I write this to go down by Mr. Palgrave who leaves to-morrow. He has
been with Mustapha Bey conducting an enquiry into Mustapha A'gha's
business. Mariette Bey struck Mustapha, and I and some Americans took it
ill and wrote a very strong complaint to our respective Consuls.
Mariette denied the blow and the words 'liar, and son of a dog'--so the
American and English Consuls sent up Palgrave as commissioner to enquire
into the affair, and the Pasha sent Mustapha Bey with him. Palgrave is
very amusing of course, and his knowledge of languages is wonderful,
Sheykh Yussuf says few _Ulema_ know as much of the literature and
niceties of grammar and composition. Mustapha Bey is a darling; he knew
several friends of mine, Hassan Effendi, Mustapha Bey Soubky, and others,
so we were friends directly.
I have not yet got a woman-servant, but I don't miss it at all; little
Achmet is very handy, Mahommed's slave girl washes, and Omar irons and
cleans the house and does housemaid, and I have kept on the meek cook,
Abd el-Kader, whom I took while the Frenchman was here. I had not the
heart to send him away; he is such a _meskeen_. He was a smart
travelling waiter, but his brother died, leaving a termagant widow with
four children, and poor Abd el-Kader felt it his duty to bend his neck to
the yoke, married her, and has two more children. He is a most worthy,
sickly, terrified creature.
I have heard that a decent Copt here wants to sell a black woman owing to
reverses of fortune, and that she might suit me. Sheykh Yussuf is to
negotiate the affair and to see if the woman herself likes me for a
mistress, and I am to have her on trial for a time, and if I like her and
she me, Sheykh Yussuf will buy her with my money in his name. I own I
have very little scruple about the matter, as I should consider her price
as an advance of two or three years' wages and tear the paper of sale as
soon as she had worked her price out, which I think would be a fair
bargain. But I must see first whether Feltass (the Copt) really wants to
sell her or only to get a larger price than is fair, in which case I will
wait till I go to Cairo. Anything is better than importing a European
who at once thinks one is at her mercy on account of the expense of the
journey back.
I went out this morning to the early prayer of Bairam day, held in the
burial-place. Mahmoud ibn-Mustapha preached, but the boys and the Hareem
made such a noise behind us that I could not hear the sermon. The
weather has set in hot these last days, and I am much the better. It
seems strange that what makes others languid seems to strengthen me. I
have been very weak and languid all the time, but the camel's milk has
fattened me prodigiously, to Sherayeff's great delight; and the last hot
days have begun to take away the miserable feeling of fatigue and
languor.
Palgrave is not well at all, and his little black boy he fears will die,
and several people in the steamer are ill, but in Luxor there is no
sickness to speak of, only chronic old women, so old and ugly and _achy_,
that I don't know what to do with them, except listen to their
complaints, which begin, '_Ya ragleh_.' _Ragel_ is man, so _ragleh_ is
the old German _Mannin_, and is the civil way of addressing a Saeedee
woman. To one old body I gave a powder wrapped up in a fragment of a
_Saturday Review_. She came again and declared Mashallah! the _hegab_
(charm) was a powerful one, for though she had not been able to wash off
all the fine writing from the paper, even that little had done her a deal
of good. I regret that I am unable to inform you what the subject of the
article in the _Saturday_ which had so drastic an effect.
Good-bye, dearest Mutter, I must go and take a sleep before the time of
receiving the visits of to-day (the great festival). I was up before
sunrise to see the prayer, so must have a siesta in a cool place.
To-morrow morning early this will go. I hope you got a letter I sent ten
days or so ago.