I hope your mind has not been disturbed by any rumours of 'battle, murder
and sudden death' up in our part of the world. A week ago we heard that
a Prussian boat had been attacked, all on board murdered, and the boat
burned; then that ten villages were in open revolt, and that Effendina
(the Viceroy) himself had come up and 'taken a broom and swept them
clean' _i.e._--exterminated the inhabitants. The truth now appears to be
that a crazy darweesh has made a disturbance--but I will tell it as I
heard it. He did as his father likewise did thirty years ago, made
himself _Ism_ (name) by repeating one of the appellations of God, like
_Ya Latif_ three thousand times every night for three years which
rendered him invulnerable. He then made friends with a Jinn who taught
him many more tricks--among others, that practised in England by the
Davenports of slipping out of any bonds. He then deluded the people of
the desert by giving himself out as _El-Mahdi_ (he who is to come with
the Lord Jesus and to slay Antichrist at the end of the world), and
proclaimed a revolt against the Turks. Three villages below Keneh--Gau,
Rayanaeh and Bedeh took part in the disturbance, and Fodl Pasha came up
with steamboats, burnt the villages, shot about one hundred men and
devastated the fields. At first we heard one thousand were shot, now it
is one hundred. The women and children will be distributed among other
villages. The darweesh some say is killed, others that he is gone off
into the desert with a body of bedaween and a few of the fellaheen from
the three ravaged villages. Gau is a large place--as large, I think as
Luxor. The darweesh is a native of Salamieh, a village close by here,
and yesterday his brother, a very quiet man, and his father's
father-in-law old Hajjee Sultan were carried off prisoners to Cairo, or
Keneh, we don't know which. It seems that the boat robbed belonged to
Greek traders, but no one was hurt, I believe, and no European boat has
been molested.
Baron Kevenbrinck was here yesterday with his wife, and they saw all the
sacking of the villages and said no resistance was offered by the people
whom the soldiers shot down as they ran, and they saw the sheep etc.
being driven off by the soldiers. You need be in no alarm about me. The
darweesh and his followers could not pounce on us as we are eight good
miles from the desert, _i.e._ the mountain, so we must have timely
notice, and we have arranged that if they appear in the neighbourhood the
women and children of the outlying huts should come into my house which
is a regular fortress, and also any travellers in boats, and we muster
little short of seven hundred men able to fight including Karnac,
moreover Fodl Pasha and the troops are at Keneh only forty miles off.
Three English boats went down river to-day and one came up. The
Kevenbrincks went up last night. I dined with them, she is very lively
and pleasant. I nearly died of laughing to-day when little Achmet came
for his lesson. He pronounced that he was sick of love for her. He
played at cards with her yesterday afternoon and it seems lost his heart
(he is twelve and quite a boyish boy, though a very clever one) and he
said he was wishing to play a game for a kiss as the stake. He had put
on a turban to-day, on the strength of his passion, to look like a man,
and had neglected his dress otherwise because 'when young men are sick of
love they always do so.' The fact is the Baroness was kind and amiable
and tried to amuse him as she would have done to a white boy, hence
Achmet's susceptible heart was 'on fire for her.' He also asked me if I
had any medicine to make him white, I suppose to look lovely in her eyes.
He little knows how very pretty he is with his brown face--as he sits
cross-legged on the carpet at my feet in his white turban and blue shirt
reading aloud--he was quite a picture. I have grown very fond of the
little fellow, he is so eager to learn and to improve and so remarkably
clever.
My little Achmet, who is donkey-boy and general little slave, the
smallest slenderest quietest little creature, has implored me to take him
with me to England. I wish Rainie could see him, she would be so
'arprized' at his dark brown little face, so _fein_, and with eyes like a
dormouse. He is a true little Arab--can run all day in the heat, sleeps
on the stones and eats anything--quick, gentle and noiseless and fiercely
jealous. If I speak to any other boy he rushes at him and drives him
away, and while black Khayr was in the house, he suffered martyrdom and
the kitchen was a scene of incessant wrangle about the coffee. Khayr
would bring me my coffee and Achmet resented the usurpation of his
functions--of course quite hopelessly, as Khayr was a great stout black
of eighteen and poor little Achmet not bigger than Rainie. I am really
tempted to adopt the vigilant active little creature.
_March_ 15.--Sheykh Yussuf returned from a visit to Salamieh last night.
He tells me the darweesh Achmet et-Tayib is not dead, he believes that he
is a mad fanatic and a communist. He wants to divide all property
equally and to kill all the Ulema and destroy all theological teaching by
learned men and to preach a sort of revelation or interpretation of the
Koran of his own. 'He would break up your pretty clock,' said Yussuf,
'and give every man a broken wheel out of it, and so with all things.'
One of the dragomans here had been urging me to go down but Yussuf
laughed at any idea of danger, he says the people here have fought the
bedaween before and will not be attacked by such a handful as are out in
the mountain now; _du reste_ the Abu-l-Hajjajieh (family of Abu-l-Hajjaj)
will 'put their seal' to it that I am their sister and answer for me with
a man's life. It would be foolish to go down into whatever disturbance
there may be alone in a small country boat and where I am not known. The
Pasha himself we hear is at Girgeh with steamboats and soldiers, and if
the slightest fear should arise steamers will be sent up to fetch all the
Europeans. What I grieve over is the poor villagers whose little
property is all confiscated, guilty and innocent alike, and many shot as
they ran away. Hajjee Ali tells me privately that he believes the
discontent against the Government is very deep and universal and that
there will be an outbreak--but not yet. The Pasha's attempt to regulate
the price of food by edicts has been very disastrous, and of course the
present famine prices are laid to his charge--if a man will be omnipotent
he must take the consequences when he fails. I don't believe in an
outbreak--I think the people are too thoroughly accustomed to suffer and
to obey, besides they have no means of communication, and the steamboats
can run up and down and destroy them _en detail_ in a country which is
eight hundred miles long by from one to eight wide, and thinly peopled.
Only Cairo could do anything, and everything is done to please the
Cairenes at the expense of the fellaheen.
The great heat has begun these last three days. My cough is better and I
am grown fatter again. The Nile is so low that I fancy that six weeks or
two months hence I shall have to go down in two little boats--even now
the dahabiehs keep sticking fast continually. I have promised some
neighbours to bring back a little seed corn for them, some of the best
English wheat without beard. All the wheat here is bearded and they have
an ambition for some of ours. I long to bring them wheelbarrows and
spades and pickaxes. The great folks get steamploughs, but the labourers
work with their bare hands and a rush basket _pour tout potage_, and it
takes six to do the work of one who has got good tools.