Don't make yourself unhappy, and don't send out a nurse. And above all
don't think of coming. I am nursed as well as possible. My two Reises,
Ramadan and Yussuf, are strong and tender and Omar is admirable as ever.
The worst is I am so strong.
I repeat I could not be better cared for anywhere than by my good and
loving crew. Tell Maurice how they all cried and how Abd el-Haleem
forswore drink and hasheesh. He is very good too. But my Reises are
incomparable. God bless you. I wish I had seen your dear face once
more--but not now. I would not have you here now on any account.
Footnotes:
{1} See my 'Three Generations of English Women.'
{4} See 'Three Generations of English Women.'
{48} A smoker or eater of _hasheeshs_ (hemp).
{55} Lady Mary and Lord Jesus.
{188} About 7.5 bushels.
{293} Now, I believe, abolished. The Sheykh of the Saadeeyeh
darweeshes, passing part of the night in solitude, reciting prayers and
passages of the Koran, went to the mosque, preached and said the noonday
prayer; then, mounting his horse, proceeded to the Ezbekeeyeh. Many
darweeshes with flags accompanied him to the house of the Sheykh of all
the darweeshes where he stayed for some time, whilst his followers were
engaged in packing the bodies of those who wished to be trampled under
the hoofs of the Sheykh's horse as closely together as they could in the
middle of the road. Some eighty or a hundred, or more men lay side by
side flat on the ground on their stomachs muttering, Allah Allah! and to
try if they were packed close enough about twenty darweeshes ran over
their backs, beating little drums and shouting Allah! and now and then
stopping to arrange an arm or leg. Then appeared the Sheykh, his horse
led by two grooms, while two more rested their hands on his croup. By
much pulling and pushing they at last induced the snorting, frightened
beast to amble quickly over the row of prostrate men. The moment the
horse had passed the men sprang up, and followed the Sheykh over the
bodies of the others. It was said that on the day before the Doseh they,
and the Sheykh, repeated certain prayers which prevented the horse's
hoofs from hurting them, and that sometimes a man, overcome by religious
enthusiasm, had thrown himself down with the rest and been seriously
hurt, or even killed.
{315} Mohammed Ali Pasha, who was an illiterate coffee-house keeper in
Salonica, first came to Egypt at the head of a body of Albanians and
co-operated with the English against the French. By his extraordinary
vigour and intelligence he became the ruler of Lower Egypt, and succeeded
in attaching the Mameluke Beys to his person. But finding that they were
beginning to chafe under his firm rule, he invited them, in 1811, to a
grand dinner in the Citadel of Cairo. The gates were closed, and
suddenly fire was opened upon them from every side. Only one man, Elfy
Bey, spurred his horse and jumped over the battlements into the square
below (some 80 or 90 feet). His horse was killed and he broke his leg,
but managed to crawl to a friend's house and was saved. This same Elfy
Bey, on the death of Abbas Pasha, held the Citadel for his son, El Hamy,
against his uncle, Said Pasha, and it was only by the intervention of the
English Consul-General, who rode up to the Citadel, that Elfy was induced
to acknowledge Said as Viceroy of Egypt.
{334} Alexis was a clair-voyant who created some sensation in London
about fifty years ago. One evening at Lansdowne House he was reading
people's thoughts and describing their houses from the lines in their
hands, and a few leading questions. The old Marquess asked my mother to
let Alexis read her thoughts, and, I suppose, impressed by her _grand
air_ and statuesque beauty, imagining that she would think about some
great hero of ancient days, he said, after careful inspection of her
hand, 'Madame vous pensez a Jules Cesar.' She shook her head and told
him to try again. His next guess was Alexander the Great. She smiled
and said, 'Non, Monsieur, je pensais a mon fidele domestique negre,
Hassan.' He then described her house as something akin to Lansdowne
House--vast rooms, splendid pictures, etc. She laughed and told him she
lived in 'une maison fort modeste et tant soi peu bourgeois,' which
elicited his angry exclamation that she had not faith enough, _i.e._ that
she did not help him.
{336} See Introduction, p. 6.
{350} According to tradition, the first Christian church in Egypt was
built by St. Mark the Evangelist at Baucalis near Alexandria, and
Christianity was introduced into Abyssinia under Athanasius Patriarch of
Alexandria from 236 to 273. The authority of the Egyptian Coptic
Patriarch is still paramount in Abyssinia, where he counts his adherents
by the million.