Only two days ago I received letters from you of the 17 September and the
19 November. I wonder how many get lost and where? Janet gives me hopes
of a visit of a few days in March and promises me a little terrier dog,
whereat Omar is in raptures. I have made no plans at all, never having
felt well enough to hope to be able to travel. The weather has changed
for the better, and it is not at all old now; we shall see what the
warmth does for me. You make my bowels yearn with your account of
Rainie. If only we had Prince Achmet's carpet, and you could all come
here for a few months.
We were greatly excited here last week; a boy was shot out in the
sugar-cane field: he was with four Copts, and at first it looked ugly for
the Copts. But the Maohn tells me he is convinced they are innocent, and
that they only prevaricated from fear--it was robbers shot the poor
child. What struck and surprised me in the affair was the excessive
horror and consternation it produced; the Maohn had not had a murder in
his district at all in eight years. The market-place was thronged with
wailing women, Omar was sick all day, and the Maohn pale and wretched.
The horror of killing seems greater here than ever I saw it. Palgrave
says the same of the Arabian Arabs in his book: it is not one's notion of
Oriental feeling, but a murder in England is taken quite as a joke
compared with the scene here. I fear there will be robberies, owing to
the distress, and the numbers who are running away from the land unable
to pay their taxes. Don't fear for me, for I have two watchmen in the
house every night--the regular guard and an amateur, a man whose boy I
took down to Cairo to study in Gama'l Azhar.
Palgrave has written to Ross wanting Mabrook back. I am very sorry, the
more so as Mabrook is recalcitrant. 'I want to stay with thee, I don't
want to go back to the Nazarene.' A boy who heard him said, 'but the
Lady is a Nazarene too;' whereupon Mabrook slapped his face with great
vigour. He will be troublesome if he does turn restive, and he is one
who can only be managed by kindness. He is as good and quiet as possible
with us, but the stubborn will is there and he is too ignorant to be
reasoned with.
_January_ 14.--To-day the four Copts have again changed their story, and
after swearing that the robbers were strangers, have accused a man who
has shot birds for me all this winter: and the poor devil is gone to
Keneh in chains. The weather seems to have set in steadily for fine. I
hope soon to get out, but my donkey has grown old and shaky and I am too
weak to walk, so I sit in the balcony.