Your letter of the 18th has this moment arrived. I am very glad to hear
you are so much better. I am still seedy-ish, but no worse. Everybody
is liver-sick this year, I give calomel and jalep all round--except to
myself.
The last two or three days we have been in great tribulation about the
boat. On Saturday all her ribs were finished, and the planking and
caulking ready to be put on, when in the night up came the old Nile with
a rush, and threatened to carry her off; but by the favour of
Abu-l-Hajjaj and Sheykh el-Bostawee she was saved in this wise. You
remember the tall old steersman who went with us to Bedreeshayn, and whom
we thought so ill-conditioned; well, he was in charge of a dahabieh close
by, and he called up all the Reises and steermen to help. 'Oh men of
el-Bostawee, this is _our_ boat (_i.e._ we are the servants of her owner)
and she is in our faces;' and then he set the example, stripped and
carried dust and hammered in piles all night, and by the morning she was
surrounded by a dyke breast-high. The 'long-shore' men of Boulak were
not a little surprised to see dignified Reises working for nothing like
fellaheen. Meanwhile my three _Ma-allimeen_, the chief builder, caulker
and foreman, had also stayed all night with Omar and my Reis, who worked
like the rest, and the Sheykh of all the boat-builders went to visit one
of my _Ma-allimeen_, who is his nephew, and hearing the case came down
too at one in the morning and stayed till dawn. Then as the workmen
passed, going to their respective jobs, he called them, and said, 'Come
and finish this boat; it must be done by to-morrow night.' Some men who
objected and said they were going to the Pasha's dockyard, got a beating
_pro forma_ and the end of it was that I found forty-six men under my
boat working 'like Afreets and Shaitans,' when I went to see how all was
going in the morning. The old Sheykh marked out a piece to each four
men, and then said, 'If that is not done to-night, Oh dogs! to-morrow
I'll put on the hat'--_i.e._ 'To-day I have beaten moderately, like an
Arab, but to-morrow, please God, I'll beat like a Frank, and be mad with
the stick.' _Kurz und gut_, the boat which yesterday morning was a
skeleton, is now, at four p.m. to-day, finished, caulked, pitched and all
capitally done; if the Nile carries off the dyke, she will float safe.
The shore is covered with debris of other people's half-finished boats I
believe. I owe the ardour of the _Ma-allims_ and of the Sheykh of the
builders to one of my absurd pieces of Arab civility. On the day when
Omar killed poor Ablook, my black sheep, over the bows and 'straked' his
blood upon them, the three _Ma-allimeen_ came on board this boat to eat
their dish, and I followed the old Arab fashion and ate out of the wooden
dish with them and the Reis 'for luck,' or rather 'for a blessing' as we
say here; and it seems that this gave immense satisfaction.
My Reis wept at the death of the black sheep, which used to follow him to
the coffee-shop and the market, and 'was to him as a son,' he said, but
he ate of him nevertheless. Omar surreptitiously picked out the best
pieces for my dinner for three days, with his usual eye to economy; then
lighted a fire of old wood, borrowed a cauldron of some darweeshes, cut
up the sheep, added water and salt, onions and herbs, and boiled the
sheep. Then the big washing copper (a large round flat tray, like a
sponging bath) was filled with bread broken in pieces, over which the
broth was slowly poured till the bread was soaked. Next came a layer of
boiled rice, on the top of that the pieces of boiled meat, and over all
was poured butter, vinegar and garlic boiled together. This is called a
_Fettah_, and is the orthodox dish of darweeshes and given at all
_Khatmehs_ and other semi-religious, semi-festive, semi-charitable
festivities. It is excellent and not expensive. I asked how many had
eaten and was told one hundred and thirty men had 'blessed my hand.' I
expended 160 piastres on bread, butter and vinegar, etc. and the sheep
was worth two napoleons; three napoleons in all, or less--for I ate for
two days of the mutton.
The three _Ma-allims_ came on board this boat, as I said and ate; and it
was fine to hear us--how polite we were. 'A bit more, oh _Ma-allim_?'
'Praise be to God, we have eaten well--we will return to our work'; 'By
the Prophet, coffee and a pipe.' 'Truly thou art of the most noble
people.' 'Oh _Ma-allim_, ye have honoured us and rejoiced us,' 'Verily
this is a day white among days,' etc. A very clever Egyptian engineer, a
pupil of Whitworth's, who is living in a boat alongside mine, was much
amused, and said, 'Ah you know how to manage 'em.'
I have learnt the story of the two dead bodies that hitched in my
anchor-chain some time ago. They were not Europeans as I thought, but
Circassians--a young man and his mother. The mother used to take him to
visit an officer's wife who had been brought up in the hareem of the
Pasha's mother. The husband caught them, killed them, tied them together
and flung them into the Nile near Rhoda, and gave himself into the hands
of the police. All was of course hushed up. He goes to Fazoghlou; and I
don't know what becomes of the slave-girl, his wife. These sort of
things happen every day (as the bodies testify) among the Turks, but the
Europeans never hear it. I heard it by a curious chance.
_September_ 4.--My boat will soon be finished, and now will be as good as
new. Omar has worked like a good one from daybreak till night,
overlooking, buying all the materials, selling all the old wood and iron,
etc., and has done capitally. I shall take a paper from my _Ma-allims_
who are all first class men, to certify what they have done and that the
boat is as good as new. Goodah Effendi has kindly looked at her several
times for me and highly approves the work done. I never saw men do a
better day's work than those at the boat. It is pretty to see the
carpenter holding the wood with one hand and one foot while he saws it,
sitting on the ground--just like the old frescoes. Do you remember the
picture of boat-building in the tomb at Sakkara? Well, it is just the
same; all done with the adze; but it is stout work they put into it, I
can tell you.
If you do not come (and I do not like to press you, I fear the fatigue
for you and the return to the cold winter) I shall go to Luxor in a month
or so and send back the boat to let. I have a neighbour now, Goodah
Effendi, an engineer, who studied and married in England. His wife is
gone there with the children, and he is living in a boat close by; so he
comes over of an evening very often, and I am glad of his company: he is
a right good fellow and very intelligent.
My best love to all at home. I've got a log from the cedars of Lebanon,
my Moslem carpenter who smoothed the broken end, swallowed the sawdust,
because he believed 'Our Lady Mary' had sat under the tree with 'Our Lord
Jesus.'