I think I shall have an opportunity of sending letters in a few days by a
fast steamer, so I will begin one on the chance and send it by post if
the steamer is delayed long. The glory of the climate now is beyond
description, and I feel better every day. I go out early--at seven or
eight o'clock--on my tiny black donkey, and come in to breakfast about
ten, and go out again at four.
I want to photograph Yussuf for you. The feelings and prejudices and
ideas of a cultivated Arab, as I get at them little by little, are
curious beyond compare. It won't do to generalize from one man, of
course, but even one gives some very new ideas. The most striking thing
is the sweetness and delicacy of feeling--the horror of hurting anyone
(this must be individual, of course: it is too good to be general). I
apologized to him two days ago for inadvertently answering the _Salaam
aleykoum_, which he, of course, said to Omar on coming in. Yesterday
evening he walked in and startled me by a _Salaam aleykee_ addressed to
me; he had evidently been thinking it over whether he ought to say it to
me, and come to the conclusion that it was not wrong. 'Surely it is well
for all the creatures of God to speak peace (_Salaam_) to each other,'
said he. Now, no uneducated Muslim would have arrived at such a
conclusion. Omar would pray, work, lie, do anything for me--sacrifice
money even; but I doubt whether he _could_ utter _Salaam aleykoum_ to any
but a Muslim. I answered as I felt: 'Peace, oh my brother, and God bless
thee!' It was almost as if a Catholic priest had felt impelled by
charity to offer the communion to a heretic. I observed that the story
of the barber was new to him, and asked if he did not know the 'Thousand
and One Nights.' No; he studied only things of religion, no light
amusements were proper for an Alim (elder of religion); _we_ Europeans
did not know that, of course, as _our_ religion was to enjoy ourselves;
but _he_ must not make merry with diversions, or music, or droll stories.
(See the mutual ignorance of all ascetics!) He has a little girl of six
or seven, and teaches her to write and read; no one else, he believes,
thinks of such a thing out of Cairo; there many of the daughters of the
Alim learn--those who desire it. His wife died two years ago, and six
months ago he married again a wife of twelve years old! (Sheykh Yussuf
is thirty he tells me; he looks twenty-two or twenty-three.) What a
stepmother and what a wife! He can repeat the whole Koran without a
book, it takes twelve hours to do it. Has read the Towrat (old
Testament) and the el-Aangeel (Gospels), of course, every Alim reads
them. 'The words of Seyyidna Eesa are the true faith, but Christians
have altered and corrupted their meaning. So we Muslims believe. We are
all the children of God.' I ask if Muslims call themselves so, or only
the slaves of God. ''Tis all one, children or slaves. Does not a good
man care for both tenderly alike?' (Pray observe the Oriental feeling
here. _Slave_ is a term of affection, not contempt; and remember the
Centurion's '_servant_ (slave) whom he loved.') He had heard from Fodl
Pasha how a cow was cured of the prevailing disease in Lower Egypt by
water weighed against a _Mushaf_ (copy of the Koran), and had no doubt it
was true, Fodl Pasha had tried it. Yet he thinks the Arab doctors no use
at all who use verses of the Koran.
M. de Rouge, the great _Egyptologue_, came here one evening; he speaks
Arabic perfectly, and delighted Sheykh Yussuf, who was much interested in
the translations of the hieroglyphics and anxious to know if he had found
anything about _Moussa_ (Moses) or _Yussuf_ (Joseph). He looked pleased
and grateful to be treated like a 'gentleman and scholar' by such an Alim
as M. de Rouge and such a Sheykhah as myself. As he acts as clerk to
Mustapha, our consular agent, and wears a shabby old brown shirt, or
gown, and speaks no English, I dare say he not seldom encounters great
slights (from sheer ignorance). He produced a bit of old Cufic MS. and
consulted M. de R. as to its meaning--a pretty little bit of flattery in
an Arab Alim to a Frenchman, to which the latter was not insensible, I
saw. In answer to the invariable questions about all my family I once
told him my father had been a great Alim of the Law, and that my mother
had got ready his written books and put some lectures in order to be
printed. He was amazed--first that I had a mother, as he told me he
thought I was fifty or sixty, and immensely delighted at the idea. 'God
has favoured your family with understanding and knowledge; I wish I could
kiss the _Sheykhah_ your mother's hand. May God favour her!' Maurice's
portrait (as usual) he admired fervently, and said one saw his good
qualities in his face--a compliment I could have fully returned, as he
sat looking at the picture with affectionate eyes and praying, _sotto
voce_, for _el gedda_, _el gemeel_ (the youth, the beautiful), in the
words of the _Fathah_, 'O give him guidance and let him not stray into
the paths of the rejected!' Altogether, something in Sheykh Yussuf
reminds me of Worsley: there is the same look of _Seelen reinheit_, with
far less thought and intelligence; indeed little thought, of course, and
an additional childlike innocence. I suppose some medieval monks may
have had the same look, but no Catholic I have ever seen looks so
peaceful or so unpretending. I see in him, like in all people who don't
know what doubt means, that easy familiarity with religion. I hear him
joke with Omar about Ramadan, and even about Omar's assiduous prayers,
and he is a frequent and hearty laugher. I wonder whether this gives you
any idea of a character new to you. It is so impossible to describe
_manner_, which gives so much of the impression of novelty. My
conclusion is the heretical one: that to dream of converting here is
absurd, and, I will add, wrong. All that is wanted is general knowledge
and education, and the religion will clear and develop itself. The
elements are identical with those of Christianity, encumbered, as that
has been, with asceticism and intolerance. On the other hand, the creed
is simple and there are no priests, a decided advantage. I think the
faith has remained wonderfully rational considering the extreme ignorance
of those who hold it. I will add Sally's practical remark, that 'The
prayers are a fine thing for lazy people; they must wash first, and the
prayer is a capital drill.'
You would be amused to hear Sally when Omar does not wake in time to
wash, pray, and eat before daybreak now in Ramadan. She knocks at his
door and acts as Muezzin. 'Come, Omar, get up and pray and have your
dinner' (the evening meal is 'breakfast,' the early morning one
'dinner'). Being a light sleeper she hears the Muezzin, which Omar often
does not, and passes on the 'Prayers is better than sleep' in a prose
version. Ramadan is a dreadful business; everybody is cross and lazy--no
wonder! The camel-men quarrelled all day under my window yesterday, and
I asked what it was all about. 'All about nothing; it is Ramadan with
them,' said Omar laughing. 'I want to quarrel with someone myself; it is
hot to-day, and thirsty weather.' Moreover, I think it injures the
health of numbers permanently, but of course it is the thing of most
importance in the eyes of the people; there are many who never pray at
ordinary times, but few fail to keep Ramadan. It answers to the Scotch
Sabbath, a comparison also borrowed from Sally.
_Friday_.--My friend Seleem Effendi has just been here talking about his
own affairs and a good deal of theology. He is an immense talker, and I
just put _eywas_ (yes) and _la_ (no) and _sahe_ (very true), and learn
manners and customs. He tells me he has just bought two black slave
women, mother and daughter, from a Copt for about 35 pounds the two. The
mother is a good cook, and the daughter is 'for his bed,' as his wife
does not like to leave Cairo and her boys at school there. It does give
one a sort of start to hear a most respectable magistrate tell one such a
domestic arrangement. He added that it would not interfere with the
_Sittel Kebeer_ (the great lady), the black girl being only a slave, and
these people never think they have children enough. Moreover, he said he
could not get on with his small pay without women to keep house, which is
quite true here, and women are not respectable in a man's house on other
terms. Seleem has a high reputation, and is said not to 'eat the
people.' He is a hot Mussulman, and held forth very much as a very
superficial Unitarian might do, evidently feeling considerable contempt
for the absurdities, as he thinks them, of the Copts (he was too civil to
say Christians), but no hatred (and he is known to show no partiality),
only he 'can't understand how people can believe such nonsense.' He is a
good specimen of the good, honest, steady-going man-of-the-world Muslim,
a strong contrast to the tender piety of dear Sheykh Yussuf, who has all
the feelings which we call Christian charity in the highest degree, and
whose face is like that of 'the beloved disciple,' but who has no
inclination for doctrinal harangues like worthy Seleem. There is a very
general idea among the Arabs that Christians hate the Muslims; they
attribute to us the old Crusading spirit. It is only lately that Omar
has let us see him at prayer, for fear of being ridiculed, but now he is
sure that is not so, I often find him praying in the room where Sally
sits at work, which is a clean, quiet place. Yussuf went and joined him
there yesterday evening, and prayed with him, and gave him some religious
instruction quite undisturbed by Sally and her needlework, and I am
continually complimented on _not hating_ the Muslims. Yussuf promises me
letters to some Alim in Cairo when I go there again, that I may be shown
the Azhar (the great college). Omar had told him that I refused to go
with a janissary from the Consul for fear of giving offence to any very
strict Muslims, which astonished him much. He says his friends shall
dress me in their women's clothes and take me in. I asked whether as a
concealment of my religion, and he said no, only there were 'thousands'
of young men, and it would be 'more delicate' that they should not stare
and talk about my face.
Seleem told me a very pretty grammatical quibble about 'son' and
'prophet' (apropos of Christ) on a verse in the Gospel, depending on the
reduplicative sign [Arabic sign for sheddeh] (_sheddeh_) over one letter;
he was just as put out when I reminded him that it was written in Greek,
as our amateur theologians are if you say the Bible was not originally
composed in English. However, I told him that many Christians in
England, Germany, and America did not believe that Seyyidna Eesa was God,
but only the greatest of prophets and teachers, and that I was myself of
that opinion. He at once declared that that was sufficient, that all
such had 'received guidance,' and were not 'among the rejected'; how
could they be, since such Christians only believed the teaching of Eesa,
which was true, and not the falsifications of the priests and bishops
(the bishops always 'catch it,' as schoolboys say). I was curious to
hear whether on the strength of this he would let out any further
intolerance against the Copts, but he said far less and far less bitterly
than I have heard from Unitarians, and debited the usual most
commonplace, common-sense kind of arguments on the subject. I fancy it
would not be very palatable to many Unitarians, to be claimed _mir nichts
dir nichts_ as followers of _el-Islam_; but if people really wish to
convert in the sense of improving, that door is open, and no other.
_Monday_, 7_th_.--The steamer is come down already and will, I suppose,
go on to-morrow, so I must finish this letter to go by it. I have not
received any letter for some time, and am anxiously expecting the post.
We have now settled into quite warm weather ways, no more going out at
mid-day. It is now broiling, and I have been watching eight tall fine
blacks swimming and capering about, their skins shining like otters' fur
when wet. They belong to a _gellaab_--a slave-dealer's boat. The
beautiful thing is to see the men and boys at work among the green corn,
the men half naked and the boys wholly so; in the sun their brown skins
look just like dark clouded amber--semi-transparent, so fine are they.
I rejoice to say that on Wednesday is Bairam, and to-morrow Ramadan
'dies.' Omar is very thin and yellow and headachy, and everyone is
cross. How I wish I were going, instead of my letter, to see you all,
but it is evident that this heat is the thing that does me good, if
anything will.