I am glad my letters amuse you. Sometimes I think they must breathe the
unutterable dulness of Eastern life: not that it is dull to me, a curious
spectator, but how the men with nothing to do can endure it is a wonder.
I went yesterday to call on a Turk at Karnac; he is a gentlemanly man,
the son of a former Moudir, who was murdered, I believe, for his cruelty
and extortion. He has 1,000 feddans (acres, or a little more) of land,
and lives in a mud house, larger but no better than any fellahs, with two
wives and the brother of one of them. He leaves the farm to his
fellaheen altogether, I fancy. There was one book, a Turkish one; I
could not read the title-page, and he did not tell me what it was. In
short, there was no means of killing time but the narghile, no horse, no
gun, nothing, and yet they did not seem bored. The two women are always
clamorous for my visits, and very noisy and school-girlish, but
apparently excellent friends and very good-natured. The gentleman gave
me a _kufyeh_ (thick head kerchief for the sun), so I took the ladies a
bit of silk I happened to have. You never heard anything like his
raptures over Maurice's portrait, '_Mashallah_, _Mashallah_, _Wallahy zay
el ward_' (It is the will of God, and by God he is like a rose). But I
can't 'cotton to' the Turks. I always feel that they secretly dislike us
European women, though they profess huge admiration and pay _personal_
compliments, which an Arab very seldom attempts. I heard Seleem Effendi
and Omar discussing English ladies one day lately while I was inside the
curtain with Seleem's slave girl, and they did not know I heard them.
Omar described Janet, and was of the opinion that a man who was married
to her could want nothing more. 'By my soul, she rides like a Bedawee,
she shoots with the gun and pistol, and rows the boat; she speaks many
languages, works with the needle like an Efreet, and to see her hands run
over the teeth of the music-box (keys of piano) amazes the mind, while
her singing gladdens the soul. How then should her husband ever desire
the coffee-shop? _Wallahy_! she can always amuse him at home. And as to
my lady, the thing is not that she does not know. When I feel my stomach
tightened, I go to the divan and say to her, 'Do you want anything, a
pipe, or sherbet, or so and so?' and I talk till she lays down her book
and talks to me, and I question her and amuse my mind, and, by God! if I
were a rich man and could marry one English Hareem like that I would
stand before her and serve her like her memlook. You see I am only this
lady's servant, and I have not once sat in the coffee-shop because of the
sweetness of her tongue. Is it not therefore true that the man who can
marry such Hareem is rich more than with money?' Seleem seemed disposed
to think a little more of looks, though he quite agreed with all Omar's
enthusiasm, and asked if Janet were beautiful. Omar answered with
decorous vagueness that she was a 'moon,' but declined mentioning her
hair, eyes, etc. (it is a liberty to describe a woman minutely). I
nearly laughed out at hearing Omar relate his manoeuvres to make me
'amuse his mind'; it seems I am in no danger of being discharged for
being dull.
The weather has set in so hot that I have shifted my quarters out of my
fine room to the south-west into one with only three sides looking over a
lovely green view to the north-east, with a huge sort of solid veranda,
as large as the room itself, on the open side; thus I live in the open
air altogether. The bats and the swallows are quite sociable; I hope the
serpents and scorpions will be more reserved. '_El Khamaseen_' (the
fifty) has begun, and the wind is enough to mix up heaven and earth, but
it is not distressing like the Cape south-easter, and, though hot, not
choking like the Khamseen in Cairo and Alexandria. Mohammed brought me a
handful of the new wheat just now. Think of harvest in March and April!
These winds are as good for the crops here as a 'nice steady rain' is in
England. It is not necessary to water so much when the wind blows
strong. As I rode through the green fields along the dyke, a little boy
sang as he turned round on the musically-creaking Sakiah (the water-wheel
turned by an ox) the one eternal Sakiah tune--the words are _ad libitum_,
and my little friend chanted 'Turn oh Sakiah to the right and turn to the
left--who will take care of me if my father dies? Turn oh Sakiah, etc.,
pour water for the figs and the grass and for the watermelons. Turn oh
Sakiah!' Nothing is so pathetic as that Sakiah song.
I passed the house of the Sheykh-el-Ababdeh, who called out to me to take
coffee. The moon was splendid and the scene was lovely. The handsome
black-brown Sheykh in dark robes and white turban, Omar in a graceful
white gown and red turban, and the wild Ababdeh in all manner of dingy
white rags, and with every kind of uncouth weapon, spears, matchlocks,
etc., in every kind of wild and graceful attitude, with their long black
ringlets and bare heads, a few little black-brown children quite naked
and shaped like Cupids. And there we sat and looked so romantic and
talked quite like ladies and gentlemen about the merits of Sakna and
Almas, the two great rival women-singers of Cairo. I think the Sheykh
wished to display his experiences of fashionable life.
The Copts are now fasting and cross. They fast fifty-five days for Lent;
no meat, fish, eggs, or milk, no exception for Sundays, no food till
after twelve at noon, and no intercourse with the hareem. The only
comfort is lots of arrak, and what a Copt can carry decently is an
unknown quantity; one seldom sees them drunk, but they imbibe awful
quantities. They offer me wine and arrak always, and can't think why I
don't drink it. I believe they suspect my Christianity in consequence of
my preference for Nile water. As to that, though, they scorn all
heretics, _i.e._, all Christians but themselves and the Abyssinians, more
than they do the Muslims, and dislike them more; the procession of the
Holy Ghost question divides us with the Gulf of Jehannum. The gardener
of this house is a Copt, such a nice fellow, and he and Omar chaff one
another about religion with the utmost good humour; indeed they are
seldom touchy with the Moslems. There is a pretty little man called
Michail, a Copt, vakeel to M. Mounier. I wish I could draw him to show a
perfect specimen of the ancient Egyptian race; his blood must be quite
unmixed. He came here yesterday to speak to Ali Bey, the Moudir of
Keneh, who was visiting me (a splendid handsome Turk he is); so little
Michail crept in to mention his business under my protection, and a few
more followed, till Ali Bey got tired of holding a durbar in my divan and
went away to his boat. You see the people think the _courbash_ is not
quite so handy with an English spectator. The other day Mustapha A'gha
got Ali Bey to do a little job for him--to let the people in the Gezeereh
(the island), which is Mustapha's property, work at a canal there instead
of at the canal higher up for the Pasha. Very well, but down comes the
Nazir (the Moudir's _sub_.), and courbashes the whole Gezeereh, not
Mustapha, of course, but the poor _fellaheen_ who were doing his corvee
instead of the Pasha's by the Moudir's order. I went to the Gezeereh and
thought that Moses was at work again and had killed a firstborn in every
house by the crying and wailing, when up came two fellows and showed me
their bloody feet, which their wives were crying over like for a death,
_Shorghl el Mizr_--things of Egypt--like _Cosas de Espana_.
_Wednesday_.--Last night I bored Sheykh Yussuf with Antara and Abou-Zeyd,
maintaining the greater valour of Antara who slew 10,000 for the love of
Ibla; you know Antara. Yussuf looks down on such profanities, and
replied, 'What are Antara and Abou-Zeyd compared to the combats of our
Lord Moses with Og and other infidels of might, and what is the love of
Antara for Ibla compared to that of our Lord Solomon for Balkees (Queen
of Sheba), or their beauty and attractiveness to that of our Lord
Joseph?' And then he related the combat of _Seyyidna Mousa_ with Og; and
I thought, 'hear O ye Puritans, and give ear O ye Methodists, and learn
how religion and romance are one to those whose manners and ideas are the
manners and ideas of the Bible, and how Moses was not at all a crop-eared
Puritan, but a gallant warrior!' There is the Homeric element in the
religion here, the Prophet is a hero like Achilles, and like him directed
by God--Allah instead of Athene. He fights, prays, teaches, makes love,
and is truly a _man_, not an abstraction; and as to wonderful events,
instead of telling one to 'gulp them down without looking' (as children
are told with a nasty dose, and as we are told about Genesis, etc.) they
believe them and delight in them, and tell them to amuse people. Such a
piece of deep-disguised scepticism as _Credo quia impossibile_ would find
no favour here; 'What is impossible to God?' settles everything. In
short, Mohammed has somehow left the stamp of romance on the religion, or
else it is in the blood of the people, though the Koran is prosy and
'common-sensical' compared to the Old Testament. I used to think Arabs
intensely prosaic till I could understand a little of their language, but
now I can trace the genealogy of Don Quixote straight up to some
Sheykh-el-Arab.
A fine, handsome woman with a lovely baby came to me the other day. I
played with the baby, and gave it a cotton handkerchief for its head.
The woman came again yesterday to bring me a little milk and some salad
as a present, and to tell my fortune with date stones. I laughed, and so
she contented herself with telling Omar about his family, which he
believed implicitly. She is a clever woman evidently, and a great sibyl
here. No doubt she has faith in her own predictions. She told Mme.
Mounier (who is a Levantine) that she would never have a child, and was
forbidden the house accordingly, and the prophecy has 'come true.'
Superstition is wonderfully infectious here. The fact is that the Arabs
are so intensely impressionable, and so cowardly about inspiring any
ill-will, that if a man looks askance at them it is enough to make them
ill, and as calamities are not infrequent, there is always some mishap
ready to be laid to the charge of somebody's 'eye.' Omar would fain have
had me say nothing about the theft of my purse, for fear the Karnac
people should hate me and give me the eye. A part of the boasting about
property, etc., is politeness, so that one may not be supposed to be
envious of one's neighbours' nice things. My Sakka (water carrier)
admired my bracelet yesterday, as he was watering the verandah floor, and
instantly told me of all the gold necklaces and earrings he had bought
for his wife and daughters, that I might not be uneasy and fear his
envious eye. He is such a good fellow. For two shillings a month he
brings up eight or ten huge skins of water from the river a day, and
never begs or complains, always merry and civil. I shall enlarge his
backsheesh. There are a lot of camels who sleep in the yard under my
verandah; they are pretty and smell nice, but they growl and swear at
night abominably. I wish I could draw you an Egyptian farm-yard, men,
women and cattle; but what no one can draw is the amber light, so
brilliant and so soft, not like the Cape diamond sunshine at all, but
equally beautiful, hotter and less dazzling. There is no glare in Egypt
like in the South of France, and, I suppose, in Italy.
_Thursday_.--I went yesterday afternoon to the island again to see the
crops, and show Sally my friend farmer Omar's house and Mustapha's
village. Of course we had to eat, and did not come home till the moon
had long risen. Mustapha's brother Abdurachman walked about with us,
such a noble-looking man, tall, spare, dignified and active, grey-bearded
and hard-featured, but as lithe and bright-eyed as a boy, scorning any
conveyance but his own feet, and quite dry while we 'ran down.' He was
like Boaz, the wealthy gentleman peasant--nothing except the Biblical
characters gave any idea of the rich _fellah_. We sat and drank new milk
in a 'lodge in a garden of cucumbers' (the 'lodge' is a neat hut of palm
branches), and saw the moon rise over the mountains and light up
everything like a softer sun. Here you see all colours as well by
moonlight as by day; hence it does not look as brilliant as the Cape
moon, or even as I have seen in Paris, where it throws sharp black
shadows and white light. The night here is a tender, subdued, dreamy
sort of enchanted-looking day. My Turkish acquaintance from Karnac has
just been here; he boasted of his house in Damascus, and invited me to go
with him after the harvest here, also of his beautiful wife in Syria, and
then begged me not to mention her to his wives here.
It is very hot now; what will it be in June? It is now 86 degrees in my
shady room at noon; it will be hotter at two or three. But the mornings
and evenings are delicious. I am shedding my clothes by degrees;
stockings are unbearable. Meanwhile my cough is almost gone, and the
pain is quite gone. I feel much stronger, too; the horrible feeling of
exhaustion has left me; I suppose I must have salamander blood in my body
to be made lively by such heat. Sally is quite well; she does not seem
at all the worse at present.
_Saturday_.--This will go to-morrow by some travellers, the last winter
swallows. We went together yesterday to the Tombs of the Kings on the
opposite bank. The mountains were red-hot, and the sun went down into
Amenti all on fire. We met Mr. Dummichen, the German, who is living in
the temple of Dayr el-Bahree, translating inscriptions, and went down
Belzoni's tomb. Mr. Dummichen translated a great many things for us
which were very curious, and I think I was more struck with the beauty of
the drawing of the figures than last year. The face of the Goddess of
the Western shore, Amenti, Athor, or Hecate, is ravishing as she welcomes
the King to her regions; death was never painted so lovely. The road is
a long and most wild one--truly through the valley of the shadow of
death--not an insect nor a bird. Our moonlight ride home was beyond
belief beautiful. The Arabs who followed us were immensely amused at
hearing me interpret between German and English, and at my speaking
Arabic; they asked if I was dragoman of all the languages in the world.
One of them had droll theories about 'Amellica' (America), as they
pronounce it always. Was the King very powerful that the country was
called '_Al Melekeh_' (the Kings)? I said, 'No: all are Kings there: you
would be a King like the rest.' My friend disapproved utterly: 'If all
are Kings they must all be taking away every man the other's money'--a
delightful idea of the kingly vocation.
When we landed on the opposite shore, I told little Achmet to go back in
the ferry-boat, in which he had brought me over my donkey; a quarter of
an hour after I saw him by my side. The guide asked why he had not gone
as I told him. 'Who would take care of the lady?' the monkey is Rainie's
size. Of course he got tired, and on the way home I told him to jump up
behind me _en croupe_ after the Fellah fashion. I thought the Arabs
would never have done laughing and saying _Wallah_ and _Mashallah_.
Sheykh Yussuf talked about the excavations, and is shocked at the way the
mummies are kicked about. One boy told him they were not Muslims as an
excuse, and he rebuked him severely, and told him it was _haraam_
(accursed) to do so to the children of Adam. He says they have learned
it very much of Mariette Bey, but I suspect it was always so with the
fellaheen. To-day a tremendous wind is blowing; excellent for the corn.
At Mustapha's farm they are preparing for the harvest, baking bread and
selecting a young bull to be killed for the reapers. It is not hot
to-day; only 84 degrees in a cool room. The dust is horrid with this
high wind; everything is gritty, and it obscures the sun. I am desired
to eat a raw onion every day during the Khamseen for health and
prosperity. This too must be a remnant of ancient Egypt. How I do long
to see you and the children. Sometimes I feel rather down-hearted, but
it is no good to say all that. And I am much better and stronger. I
stood a long ride and some scrambling quite well last evening.