I posted a letter for you at Girgeh, as we passed Siout with a good wind,
I hope you will get it. My crew worked as I never saw men work, they
were paid to get to Luxor, and for eighteen days they never rested or
slept day or night, and all the time were merry and pleasant. It shows
what power of endurance these 'lazy Arabs' have when there is good money
at the end of a job, instead of the favourite panacea of 'stick.'
We arrived at midnight and next morning my boat had the air of being
pillaged. A crowd of laughing, chattering fellows ran off to the house
laden with loose articles snatched up at random, loaves of sugar, pots
and pans, books, cushions, all helter-skelter. I feared breakages, but
all was housed safe and sound. The small boys of an age licensed to
penetrate into the cabin, went off with the oddest cargoes of dressing
things and the like--of backsheesh not one word. _Alhamdulillah
salaameh_! 'Thank God thou art in peace,' and _Ya Sitt, Ya Emeereh_,
till my head went round. Old Ismaeen fairly hugged me and little Achmet
hung close to my side. I went up to Mustapha's house while the unpacking
took place and breakfasted there, and found letters from all of you, from
you to darling Rainie, Sheykh Yussuf was charmed with her big writing and
said he thought the news in that was the best of all.
The weather was intensely hot the first two days. Now it is heavenly, a
fresh breeze and gorgeous sunshine. I brought two common Arab lanterns
for the tomb of Abu-l-Hajjaj and his _moolid_ is now going on. Omar took
them and lighted them up and told me he found several people who called
on the rest to say the _Fathah_ for me. I was sitting out yesterday with
the people on the sand looking at the men doing _fantasia_ on horseback
for the Sheykh, and a clever dragoman of the party was relating about the
death of a young English girl whom he had served, and so _de fil en
aiguille_ we talked about the strangers buried here and how the bishop
had extorted 100 pounds. I said, '_Maleysh_ (never mind) the people have
been hospitable to me alive and they will not cease if I die, but give me
a tomb among the Arabs.' One old man said, 'May I not see thy day, oh
Lady, and indeed thou shouldest be buried as a daughter of the Arabs, but
we should fear the anger of thy Consul and thy family, but thou knowest
that wherever thou art buried thou wilt assuredly lie in a Muslim grave.'
'How so?' said I. 'Why, when a bad Muslim dies the angels take him out
of his tomb and put in one of the good from among the Christians in his
place.' This is the popular expression of the doctrine that the good are
sure of salvation. Omar chimed in at once, 'Certainly there is no doubt
of it, and I know a story that happened in the days of Mahommed Ali Pasha
which proves it.' We demanded the story and Omar began. 'There was once
a very rich man of the Muslims so stingy that he grudged everybody even
so much as a "bit of the paper inside the date" (Koran). When he was
dying he said to his wife, "Go out and buy me a lump of pressed dates,"
and when she had brought it he bade her leave him alone. Thereupon he
took all his gold out of his sash and spread it before him, and rolled it
up two or three pieces at a time in the dates, and swallowed it piece
after piece until only three were left, when his wife came in and saw
what he was doing and snatched them from his hand. Presently after he
fell back and died and was carried out to the burial place and laid in
his tomb. When the Kadee's men came to put the seal on his property and
found no money they said, "Oh woman, how is this? we know thy husband was
a rich man and behold we find no money for his children and slaves or for
thee." So the woman told what had happened, and the Kadee sent for three
other of the Ulema, and they decided that after three days she should go
herself to her husband's tomb and open it, and take the money from his
stomach; meanwhile a guard was put over the tomb to keep away robbers.
After three days therefore the woman went, and the men opened the tomb
and said, "Go in O woman and take thy money." So the woman went down
into the tomb alone. When there, instead of her husband's body she saw a
box (coffin) of the boxes of the Christians, and when she opened it she
saw the body of a young girl, adorned with many ornaments of gold
necklaces, and bracelets, and a diamond _Kurs_ on her head, and over all
a veil of black muslin embroidered with gold. So the woman said within
herself, "Behold I came for money and here it is, I will take it and
conceal this business for fear of the Kadee." So she wrapped the whole
in her _melayeh_ (a blue checked cotton sheet worn as a cloak) and came
out, and the men said "Hast thou done thy business?"' and she answered
"Yes" and returned home.
'In a few days she gave the veil she had taken from the dead girl to a
broker to sell for her in the bazaar, and the broker went and showed it
to the people and was offered one hundred piastres. Now there sat in one
of the shops of the merchants a great Ma-allim (Coptic clerk) belonging
to the Pasha, and he saw the veil and said, "How much asketh thou?" and
the broker said "Oh thine honour the clerk whatever thou wilt." "Take
from me then five hundred piastres and bring the person that gave thee
the veil to receive the money." So the broker fetched the woman and the
Copt, who was a great man, called the police and said, "Take this woman
and fetch my ass and we will go before the Pasha," and he rode in haste
to the palace weeping and beating his breast, and went before the Pasha
and said, "Behold this veil was buried a few days ago with my daughter
who died unmarried, and I had none but her and I loved her like my eyes
and would not take from her her ornaments, and this veil she worked
herself and was very fond of it, and she was young and beautiful and just
of the age to be married; and behold the Muslims go and rob the tombs of
the Christians and if thou wilt suffer this we Christians will leave
Egypt and go and live in some other country, O Effendina, for we cannot
endure this abomination."
'Then the Pasha turned to the woman and said, "Woe to thee O woman, art
thou a Muslimeh and doest such wickedness?" And the woman spoke and told
all that had happened and how she sought money and finding gold had kept
it. So the Pasha said, "Wait oh Ma-allim, and we will discover the truth
of this matter," and he sent for the three Ulema who had desired that the
tomb should be opened at the end of three days and told them the case;
and they said, "Open now the tomb of the Christian damsel." And the
Pasha sent his men to do so, and when they opened it behold it was full
of fire, and within it lay the body of the wicked and avaricious
Mussulman.' Thus it was manifest to all that on the night of terror the
angels of God had done this thing, and had laid the innocent girl of the
Christians among those who have received direction, and the evil Muslim
among the rejected. Admire how rapidly legends arise here. This story
which everybody declared was quite true is placed no longer ago than in
Mahommed Ali Pasha's time.
There are hardly any travellers this year, instead of a hundred and fifty
or more boats, perhaps twenty. A son of one of the Rothschilds, a boy of
fourteen, has just gone up like a royal prince in one of the Pasha's
steamers--all his expenses paid and crowds of attendants. 'All that
honour to the money of the Jew,' said an old fellah to me with a tone of
scorn which I could not but echo in my heart. He has turned out his
dragoman--a respectable elderly man, very sick, and paid him his bare
wages and the munificent sum of 5 pounds to take him back to Cairo. On
board there was a doctor and plenty of servants, and yet he abandons the
man here on Mustapha's hands. I have brought Er-Rasheedee here (the sick
man) as poor Mustapha is already overloaded with strangers. I am sorry
the name of _Yahoodee_ (Jew) should be made to stink yet more in the
nostrils of the Arabs. I am very well, indeed my cough is almost gone
and I can walk quite briskly and enjoy it. I think, dear Mutter, I am
really better. I never felt the cold so little as this winter since my
illness, the chilly mornings and nights don't seem to signify at all now,
and the climate feels more delicious than ever.
Mr. Herbert, the painter, went back to Cairo from Farshoot below Keneh;
so I have no 'Frangee' society at all. But Sheykh Yussuf and the Kadee
drop in to tea very often and as they are agreeable men I am quite
content with my company.
Bye the bye I will tell you about the tenure of land in Egypt which
people are always disputing about, as the Kadee laid it down for me. The
_whole_ land belongs to the Sultan of Turkey, the Pasha being his vakeel
(representative), nominally of course as we know. Thus there are no
owners, only tenants paying from one hundred piastres tariff (1 pound)
down to thirty piastres yearly per feddan (about an acre) according to
the quality of the land, or the favour of the Pasha when granting it.
This tenancy is hereditary to children only--not to collaterals or
ascendants--and it may be sold, but in that case application must be made
to the Government. If the owner or tenant dies childless the land
reverts to the Sultan, _i.e._ to the Pasha, and _if the Pasha chooses to
have any man's land he can take it from him on payment--or without_.
Don't let any one tell you that I exaggerate; I have known it happen: I
mean the _without_, and the man received feddan for feddan of desert, in
return for his good land which he had tilled and watered.
To-morrow night is the great night of Sheykh Abu-l-Hajjaj's _moolid_ and
I am desired to go to the mosque for the benefit of my health, and that
my friends may say a prayer for my children. The kind hearty welcome I
found here has been a real pleasure, and every one was pleased because I
was glad to come home to my _beled_ (town), and they all thought it so
nice of 'my master' to have come so far to see me because I was sick--all
but one Turk, who clearly looked with pitying contempt on so much trouble
taken about a sick old woman.
I have left my letter for a long while. You will not wonder--for after
some ten days' fever, my poor guest Mohammed Er-Rasheedee died to-day.
Two Prussian doctors gave me help for the last four days, but left last
night. He sank to sleep quietly at noon with his hand in mine, a good
old Muslim sat at his head on one side and I on the other. Omar stood at
his head and his black boy Khayr at his feet. We had laid his face to
the Kibleh and I spoke to him to see if he knew anything and when he
nodded the three Muslims chanted the _Islamee La Illaha_, etc., etc.,
while I closed his eyes. The 'respectable men' came in by degrees, took
an inventory of his property which they delivered to me, and washed the
body, and within an hour and a half we all went out to the burial place;
I following among a troop of women who joined us to wail for 'the brother
who had died far from his place.' The scene as we turned in between the
broken colossi and the pylons of the temple to go to the mosque was
over-powering. After the prayer in the mosque we went out to the
graveyard, Muslims and Copts helping to carry the dead, and my Frankish
hat in the midst of the veiled and wailing women; all so familiar and yet
so strange. After the burial the Imam, Sheykh Abd-el-Waris, came and
kissed me on the shoulders and the Shereef, a man of eighty, laid his
hands on my shoulders and said, 'Fear not my daughter, neither all the
days of thy life nor at the hour of thy death, for God is with thee.' I
kissed the old man's hand and turned to go, but numberless men came and
said 'A thousand thanks, O our sister, for what thou hast done for one
among us,' and a great deal more. Now the solemn chanting of the
_Fikees_, and the clear voice of the boy reciting the Koran in the room
where the man died are ringing through the house. They will pass the
night in prayer, and to-morrow there will be the prayer of deliverance in
the mosque. Poor Khayr has just crept in to have a quiet cry--poor boy.
He is in the inventory and to-morrow I must deliver him up to _les
autorites_ to be forwarded to Cairo with the rest of the property. He is
very ugly with his black face wet and swollen, but he kisses my hand and
calls me his mother quite 'natural like'--you see colour is no barrier
here.
The weather is glorious this year, and in spite of some fatigue I am
extremely well and strong, and have hardly any cough at all. I am so
sorry that the young Rothschild was so hard to Er-Rasheedee and that his
French doctor refused to come and see him. It makes bad blood naturally.
However, the German doctors were most kind and helpful.
The festival of Abu-l-Hajjaj was quite a fine sight, not splendid at
all--_au contraire_--but spirit-stirring; the flags of the Sheykh borne
by his family chanting, and the men tearing about in mimic fight on
horseback with their spears. My acquaintance of last year,
Abd-el-Moutovil, the fanatical Sheykh from Tunis was there. At first he
scowled at me. Then someone told him how Rothschild had left
Er-Rasheedee, and he held forth about the hatred of all the unbelievers
to the Muslims, and ended by asking where the sick man was. A quaint
little smile twinkled in Sheykh Yussuf's soft eyes and he curled his
silky moustache as he said demurely, 'Your Honour must go and visit him
at the house of the English Lady.' I am bound to say that the Pharisee
'executed himself handsomely, for in a few minutes he came up to me and
took my hand and even hoped I would visit the tomb of Abu-l-Hajjaj with
him!!
Since I wrote last I have been rather poorly--more cough, and most
wearing sleeplessness. A poor young Englishman died here at the house of
the Austrian Consular agent. I was too ill to go to him, but a kind,
dear young Englishwoman, a Mrs. Walker, who was here with her family in a
boat, sat up with him three nights and nursed him like a sister. A young
American lay sick at the same time in the house, he is now gone down to
Cairo, but I doubt whether he will reach it alive. The Englishman was
buried on the first day of Ramadan where they bury strangers, on the site
of a former Coptic church. Archdeacon Moore read the service; Omar and I
spread my old flag over the bier, and Copts and Muslims helped to carry
the poor stranger. It was a most impressive sight. The party of
Europeans, all strangers to the dead but all deeply moved; the group of
black-robed and turbaned Copts; the sailors from the boats; the gaily
dressed dragomans; several brown-shirted fellaheen and the thick crowd of
children--all the little Abab'deh stark naked and all behaving so well,
the expression on their little faces touched me most of all. As Muslims,
Omar and the boatmen laid him down in the grave, and while the English
prayer was read the sun went down in a glorious flood of light over the
distant bend of the Nile. 'Had he a mother, he was young?' said an
Abab'deh woman to me with tears in her eyes and pressing my hand in
sympathy for that far-off mother of such a different race.
Passenger steamboats come now every fortnight, but I have had no letter
for a month. I have no almanack and have lost count of European
time--to-day is the 3 of Ramadan, that is all I know. The poor black
slave was sent back from Keneh, God knows why--because he had no money
and the Moudir could not 'eat off him' as he could off the money and
property--he believes. He is a capital fellow, and in order to
compensate me for what he eats he proposed to wash for me, and you would
be amused to see Khayr with his coal-black face and filed teeth doing
laundry-maid out in the yard. He fears the family will sell him and
hopes he may fetch a good price for 'his boy'--only on the other hand he
would so like me to buy him--and so his mind is disturbed. Meanwhile the
having all my clothes washed clean is a great luxury.
The steamer is come and I must finish in haste. I have corrected the
proofs. There is not much to alter, and though I regret several lost
letters I can't replace them. I tried, but it felt like a forgery. Do
you cut out and correct, dearest Mutter, you will do it much better than
I.