I have just paid a singular visit to a political _detenu_ or exile
rather. Last night Mustapha came in with a man in great grief who said
his boy was very ill on board a cangia just come from Cairo and going to
Assouan. The watchman on the river-bank had told him that there was an
English Sitt 'who would not turn her face from anyone in trouble' and
advised him to come to me for medicine, so he went to Mustapha and begged
him to bring him to me, and to beg the cawass (policeman) in charge of
El-Bedrawee (who was being sent to Fazoghlou in banishment) to wait a few
hours. The cawass (may he not suffer for his humanity) consented. He
described his boy's symptoms and I gave him a dose of castor oil and said
I would go to the boat in the morning. The poor fellow was a Cairo
merchant but living at Khartoum, he poured out his sorrow in true Eastern
style. 'Oh my boy, and I have none but he, and how shall I come before
his mother, a Habbesheeyeh, oh Lady, and tell her "thy son is dead"?' So
I said, '_Allah kereem ya Seedee_, and _Inshallah tayib_,' etc., etc.,
and went this morning early to the boat. It was a regular old Arab
cangia lumbered up with corn, sacks of matting, a live sheep, etc., and
there I found a sweet graceful boy of fifteen or so in a high fever. His
father said he had visited a certain Pasha on the way and evidently meant
that he had been poisoned or had the evil eye. I assured him it was only
the epidemic and asked why he had not sent for the doctor at Keneh. The
old story! He was afraid, 'God knows what a government doctor might do
to the boy.' Then Omar came in and stood before El-Bedrawee and said,
'Oh my master, why do we see thee thus? Mashallah, I once ate of thy
bread when I was of the soldiers of Said Pasha, and I saw thy riches and
thy greatness, and what has God decreed against thee?' So El-Bedrawee
who is (or was) one of the wealthiest men of Lower Egypt and lived at
Tantah, related how Effendina (Ismail Pasha) sent for him to go to Cairo
to the Citadel to transact some business, and how he rode his horse up to
the Citadel and went in, and there the Pasha at once ordered a cawass to
take him down to the Nile and on board a common cargo boat and to go with
him and take him to Fazoghlou. Letters were given to the cawass to
deliver to every Moudir on the way, and another despatched by hand to the
Governor of Fazoghlou with orders concerning El-Bedrawee. He begged
leave to see his son once more before starting, or any of his family.
'No, he must go at once and see no one.' But luckily a fellah, one of
his relations had come after him to Cairo and had 700 pounds in his
girdle; he followed El-Bedrawee to the Citadel and saw him being walked
off by the cawass and followed him to the river and on board the boat and
gave him the 700 pounds which he had in his girdle. The various Moudirs
had been civil to him, and friends in various places had given him
clothes and food. He had not got a chain round his neck or fetters, and
was allowed to go ashore with the cawass, for he had just been to the
tomb of Abou-l-Hajjaj and had told that dead Sheykh all his affliction
and promised, if he came back safe, to come every year to his _moolid_
(festival) and pay the whole expenses (_i.e._ feed all comers). Mustapha
wanted him to dine with him and me, but the cawass could not allow it, so
Mustapha sent him a fine sheep and some bread, fruit, etc. I made him a
present of some quinine, rhubarb pills, and sulphate of zinc for eye
lotion. Here you know we all go upon a more than English presumption and
believe every prisoner to be innocent and a victim--as he gets no trial
he _never_ can be proved guilty--besides poor old El-Bedrawee declared he
had not the faintest idea what he was accused of or how he had offended
Effendina.
I listened to all this in extreme amazement, and he said, 'Ah! I know
you English manage things very differently; I have heard all about your
excellent justice.'
He was a stout, dignified-looking fair man, like a Turk, but talking
broad Lower Egypt fellah talk, so that I could not understand him, and
had to get Mustapha and Omar to repeat his words. His father was an
Arab, and his mother a Circassian slave, which gave the fair skin and
reddish beard. He must be over fifty, fat and not healthy; of course he
is _meant_ to die up in Fazoghlou, especially going at this season. He
owns (or owned, for God knows who has it now) 12,000 feddans of fine land
between Tantah and Samanhoud, and was enormously rich. He consulted me a
great deal about his health, and I gave him certainly very good advice.
I cannot write in a letter which I know you will show what drugs a
Turkish doctor had furnished him with to 'strengthen' him in the trying
climate of Fazoghlou. I wonder was it intended to kill him or only given
in ignorance of the laws of health equal to his own?
After a while the pretty boy became better and recovered consciousness,
and his poor father, who had been helping me with trembling hands and
swimming eyes, cried for joy, and said, 'By God the most high, if ever I
find any of the English, poor or sick or afflicted up in Fazoghlou, I
will make them know that I Abu Mahommed never saw a face like the pale
face of the English lady bent over my sick boy.' And then El-Bedrawee
and his fellah kinsman, and all the crew blessed me and the Captain, and
the cawass said it was time to sail. So I gave directions and medicine
to Abu Mahommed, and kissed the pretty boy and went out. El-Bedrawee
followed me up the bank, and said he had a request to make--would I pray
for him in his distress. I said, 'I am not of the Muslimeen,' but both
he and Mustapha said, _Maleysh_ (never mind), for that it was quite
certain I was not of the _Mushkireen_, as they hate the Muslimeen and
their deeds are evil--but blessed be God, many of the English begin to
repent of their evil, and to love the Muslims and abound in kind actions.
So we parted in much kindness. It was a strange feeling to me to stand
on the bank and see the queer savage-looking boat glide away up the
stream, bound to such far more savage lands, and to be exchanging kind
farewells quite in a homely manner with such utter 'aliens in blood and
faith.' 'God keep thee Lady, God keep thee Mustapha.' Mustapha and I
walked home very sad about poor El-Bedrawee.
_Friday_, _July_ 7.--It has been so 'awfully' hot that I have not had
pluck to go on with my letter, or indeed to do anything but lie on a mat
in the passage with a minimum of clothes quite indescribable in English.
_Alhamdulilah_! laughs Omar, 'that I see the clever English people do
just like the lazy Arabs.' The worst is not the positive heat, which has
not been above 104 and as low as 96 degrees at night, but the horrible
storms of hot wind and dust which are apt to come on at night and prevent
one's even lying down till twelve or one o'clock. Thebes is bad in the
height of summer on account of its expanse of desert, and sand and dust.
The Nile is pouring down now gloriously, and _really_ red as blood--more
crimson than a Herefordshire lane--and in the distance the reflection of
the pure blue sky makes it deep violet. It had risen five cubits a week
ago; we shall soon have it all over the land here. It is a beautiful and
inspiriting sight to see the noble old stream as young and vigorous as
ever. No wonder the Egyptians worshipped the Nile: there is nothing like
it. We have had all the plagues of Egypt this year, only the lice are
commuted for bugs, and the frogs for mice; the former have eaten me and
the latter have eaten my clothes. We are so ragged! Omar has one shirt
left, and has to sleep without and wash it every night. The dust, the
drenching perspiration, and the hard-fisted washing of Mahommed's
slave-women destroys everything.
Mustapha intends to give you a grand _fantasia_ if you come, and to have
the best dancing girls down from Esneh for you; but I am consternated to
hear that you can't come till December. I hoped you would have arrived
in Cairo early in November, and spent a month there with me, and come up
the river in the middle of December when Cairo gets very cold.
I remain very well in general health, but my cough has been troublesome
again. I do not feel at all like breathing cold damp air again. This
depresses me very much as you may suppose. You will have to divorce me,
and I must marry some respectable Kadee. I have been too 'lazy Arab,' as
Omar calls it, to go on with my Arabic lessons, and Yussuf has been very
busy with law business connected with the land and the crops. Every
harvest brings a fresh settling of the land. Wheat is selling at 1 pound
the ardeb {188} here _on the threshing-floor_, and barley at one hundred
and sixteen piastres; I saw some Nubians pay Mustapha that. He is in
comic perplexity about saying _Alhamdulillah_ about such enormous
gains--you see it is rather awkward for a Muslim to thank God for dear
bread--so he compounds by very lavish almsgiving. He gave all his
fellaheen clothes the other day--forty calico shirts and drawers. Do you
remember my describing an Arab _emancipirtes Fraulein_ at Siout? Well,
the other day I saw as I thought a nice-looking lad of sixteen selling
corn to my opposite neighbour, a Copt. It was a girl. Her father had no
son and is infirm, so she works in the field for him, and dresses and
does like a man. She looked very modest and was quieter in her manner
than the veiled women often are.
I am so glad to hear such good accounts of my Rainie and Maurice. I can
hardly bear to think of another year without seeing them. However it is
fortunate for me that 'my lines have fallen in pleasant places,' so long
a time at the Cape or any Colony would have become intolerable. Best
love to Janet, I really can't write, it's too hot and dusty. Omar
desires his salaam to his great master and to that gazelle Sittee Ross.