I meant to have sent you a long yarn by a steamer which went the other
day, but I have been in my bed. The weather set in colder than I ever
felt it here, and I have been very unwell for some time. Dr. Osman
Ibraheem (a friend of mine, an elderly man who studied in Paris in
Mohammed Ali's time) wants me to spend the summer up here and take sand
baths, _i.e._ bury myself up to the chin in the hot sand, and to get a
Dongola slave to rub me. A most fascinating derweesh from Esneh gave me
the same advice; he wanted me to go and live near him at Esneh, and let
him treat me. I wish you could see Sheykh Seleem, he is a sort of
remnant of the Memlook Beys--a Circassian--who has inherited his master's
property up at Esneh, and married his master's daughter. The master was
one of the Beys, also a slave inheriting from his master. Well after
being a terrible _Shaitan_ (devil) after drink, women, etc. Seleem has
repented and become a man of pilgrimage and prayer and perpetual fasting;
but he has retained the exquisite grace and charm of manner which must
have made him irresistible in his _shaitan_ days, and also the
beautifully delicate style of dress--a dove-coloured cloth _sibbeh_ over
a pale blue silk _kuftan_, a turban like a snow-drift, under which flowed
the silky fair hair and beard, and the dainty white hands under the long
muslin shirt sleeve made a picture; and such a smile, and such ready
graceful talk. Sheykh Yussuf brought him to me as a sort of doctor, and
also to try and convert me on one point. Some Christians had made Yussuf
quite miserable, by telling him of the doctrine that all unbaptized
infants went to eternal fire; and as he knew that I had lost a child very
young, it weighed on his mind that perhaps I fretted about this, and so
he said he could not refrain from trying to convince me that God was not
so cruel and unjust as the Nazarene priests represented Him, and that all
infants whatsoever, as well as all ignorant persons, were to be saved.
'Would that I could take the cruel error out of the minds of all the
hundreds and thousands of poor Christian mothers who must be tortured by
it,' said he, 'and let them understand that their dead babies are with
Him who sent and who took them.' I own I did not resent this
interference with my orthodoxy, especially as it is the only one I ever
knew Yussuf attempt.
Dr. Osman is a lecturer in the Cairo school of medicine, a Shereef, and
eminently a gentleman. He came up in the passenger steamer and called on
me and spent all his spare time with me. I liked him better than the
bewitching derweesh Seleem; he is so like my old love Don Quixote. He
was amazed and delighted at what he heard here about me. '_Ah Madame, on
vous aime comme une soeur, et on vous respecte comme une reine; cela
rejouit le coeur des honnetes gens de voir tous les prejuges oublies et
detruits a ce point_.' We had no end of talk. Osman is the only Arab I
know who has read a good deal of European literature and history and is
able to draw comparisons. He said, '_Vous seule dans toute l'Egypte
connaissez le peuple et comprenez ce qui se passe, tous les autres
Europeens ne savent absolument rien que les dehors; il n'y a que vous qui
ayez inspire la confiance qu'il faut pour connaitre la vente_.' Of
course this is between ourselves, I tell you, but I don't want to boast
of the kind thoughts people have of me, simply because I am decently
civil to them.
In Egypt we are eaten up with taxes; there is not a penny left to anyone.
The taxes for the whole year _eight months in advance_ have been levied,
as far as they can be beaten out of the miserable people. I saw one of
the poor dancing girls the other day, (there are three in Luxor) and she
told me how cruel the new tax on them is. It is left to the discretion
of the official who farms it to make each woman pay according to her
presumed gains, _i.e._ her good looks, and thus the poor women are
exposed to all the caprices and extortions of the police. This last new
tax has excited more disgust than any. 'We now know the name of our
ruler,' said a fellah who had just heard of it, 'he is _Mawas_ Pasha.' I
won't translate--but it is a terrible epithet when uttered in a tone
which gives it the true meaning, though in a general way the commonest
word of abuse to a donkey, or a boy, or any other cattle. The wages of
prostitution are unclean, and this tax renders all Government salaries
unlawful according to strict law. The capitation tax too, which was
remitted for three years on the pasha's accession to the people of Cairo,
Alexandria, Damietta and Rascheed, is now called for. Omar will have to
pay about 8 pounds back tax, which he had fondly imagined himself excused
from. You may conceive the distress this must cause among artisans,
etc., who have spent their money and forgotten it, and feel cheated out
of the blessings they then bestowed on the Pasha--as to that they will
take out the change in curses.
There was a meeting here the other day of the Kadee, Sheykh el-Beled, and
other notables to fix the amount of tax each man was to pay towards the
increased police tax; and the old Shereef at the end spoke up, and said
he had heard that one man had asked me to lend him money, and that he
hoped such a thing would not happen again. Everyone knew I had had heavy
expenses this year, and most likely had not much money; that my heart was
soft, and that as everyone was in distress it would be 'breaking my
head,' and in short that he should think it unmanly if anyone tried to
trouble a lone woman with his troubles. I did offer one man 2 pounds
that he might not be forced to run away to the desert, but he refused it
and said, 'I had better go at once and rob out there, and not turn rogue
towards thee--never could I repay it.' The people are running away in
all directions.
When the Moolid of the Sheykh came the whole family Abu-l-Hajjaj could
only raise six hundred and twenty piastres among them to buy the buffalo
cow, which by custom--strong as the laws of the Medes and Persians--must
be killed for the strangers who come; and a buffalo cow is worth one
thousand piastres. So the stout old Shereef (aged 87) took his staff and
the six hundred and twenty piastres, and sallied forth to walk to Erment
and see what God would send them; and a charitable woman in Erment did
give a buffalo cow for the six hundred and twenty piastres, and he drove
her home the twenty miles rejoicing.
There has been a burglary over at Gourneh, an unheard-of event. Some men
broke into the house of the Coptic _gabit_ (tax-gatherer) and stole the
money-box containing about sixty purses--over 150 pounds. The _gabit_
came to me sick with the fright which gave him jaundice, and about eight
men are gone in chains to Keneh on suspicion. Hajjee Baba too, a Turkish
cawass, is awfully bilious; he says he is 'sick from beating men, and
it's no use, you can't coin money on their backs and feet when they
haven't a para in the world.' Altogether everyone is gloomy, and many
desperate. I never saw the aspect of a population so changed.
January 1, 1867. God bless you, dearest Alick, and grant you many good
years more. I must finish this to go to-morrow by the steamer. I would
give a great deal to see you again, but when will that be?