The warm weather has set in, and I am already as much the better for it
as usual. I had a slight attack, not nearly so bad as that at Soden, but
it lingered and I kept my bed as a measure of precaution. Dear Yussuf
was with me the evening I was attacked, and sat up all night to give me
my medicine every hour. At the prayer of dawn, an hour and a half before
sunrise, I heard his supplications for my life and health, and for you
and all my family; and I thought of what I had lately read, how the
Greeks massacred their own patriots because the Turks had shown them
mercy--a display of temper which I hope will enlighten Western
Christendom as to what the Muslims have to expect, if they (the Western
Christians) help the Eastern Christians to get the upper hand. Yussuf
was asking about a lady the other day who has turned Catholic. 'Poor
thing,' said he, 'the priests have drawn out her brains through her ears,
no doubt: but never fear, her heart is good and her charity is great, and
God will not deal hardly with those who serve Him with their hearts,
though it is sad she should bow down before images. But look at thy
slave Mabrook, can he understand one hundredth part of the thoughts of
thy mind? Never-the-less he loves thee, and obeys thee with pleasure and
alacrity; and wilt thou punish him because he knows not all thy ways?
And shall God, who is so much higher above us as thou art above thy
slave, be less just than thou?' I pinned him at once, and insisted on
knowing the orthodox belief; but he quoted the Koran and the decisions of
the Ulema to show that he stretched no point as far as Jews and
Christians are concerned, and even that idolaters are not to be condemned
by man. Yussuf wants me to write a short account of the faith from his
dictation. Would anyone publish it? It annoys him terribly to hear the
Muslims constantly accused of intolerance, and he is right--it is not
true. They show their conviction that their faith is the best in the
world with the same sort of naivete that I have seen in very innocent and
ignorant English women; in fact, display a sort of religious conceit; but
it is not often bitter or _haineux_, however much they are in earnest.
I am going to write to Palgrave and ask him to let me send another boy or
the money for Mabrook, who can't endure the notion of leaving me.
Achmet, who was always hankering after the fleshpots of Alexandria, got
some people belonging to the boats to promise to take him, and came home
and picked a quarrel and departed. Poor little chap; the Sheykh el-Beled
'put a spoke in his wheel' by informing him he would be wanted for the
Pasha's works and must stay in his own place. Since he went Mabrook has
come out wonderfully and does his own work and Achmet's with the greatest
satisfaction. He tells me he likes it best so; he likes to be quiet. He
just suits me and I him, it is humiliating to find how much more I am to
the taste of savages than of the 'polite circles.'
The old lady of the Maohn proposed to come to me, but I would not let her
leave her home, which would be quite an adventure to her. I knew she
would be exclamatory, and lament over me, and say every minute, 'Oh my
liver. Oh my eyes! The name of God be upon thee, and never mind!
to-morrow please God, thou wilt be quite well,' and so forth. People
send me such odd dishes, some very good. Yussuf's wife packed two
calves' feet tight in a little black earthern pan, with a seasoning of
herbs, and baked it in the bread oven, and the result was excellent.
Also she made me a sort of small macaroni, extremely good. Now too we
can get milk again, and Omar makes _kishta_, alias clotted cream.
Do send me a good edition of the 'Arabian Nights' in Arabic, and I should
much like to give Yussuf Lane's Arabic dictionary. He is very anxious to
have it. I can't read the 'Arabian Nights,' but it is a favourite
amusement to make one of the party read aloud; a stray copy of 'Kamar
ez-Zeman and Sitt Boodoora' went all round Luxor, and was much coveted
for the village _soirees_. But its owner departed, and left us to mourn
over the loss of his MSS.
I must tell you a black standard of respectability (it is quite equal to
the English one of the gig, or the ham for breakfast). I was taking
counsel with my friend Rachmeh, a negro, about Mabrook, and he urged me
to buy him of Palgrave, because he saw that the lad really loved me.
'Moreover,' he said, 'the boy is of a respectable family, for he told me
his mother wore a cow's tail down to her heels (that and a girdle to
which the tail is fastened, and a tiny leathern apron in front,
constituted her whole wardrobe), and that she beat him well when he told
lies or stole his neighbours eggs.' Poor woman; I wish this abominable
slave trade had spared her and her boy. What folly it is to stop the
Circassian slave trade, if it is stopped, and to leave this. The
Circassians take their own children to market, as a way of providing for
them handsomely, and both boys and girls like being sold to the rich
Turks; but the blacks and Abyssinians fight hard for their own liberty
and that of their cubs. Mabrook swears that there were two Europeans in
the party which attacked his village and killed he knew not how many, and
carried him and others off. He was not stolen by Arabs, or by Barrabias,
like Hassan, but taken in war from his home by the seaside, a place
called Bookee, and carried in a ship to Jedda, and thence back to Koseir
and Keneh, where Palgrave bought him. I must say that once here the
slaves are happy and well off, but the waste of life and the misery
caused by the trade must be immense. The slaves are coming down the
river by hundreds every week, and are very cheap--twelve to twenty pounds
for a fine boy, and nine pounds and upwards for a girl. I heard that the
last _gellab_ offered a woman and baby for anything anyone would give for
them, on account of the trouble of the baby. By-the-bye, Mabrook
displays the negro talent for babies. Now that Achmet is gone, who
scolded them and drove them out, Mohammed's children, quite babies, are
for ever trotting after 'Maboo,' as they pronounce his name, and he talks
incessantly to them. It reminds me so of Janet and poor Hassan, but
Mabrook is not like Hassan, he is one of the sons of Anak, and already as
big and strong as a man, with the most prodigious chest and limbs.
Don't be at all uneasy about me as to care. Omar knows exactly what to
do as he showed the other day when I was taken ill. I had shown him the
medicines and given him instructions so I had not even to speak, and if I
were to be ill enough to want more help, Yussuf would always sit up
alternate nights; but it is not necessary. Arabs make no grievance about
broken rest; they don't 'go to bed properly,' but lie down half dressed,
and have a happy faculty of sleeping at odd times and anyhow, which
enables them to wait on one day and night, without distressing themselves
as it distresses us.
_Thursday_.--A telegram has just come announcing that Janet will leave
Cairo to-morrow in a steamer, and therefore be here, Inshallah, this day
week. I enclose a note from a Copt boy, which will amuse you. He is
'sapping' at English, and I teach him whenever I am able. I am a special
favourite with all the young lads; they must not talk much before grown
men, so they come and sit on the floor round my feet, and ask questions
and advice, and enjoy themselves amazingly. Hobble-de-hoy-hood is very
different here from what it is with us; they care earlier for the affairs
of the grown-up world, and are more curious and more polished, but lack
the fine animal gaiety of our boys. The girls are much more _gamin_ than
the boys, and more romping and joyous.
It is very warm now. I fear Janet will sigh terribly over the heat.
They have left their voyage too late for such as do not love the Shems
el-Kebeer (the big sun), which has just begun. I who worship Ammun Ra,
love to feel him in his glory. It is long since I had any letters, I
want so to hear how you all are.