigotry against Copts
and Greeks is droll enough, compared to her very proper reverence for
'Him who sleeps in Philae,' and her attack upon hareems outrageous; she
implies that they are brothels. I must admit that I have not seen a
Turkish hareem, and she apparently saw no other, and yet she fancies the
morals of Turkey to be superior to those of Egypt. It is not possible
for a woman to explain all the limitations to which ordinary people do
subject themselves. Great men I know nothing of; but women can and do,
without blame, sue their husbands-in-law for the full 'payment of debt,'
and demand a divorce if they please in default. Very often a man marries
a second wife out of duty to provide for a brother's widow and children,
or the like. Of course licentious men act loosely as elsewhere.
_Kulloolum Beni Adam_ (we are all sons of Adam), as Sheykh Yussuf says
constantly, 'bad-bad and good-good'; and modern travellers show strange
ignorance in talking of foreign natives _in the lump_, as they nearly all
do.
_Monday_.--I have just heard that poor Sheykh Mohammed died yesterday,
and was, as usual, buried at once. I had not been well for a few days,
and Sheykh Yussuf took care that I should not know of his brother's
death. He went to Mustapha A'gha, and told him not to tell anyone in my
house till I was better, because he knew 'what was in my stomach towards
his family,' and feared I should be made worse by the news. And how
often I have been advised not to meddle with sick Arabs, because they are
sure to suspect a Christian of poisoning those who die! I do grieve for
the graceful, handsome young creature and his old father. Omar was vexed
at not knowing of his death, because he would have liked to help to carry
him to the grave.
I have at last learned the alphabet in Arabic, and can write it quite
tidily, but now I am in a fix for want of a dictionary, and have written
to Hekekian Bey to buy me one in Cairo. Sheykh Yussuf knows not a word
of English, and Omar can't read or write, and has no notion of grammar or
of _word for word_ interpretation, and it is very slow work. When I walk
through the court of the mosque I give the customary coppers to the
little boys who are spelling away loudly under the arcade, _Abba sheddeh
o nusbeyteen_, _Ibbi sheddeh o heftedeen_, etc., with a keen sympathy
with their difficulties and well-smudged tin slates. An additional evil
is that the Arabic books printed in England, and at English presses here,
require a 40-horse power microscope to distinguish a letter. The
ciphering is like ours, but with other figures, and I felt very stupid
when I discovered how I had reckoned Arab fashion from right to left all
my life and never observed the fact. However, they 'cast down' a column
of figures from top to bottom.
I am just called away by some poor men who want me to speak to the
English travellers about shooting their pigeons. It is very thoughtless,
but it is in great measure the fault of the servants and dragomans who
think they must not venture to tell their masters that pigeons are
private property. I have a great mind to put a notice on the wall of my
house about it. Here, where there are never less than eight or ten boats
lying for full three months, the loss to the _fellaheen_ is serious, and
our Consul Mustapha A'gha is afraid to say anything. I have given my
neighbours permission to call the pigeons mine, as they roost in flocks
on my roof, and to go out and say that the Sitt objects to her poultry
being shot, especially as I have had them shot off my balcony as they sat
there.
I got a note from M. Mounier yesterday, inviting me to go and stay at
El-Moutaneh, Halim Pasha's great estate, near Edfoo, and offering to send
his dahabieh for me. I certainly will go as soon as the weather is
decidedly hot. It is now very warm and pleasant. If I find Thebes too
hot as summer advances I must drop down and return to Cairo, or try Suez,
which I hear is excellent in summer--bracing desert air. But it is very
tempting to stay here--a splendid cool house, food extremely cheap; about
1 pounds a week for three of us for fish, bread, butter, meat, milk, eggs
and vegetables; all grocery, of course, I brought with me; no trouble,
rest and civil neighbours. I feel very disinclined to move unless I am
baked out, and it takes a good deal to bake me. The only fear is the
Khamaseen wind. I do not feel very well. I don't ail anything in
particular; blood-spitting frequent, but very slight; much less cough;
but I am so weak and good for nothing. I seldom feel able to go out or
do more than sit in the balcony on one side or other of the house. I
have no donkey here, the hired ones are so very bad and so dear; but I
have written Mounier to try and get me one at El-Moutaneh and send it
down in one of Halim Pasha's corn-boats. There is no comfort like a
donkey always ready. If I have to send for Mustapha's horse, I feel lazy
and fancy it is too much trouble unless I can go just when I want.
I have received a letter from Alexandria of January 8. What dreadful
weather! We felt the ghost of it here in our three weeks of cold.
Sometimes I feel as if I must go back to you all _coute qui coute_, but I
know it would be no use to try it in the summer. I long for more news of
you and my chicks.