We have been here ten days, and I find the air quite the best for me. I
cough much less, only I am weak and short of breath. I have got a most
excellent young Reis for my boat, and a sailor who sings like a
nightingale, indeed he is not a sailor at all, but a professional Cairo
singer who came up with me for fun. He draws crowds to hear him, and at
Esneh the congregation prayed for me in the mosque that God might reward
me for the pleasure I had provided for them. Fancy desiring the prayers
of this congregation for the welfare of the lady who gave me her
opera-box last Saturday. If prayers could avail to cure I ought to get
well rapidly. At Luxor Omar killed the sheep he had vowed, and Mustapha
and Mohammed each killed two, as thank-offerings for my life, and all the
derweeshes held two great _Zikrs_ in a tent pitched behind the boat, and
drummed and chanted and called on the Lord for two whole nights; and
every man in my boat fasted Ramadan severely, from Omar and the crew to
the little boys. I think Darfour was the most meritorious of all,
because he has such a Gargantuan appetite, but he fasted his thirty days
bravely and rubbed his little nose in the dust energetically in prayer.
On Christmas day I was at Esneh, it was warm and fine, and I made
fantasia and had the girls to dance. Zeyneb and Hillaleah claim to be my
own special _Ghazawee_, so to speak my _Ballerine da camera_, and they
did their best. How I did long to transport the whole scene before your
eyes--Ramadan warbling intense lovesongs, and beating on a tiny
tambourine, while Zeyneb danced before him and gave the pantomime to his
song; and the sailors, and girls, and respectable merchants sat
_pele-mele_ all round on the deck, and the player on the rabab drew from
it a wail like that of Isis for dead Osiris. I never quite know whether
it is now or four thousand years ago, or even ten thousand, when I am in
the dreamy intoxication of a real Egyptian fantasia; nothing is so
antique as the Ghazawee--the _real_ dancing girls. They are still
subject to religious ecstasies of a very curious kind, no doubt inherited
from the remotest antiquity. Ask any learned pundit to explain to you
the _Zar_--it is really curious.
Now that I am too ill to write I feel sorry that I did not persist and
write on the beliefs of Egypt in spite of your fear that the learned
would cut me up, for I honestly believe that knowledge will die with me
which few others possess. You must recollect that the learned know
books, and I know men, and what is still more difficult, women.
The Cataract is very bad this year, owing to want of water in the Nile,
and to the shameful conduct of the Maohn here. The cataract men came to
me, and prayed me to 'give them my voice' before the Mudir, which I will
do. Allah ed-deen Bey seems a decent man and will perhaps remove the
rascal, whose robberies on travellers are notorious, and his oppression
of the poor savages who pull the boats up odious. Two boats have been
severely damaged, and my friend the Reis of the Cataract (the one I
threatened to shoot last year, and who has believed in me ever since)
does not advise me to go up, though he would take me for nothing, he
swears, if I wished. So as the air is good here and Maurice is happy
with his companions, I will stay here.
I meant to have discharged my men, but I have grown so fond of them
(having so good a set), that I can't bring myself to save 20 pounds by
turning them adrift when we are all so happy and comfortable, and the
poor fellows are just marrying new wives with their wages. Good-bye
dearest Alick, forgive a scrawl, for I am very weak all over, fingers and
all. Best love to my darling Rainie. Three boats have little girls of
five to eight on board, and I do envy them so. I think Maurice had
better go home to you, when we get to Cairo. He ought to be doing
something.