Since I wrote last I have received the box with the cheese quite fresh
(and very good it tastes), and the various things. Nothing called forth
such a shout of joy from me as your photo of the village pothouse. How
green and fresh and tidy! Many Mashallah's have been uttered over the
_beyt-el-fellaheen_ (peasant's house) of England. The railings,
especially, are a great marvel. I have also heard from Janet that Ross
has bought me a boat for 200 pounds which is to take four of his agents
to Assouan and then come back for me. So all my business is settled,
and, _Inshallah_! I shall depart in another three or four weeks.
The weather is quite cool and fresh again but the winds very violent and
the dust pours over us like water from the dried up land, as well as from
the Goomeh mountain. It is miserably uncomfortable, but my health is
much better again--spite of all.
The Hakeem business goes on at a great rate. I think on an average I
have four sick a day. Sometimes a dozen. A whole gipsy camp are great
customers--the poor souls will bring all manner of gifts it goes to my
heart to eat, but they can't bear to be refused. They are astounded to
hear that people of their blood live in England and that I knew many of
their customs--which are the same here.
Kursheed Agha came to take final leave being appointed to Keneh. He had
been at Gau and had seen Fadil Pasha sit and make the soldiers lay sixty
men down on their backs by ten at a time and _chop_ them to death with
the pioneers' axes. He estimated the people killed--men, women, and
children at 1,600--but Mounier tells me it was over 2,000. Sheykh Hassan
agreed exactly with Kursheed, only the Arab was full of horror and the
Circassian full of exultation. His talk was exactly what we all once
heard about 'Pandies,' and he looked and talked and laughed so like a
fine young English soldier, that I was ashamed to call him the kelb (dog)
which rose to my tongue, and I bestowed it on Fadil Pasha instead. I
must also say in behalf of my own countrymen that they _had_ provocation
while here there was none. Poor Haggee Sultan lies in chains at Keneh.
One of the best and kindest of men! I am to go and take secret messages
to him, and money from certain men of religion to bribe the Moudir with.
The Shurafa who have asked me to do this are from another place, as well
as a few of the Abu-l-Hajjajieh. A very great Shereef indeed from lower
Egypt, said to me the other day, 'Thou knowest if I am a Muslim or no.
Well, I pray to the most Merciful to send us Europeans to govern us, and
to deliver us from these wicked men.' We were all sitting after the
funeral of one of the Shurafa and I was sitting between the Shereef of
Luxor and the Imam--and this was said before thirty or forty men, all
Shurafa. No one said 'No,' and many assented aloud.
The Shereef asked me to lend him the New Testament, it was a pretty copy
and when he admired it I said, 'From me to thee, oh my master the
Shereef, write in it as we do in remembrance of a friend--the gift of a
Nazraneeyeh who loves the Muslimeen.' The old man kissed the book and
said 'I will write moreover--to a Muslim who loves all such
Christians'--and after this the old Sheykh of Abou Ali took me aside and
asked me to go as messenger to Haggee Sultan for if one of them took the
money it would be taken from them and the man get no good by it.
Soldiers are now to be quartered in the Saeed--a new plague worse than
all the rest. Do not the cawasses already rob the poor enough? They fix
their own price in the market and beat the sakkas as sole payment. What
will the soldiers do? The taxes are being illegally levied on lands
which are _sheragi_, _i.e._ totally unwatered by the last Nile and
therefore exempt _by law_--and the people are driven to desperation. I
feel sure there will be more troubles as soon as there arises any other
demagogue like Achmet et-Tayib to incite the people and now every Arab
sympathises with him. Janet has written me the Cairo version of the
affair cooked for the European taste--and monstrous it is. The Pasha
accuses some Sheykh of the Arabs of having gone from Upper Egypt to India
to stir up the Mutiny against us! _Pourquoi pas_ to conspire in Paris or
London? It is too childish to talk of a poor Saeedee Arab going to a
country of whose language and whereabouts he is totally ignorant, in
order to conspire against people who never hurt him. You may suppose how
Yussuf and I talk by ourselves of all these things. He urged me to try
hard to get my husband here as Consul-General--assuming that he would
feel as I do. I said, my master is not young, and to a just man the
wrong of such a place would be a martyrdom. 'Truly thou hast said it,
but it is a martyr we Arabs want; shall not the reward of him who suffers
daily vexation for his brethren's sake be equal to that of him who dies
in battle for the faith? If thou wert a man, I would say to thee, take
the labour and sorrow upon thee, and thine own heart will repay thee.'
He too said like the old Sheykh, 'I only pray for Europeans to rule
us--now the fellaheen are really worse off than any slaves.' I am sick
of telling of the daily oppressions and robberies. If a man has a sheep,
the Moodir comes and eats it, if a tree, it goes to the Nazir's kitchen.
My poor sakka is beaten by the cawasses in sole payment of his skins of
water--and then people wonder my poor friends tell lies and bury their
money.
I now know everybody in my village and the 'cunning women' have set up
the theory that my eye is lucky; so I am asked to go and look at young
brides, visit houses that are building, inspect cattle, etc. as a bringer
of good luck--which gives me many a curious sight.
I went a few days ago to the wedding of handsome Sheykh Hassan the
Abab'deh, who married the butcher's pretty little daughter. The group of
women and girls lighted by the lantern which little Achmet carried up for
me was the most striking thing I have seen. The bride--a lovely girl of
ten or eleven all in scarlet, a tall dark slave of Hassan's blazing with
gold and silver necklaces and bracelets, with long twisted locks of coal
black hair and such glittering eyes and teeth, the wonderful wrinkled old
women, and the pretty, wondering, yet fearless children were beyond
description. The mother brought the bride up to me and unveiled her and
asked me to let her kiss my hand, and to look at her, I said all the
usual _Bismillah Mashallah's_, and after a time went to the men who were
eating, all but Hassan who sat apart and who begged me to sit by him, and
whispered anxious enquiries about his _aroosah's_ looks. After a time he
went to visit her and returned in half an hour very shy and covering his
face and hand and kissed the hands of the chief guests. Then we all
departed and the girl was taken to look at the Nile, and then to her
husband's house. Last night he gave me a dinner--a very good dinner
indeed, in his house which is equal to a very poor cattle shed at home.
We were only five. Sheykh Yussuf, Omar, an elderly merchant and I.
Hassan wanted to serve us but I made him sit.
The merchant, a well-bred man of the world who has enjoyed life and
married wives everywhere--had arrived that day and found a daughter of
his dead here. He said he felt very miserable--and everyone told him not
to mind and consoled him oddly enough to English ideas. Then people told
stories. Omar's was a good version of the man and wife who would not
shut the door and agreed that the first to speak should do it--very funny
indeed. Yussuf told a pretty tale of a Sultan who married a Bint el-Arab
(daughter of the Bedawee) and how she would not live in his palace, and
said she was no fellaha to dwell in houses, and scorned his silk clothes
and sheep killed for her daily, and made him live in the desert with her.
A black slave told a prosy tale about thieves--and the rest were more
long than pointed.
Hassan's Arab feelings were hurt at the small quantity of meat set before
me. (They can't kill a sheep now for an honoured guest.) But I told him
no greater honour could be paid to us English than to let us eat lentils
and onions like one of the family, so that we might not feel as strangers
among them--which delighted all the party. After a time the merchant
told us his heart was somewhat dilated--as a man might say his toothache
had abated--and we said 'Praise be to God' all round.
A short time ago my poor friend the Maohn had a terrible 'tile' fall on
his head. His wife, two married daughters and nine miscellaneous
children arrived on a sudden, and the poor man is now tasting the
pleasures which Abraham once endured between Sarah and Hagar. I visited
the ladies and found a very ancient Sarah and a daughter of wonderful
beauty. A young man here--a Shereef--has asked me to open negotiations
for a marriage for him with the Maohn's grand daughter a little girl of
eight--so you see how completely I am 'one of the family.'
My boat has not yet made its appearance. I am very well indeed now, in
spite, or perhaps because of, the great heat. But there is a great deal
of sickness--chiefly dysentery. I never get less than four new patients
a day and my 'practice' has become quite a serious business. I spent all
day on Friday in the Abab'deh quarters where Sheykh Hassan and his slave
Rahmeh were both uncommonly ill. Both are 'all right' now. Rahmeh is
the nicest negro I ever knew, and a very great friend of mine. He is a
most excellent, honest, sincere man, and an Effendi (_i.e._ writes and
reads) which is more than his master can do. He has seen all the queer
people in the interior of Africa.
The Sheykh of the Bishareen--eight days' journey from Assouan has invited
me and promises me all the meat and milk I can eat, they have nothing
else. They live on a high mountain and are very fine handsome people.
If only I were strong I could go to very odd places where Frangees are
not. Read a very stupid novel (as a story) called '_le Secret du
Bonheur_'--it gives the truest impression of the manners of Arabs that I
have read--by Ernest Feydeau. According to his book _achouat_ (we are
brothers). The 'caressant' ways of Arabs are so well described.
It is the same here. The people come and pat and stroke me with their
hands, and one corner of my brown abbaieh is faded with much kissing. I
am hailed as _Sitt Betaana_ 'Our own Lady,' and now the people are really
enthusiastic because I refused the offer of some cawasses as a guard
which a Bimbashee made me. As if I would have such fellows to help to
bully my friends. The said Bimbashee (next in rank to a Bey) a coarse
man like an Arnoout, stopped here a day and night and played his little
Turkish game, telling me to beware--for the Ulema hated all Franks and
set the people against us--and telling the Arabs that Christian Hakeems
were all given to poison Muslims. So at night I dropped in at the
Maohn's with Sheykh Yussuf carrying my lantern--and was loudly hailed
with a _Salaam Aleykee_ from the old Shereef himself--who began praising
the Gospel I had given him, and me at the same time. Yussuf had a little
reed in his hand--the _kalem_ for writing, about two feet long and of the
size of a quill. I took it and showed it to the Bimbashee and
said--'Behold the _neboot_ wherewith we are all to be murdered by this
Sheykh of the Religion.' The Bimbashee's bristly moustache bristled
savagely, for he felt that the 'Arab dogs' and the Christian _khanzeereh_
(feminine pig) were laughing at it together.
Another steam boat load of prisoners from Gau has just gone up. A little
comfort is derived here from the news that, 'Praise be to God, Moussa
Pasha (Governor of the Soudan) is dead and gone to Hell.' It must take
no trifle to send him there judging by the quiet way in which Fadil Pasha
is mentioned.
You will think me a complete rebel--but I may say to you what most people
would think 'like my nonsense'--that one's pity becomes a perfect
passion, when one _sits among the people_--as I do, and sees it all;
least of all can I forgive those among Europeans and Christians who can
help to 'break these bruised reeds.' However, in Cairo and more still in
Alexandria, all is quite different. There, the same system which has
been so successfully copied in France prevails. The capital is petted at
the expense of the fellaheen. Prices are regulated in Cairo for meat and
bread as they are or were in Paris, and the 'dangerous classes' enjoy all
sorts of exemptions. Just like France! The Cairenes eat the bread and
the fellaheen eat the stick.
The people here used to dislike Mounier who arrived poor and grew rich
and powerful, but they all bless him now and say at El-Moutaneh a man
eats his own meat and not the courbash of the Moudir--and Mounier has
refused soldiers (as I refused them on my small account) and 'Please
God,' he will never repent it. Yussuf says 'What the Turkish Government
fears is not for _your_ safety, but lest we should learn to love you too
well,' and it is true. Here there is but one voice. 'Let the Franks
come, let us have the laws of the Christians.'
In Cairo the Franks have dispelled this _douce illusion_ and done the
Turk's work as if they were paid for it. But here come only travellers
who pay with money and not with stick--a degree of generosity not enough
to be adored.
I perceive that I am a bore--but you will forgive my indignant sympathy
with the kind people who treat me so well. Yussuf asked me to let the
English papers know about the Gau business. An Alim ed Deen ul-Islam
would fain call for help to the Times! Strange changes and signs of the
times--these--are they not so?
I went to Church on Good Friday with the Copts. The scene was very
striking--the priest dressed like a beautiful Crusader in white robes
with crimson crosses. One thing has my hearty admiration. The few
children who are taken to Church are allowed to play! Oh my poor little
Protestant fellow Christians, can you conceive a religion so delightful
as that which permits Peep-bo behind the curtain of the sanctuary! I saw
little Butrus and Scendariah at it all church time--and the priest only
patted their little heads as he carried the sacrament out to the Hareem.
Fancy the parson kindly patting a noisy boy's head, instead of the beadle
whacking him! I am entirely reconciled to the Coptic rules.