We returned to Luxor the evening before last just after dark. The salute
which Omar fired with your old horse-pistols brought down a lot of
people, and there was a chorus of _Alhamdulilah Salaameh ya Sitt_, and
such a kissing of hands, and 'Welcome home to your place' and 'We have
tasted your absence and found it bitter,' etc., etc. Mustapha came with
letters for me, and Yussuf beaming with smiles, and Mahommed with new
bread made of new wheat, and Suleyman with flowers, and little Achmet
rushing in wildly to kiss hands. When the welcome had subsided, Yussuf,
who stayed to tea, told me all the cattle were dead. Mustapha lost
thirty-four, and has three left; and poor farmer Omar lost all--forty
head. The distress in Upper Egypt will now be fearful. Within six weeks
_all_ our cattle are dead. They are threshing the corn with donkeys, and
men are turning the sakiahs (water-wheels) and drawing the ploughs, and
dying by scores of overwork and want of food in many places. The whole
agriculture depended on the oxen, and they are all dead. At El-Moutaneh
and the nine villages round Halim Pasha's estate 24,000 head have died;
four beasts were left when we were there three days ago.
We spent two days and nights at Philae and _Wallahy_! it was hot. The
basalt rocks which enclose the river all round the island were burning.
Sally and I slept in the Osiris chamber, on the roof of the temple, on
our air-beds. Omar lay across the doorway to guard us, and Arthur and
his Copt, with the well-bred sailor Ramadan, were sent to bivouac on the
Pylon. Ramadan took the hareem under his special and most respectful
charge, and waited on us devotedly, but never raised his eyes to our
faces, or spoke till spoken to. Philae is six or seven miles from
Assouan, and we went on donkeys through the beautiful Shellaleeh (the
village of the cataract), and the noble place of tombs of Assouan. Great
was the amazement of everyone at seeing Europeans so out of season; we
were like swallows in January to them. I could not sleep for the heat in
the room, and threw on an _abbayeh_ (cloak) and went and lay on the
parapet of the temple. What a night! What a lovely view! The stars
gave as much light as the moon in Europe, and all but the cataract was
still as death and glowing hot, and the palm-trees were more graceful and
dreamy than ever. Then Omar woke, and came and sat at my feet, and
rubbed them, and sang a song of a Turkish slave. I said, 'Do not rub my
feet, oh brother--that is not fit for thee' (because it is below the
dignity of a free Muslim altogether to touch shoes or feet), but he sang
in his song, 'The slave of the Turk may be set free by money, but how
shall one be ransomed who has been paid for by kind actions and sweet
words?' Then the day broke deep crimson, and I went down and bathed in
the Nile, and saw the girls on the island opposite in their summer
fashions, consisting of a leathern fringe round their slender
hips--divinely graceful--bearing huge saucer-shaped baskets of corn on
their stately young heads; and I went up and sat at the end of the
colonnade looking up into Ethiopia, and dreamed dreams of 'Him who sleeps
in Philae,' until the great Amun Ra kissed my northern face too hotly,
and drove me into the temple to breakfast, and coffee, and pipes, and
_kief_. And in the evening three little naked Nubians rowed us about for
two or three hours on the glorious river in a boat made of thousands of
bits of wood, each a foot long; and between whiles they jumped overboard
and disappeared, and came up on the other side of the boat. Assouan was
full of Turkish soldiers, who came and took away our donkeys, and stared
at our faces most irreligiously. I did not go on shore at Kom Ombos or
El Kab, only at Edfou, where we spent the day in the temple; and at
Esneh, where we tried to buy sugar, tobacco, etc., and found nothing at
all, though Esneh is a _chef-lieu_, with a Moudir. It is only in winter
that anything is to be got for the travellers. We had to ask the Nazir
in Edfou to _order_ a man to sell us charcoal. People do without sugar,
and smoke green tobacco, and eat beans, etc., etc. Soon we must do
likewise, for our stores are nearly exhausted.
We stopped at El-Moutaneh, and had a good dinner in the Mouniers'
handsome house, and they gave me a loaf of sugar. Mme. Mounier described
Rachel's stay with them for three months at Luxor, in my house, where
they then lived. She hated it so, that on embarking to leave she turned
back and spat on the ground, and cursed the place inhabited by savages,
where she had been _ennuyee a mort_. Mme. Mounier fully sympathized with
her, and thought no _femme aimable_ could live with Arabs, who are not at
all _galants_. She is Levantine, and, I believe, half Arab herself, but
hates the life here, and hates the Muslims. As I write this I laugh to
think of _galanterie_ and _Arab_ in one sentence, and glance at 'my
brother' Yussuf, who is sleeping on a mat, quite overcome with the Simoom
(which is blowing) and the fast which he is keeping to-day, as the eve of
the _Eed-el-Kebir_ (great festival). This is the coolest place in the
village. The glass is only 95.5 degrees now (eleven a.m.) in the
darkened divan. The Kadee, and the Maohn, and Yussuf came together to
visit me, and when the others left he lay down to sleep. Omar is
sleeping in the passage, and Sally in her room. I alone don't sleep--but
the Simoom is terrible. Arthur runs about all day, sight-seeing and
drawing, and does not suffer at all from the heat. I can't walk now, as
the sand blisters my feet.
_Tuesday_, _May_ 17.--Yesterday the Simoom was awful, and last night I
slept on the terrace, and was very hot. To-day the north wind sprang up
at noon and revived us, though it is still 102 degrees in my divan. My
old 'great-grandfather' has come in for a pipe and coffee; he was
Belzoni's guide, and his eldest child was born seven days before the
French under Bonaparte marched into Luxor. He is superbly handsome and
erect, and very talkative, but only remembers old times, and takes me for
Mme. Belzoni. He is grandfather to Mahommed, the guard of this house,
and great-grandfather to my little Achmet. His grandsons have married
him to a tidy old woman to take care of him; he calls me 'My lady
grand-daughter,' and Omar he calls 'Mustapha,' and we salute him as
'grandfather.' I wish I could paint him; he is so grand to look at. Old
Mustapha had a son born yesterday--his tenth child. I must go and wish
him joy, after which I will go to Arthur's boat and have a bathe; the
sailors rig me out a capital awning. We had a good boat, and a capital
crew; one man Mahommed, called Alatee (the singer), sang beautifully, to
my great delight, and all were excellent fellows, quiet and obliging;
only his servant was a lazy beast, dirty and conceited--a Copt, spoiled
by an Italian education and Greek associates, thinking himself very grand
because he was a Christian. I wondered at the patience and good-nature
with which Omar did all his work and endured all his insolence. There
was one stupendous row at Assouan, however. The men had rigged out a
sort of tent for me to bathe in over the side of the boat, and Ramadan
caught the Copt trying to peep in, and half strangled him. Omar called
him 'dog,' and asked him if he was an infidel, and Macarius told him I
was a Christian woman, and not _his Hareem_. Omar lost his temper, and
appealed to the old reis and all the sailors, 'O Muslims, ought not I to
cut his throat if he had defiled the noble person of the lady with his
pig's eyes? God forgive me for mentioning her in such a manner.' Then
they all cursed him for a pig and an infidel, and threatened to put him
ashore and leave him for his vile conduct towards noble _Hareem_. Omar
sobbed with passion, saying that I was to him like the 'back of his
mother,' and how 'dare Macarius take my name in his dirty mouth,' etc.
The Copt tried to complain of being beaten afterwards, but I signified to
him that he had better hold his tongue, for that I understood Arabic,
upon which he sneaked off.