As for me I am much better again; the cough has subsided, I really think
the Arab specific, camel's milk, has done me great good. I have mended
ever since I took it. It has the merit of being quite delicious.
Yesterday I was much amused when I went for my afternoon's drink, to find
Sheriff in a great taking at having been robbed by a woman, under his
very nose. He saw her gathering hummuz from a field under his charge,
and went to order her off, whereupon she coolly dropped the end of her
_boordeh_ which covered the head and shoulders, effectually preventing
him from going near her; made up her bundle and walked off. His respect
for the Hareem did not, however, induce him to refrain from strong
language.
M. Brune has made very pretty drawings of the mosque here, both outside
and in; it is a very good specimen of modern Arab architecture; and he
won't believe it could be built without ground plan, elevations, etc.,
which amuses the people here, who build without any such inventions.
The harvest here is splendid this year, such beans and wheat, and prices
have fallen considerably in both: but meat, butter, etc., remain very
dear. My fame as a Hakeemeh has become far too great, and on market-days
I have to shut up shop. Yesterday a very handsome woman came for
medicine to make her beautiful, as her husband had married another who
teazed her, and he rather neglected her. And a man offered me a camel
load of wheat if I would read something over him and his wife to make
them have children. I don't try to explain to them how very irrational
they are but use the more intelligible argument that all such practices
savour of the _Ebu er Rukkeh_ (equivalent to black art), and are _haram_
to the greatest extent; besides, I add, being 'all lies' into the
bargain. The applicants for child-making and charm-reading are Copts or
Muslims, quite in equal numbers, and appear alike indifferent as to what
'Book': but all but one have been women; the men are generally perfectly
rational about medicine and diet.
I find there is a good deal of discontent among the Copts with regard to
their priests and many of their old customs. Several young men have let
out to me at a great rate about the folly of their fasts, and the badness
and ignorance of their priests. I believe many turn Muslim from a real
conviction that it is a better religion than their own, and not as I at
first thought merely from interest; indeed, they seldom gain much by it,
and often suffer tremendous persecution from their families; even they do
not escape the rationalizing tendencies now abroad in Christendom. Then
their early and indissoluble marriages are felt to be a hardship: a boy
is married at eight years old, perhaps to his cousin aged seventeen (I
know one here in that case), and when he grows up he wishes it had been
let alone. A clever lad of seventeen propounded to me his
dissatisfaction, and seemed to lean to Islam. I gave him an Arabic New
Testament, and told him to read that first, and judge for himself whether
he could not still conform to the Church of his own people, and inwardly
believe and try to follow the Gospels. I told him it was what most
Christians had to do, as every man could not make a sect for himself,
while few could believe everything in any Church. I suppose I ought to
have offered him the Thirty-nine Articles, and thus have made a Muslim of
him out of hand. He pushed me a little hard about several matters, which
he says he does not find in 'the Book': but on the whole he is well
satisfied with my advice.
_Coptic Palm Sunday_, _April_ 1.
We hear that Fadil Pasha received orders at Assouan to go up to Khartoum
in Giaffar Pasha's place: it is a civil way of killing a fat old Turk, if
it is true. He was here a week or two ago. My informant is one of my
old crew who was in Fadil Pasha's boat.
I shall wait to get a woman-servant till I go to Cairo, the women here
cannot iron or sew; so, meanwhile, the wife of Abd el-Kader, does my
washing, and Omar irons; and we get on capitally. Little Achmet waits,
etc., and I think I am more comfortable so than if I had a maid,--it
would be no use to buy a slave, as the trouble of teaching her would be
greater than the work she would do for me.
My medical reputation has become far too great, and all my common
drugs--Epsom salts, senna, aloes, rhubarb, quassia--run short.
Especially do all the poor, tiresome, ugly old women adore me, and bore
me with their aches and pains. They are always the doctor's greatest
plague. The mark of confidence is that they now bring the sick children,
which was never known before, I believe, in these parts. I am sure it
would pay a European doctor to set up here; the people would pay him a
little, and there would be good profit from the boats in the winter. I
got turkeys when they were worth six or eight shillings apiece in the
market, and they were forced upon me by the fellaheen. I must seal up
this for fear the boat should come; it will only pick up M. Brune and go
on.