Letters from Egypt Part 29

We know nothing here of a prohibition of gunpowder, at this moment some Europeans are popping away incessantly at Embabeh just opposite.

Evidently the Pasha wants to establish a right of search on the Nile.

That absurd speech about slaves he made in Paris shows that. With 3,000 in his hareem, several slave regiments, and lots of gangs on all his sugar plantations, his impudence is wonderful. He is himself the greatest living slave trader as well as owner. My lads are afraid to go out alone for fear of being snapped up by cawa.s.ses and taken to the army or the sugar works. You will be sorry to hear that your stalwart friend Ha.s.san has had fifty blows on each foot-sole, and had to pay six pounds.

He was taking two donkeys to Shepheard's hotel before sunrise for a French lady and gentleman to go to the Pyramids, when a cawa.s.s met him, seized the donkeys, and on Ha.s.san's refusal to give them up, spat on the side-saddle and reviled Ha.s.san's own Hareem and began to beat him with his courbash. Ha.s.san got impatient, took the cawa.s.s up in his arms and threw him on the ground, and went on. Presently four cawa.s.ses came after him, seized him and took him to the Zaptieh (police office), where they all swore he had beaten them, torn their clothes, and robbed one of an imaginary gold watch-all valued at twenty-four pounds. After the beating he was carried to prison in chains, and there sentenced to be a soldier.

A friend however interfered and settled the matter for six pounds.

Ha.s.san sends you his best salaam.

Last night was very pretty-all the boats starting for the _moolid_ of Seyd el-Bedawee at Tanta. Every boat had a sort of pyramid of lanterns, and the derweeshes chanted, and the worldly folks had profane music and singing, and I sat and looked and listened, and thought how many thousand years ago just the same thing was going on in honour of Bubastis.

August 7, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

BOULAK, _August_ 7, 1867.

MY DEAREST ALICK,

Two sailors of mine of last year went to Paris in the dahabieh for the Empress, and are just come back. When I see them I expect I shall have some fun out of their account of their journey. Poor Adam's father died of grief at his son's going, nothing would persuade him that Adam would come back safe, and having a heart complaint, he died. And now the lad is back, well and with fine clothes, but is much cut up, I hear, by his father's death. Please send me a tremendous whistle; mine is not loud enough to wake Omar at the other end of the cabin; a boatswain's whistle or something in the line of the 'last trump' is needed to wake sleeping Arabs.

My pretty neighbour has gone back into the town. She was a nice little woman, and amused me a good deal. I see that a good respectable Turkish hareem is an excellent school of useful accomplishments-needlework, cookery, etc. But I observed that she did not care a bit for the Pasha, by whom she had a child, but was extremely fond of 'her lady,' as she politely called her, also that like every Circa.s.sian I ever knew, she regarded being sold as quite a desirable fate, and did not seem sorry for her parents, as the negroes always are.

The heat has been prodigious, but I am a good deal better. Yesterday the Nile had risen above ten cubits, and the cutting of the Kalig took place.

The river is pretty full now, but they say it will go down fast this year. I don't know why. It looks very beautiful, blood-red and tossed into waves by the north wind fighting the rapid stream.

Good-bye dear Alick, I hope to hear a better account of your health soon.

August 8, 1867: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

BOULAK, _August_ 8, 1867.

DEAREST MUTTER,

Two of my sailors were in Paris and have just come home. I hear they are dreadfully shocked by the dancing, and by the French women of the lower cla.s.s generally. They sit in the coffee-shops like _shaers_ (poets), and tell of the wonders of Paris to admiring crowds. They are enthusiastic about the courtesy of the French police, who actually did not beat them when they got into a quarrel, but scolded the Frankish man instead, and accompanied them back to the boat quite politely. The novelty and triumph of not being beaten was quite intoxicating. There is such a curious sight of a crowd of men carrying huge blocks of stone up out of a boat. One sees exactly how the stones were carried in ancient times; they sway their bodies all together like one great lithe animal with many legs, and hum a low chant to keep time. It is quite unlike any carrying heavy weights in Europe.

It is getting dusk and too windy for candles, so I must say goodnight and eat the dinner which Darfour has pressed upon me two or three times, he is a pleasant little creature, so lively and so gentle. It is was.h.i.+ng day. I wish you could see Mabrook squatting out there, lathering away at the clothes with his superb black arms. He is a capital washer and a fair cook, but an utter savage.

[The foregoing letter reached England the day after the death of my grandmother, Mrs. Austin, which was a great shock to my mother and made her ill and unhappy; so it was settled that my brother Maurice should go out and spend the winter with her on the Nile.]

September 7, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

BOULAK, _September_ 7, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

Many thanks for your letter and for all the trouble you have taken. I wish you were better.

There is such a group all st.i.tching away at the big new sail; Omar, the Reis, two or three volunteers, some old sailors of mine, and little Darfour. If I die I think you must have that tiny n.i.g.g.e.r over; he is such a merry little soul, I am sure you would love him, he is quite a civilized being and has a charming temper, and he seems very small to be left alone in the world.

I hope Maurice is not of the faction of the _ennuyes_ of this generation.

I am more and more of Omar's opinion, who said, with a pleased sigh, as we sat on the deck under some lovely palm-trees in the bright moon-light, moored far from all human dwellings, 'how sweet are the quiet places of the world.'

I wonder when Europe will drop the absurd delusion about Christians being persecuted by Muslims. It is absolutely the other way,-here at all events. The Christians know that they will always get backed by some Consul or other, and it is the Muslims who go to the wall invariably.

The brute of a Patriarch is resolved to continue his persecution of the converts, and I was urged the other day by a Sheykh to go to the Sheykh ul-Islam himself and ask him to demand equal rights for all religions, which is the law, on behalf of these Coptic Protestants. Everywhere the Ulema have done what they could to protect them, even at Siout, where the American missionaries had caused them (the Ulemas) a good deal of annoyance on a former occasion. No one in Europe can conceive how much the Copts have the upper hand in the villages. They are backed by the Government, and they know that the Europeans will always side with them.

_September_ 13.-Omar is crazy with delight at the idea of Maurice's arrival, and Reis Mohammed is planning what men to take who can make fantasia, and not ask too much wages. Let me know what boat Maurice comes by that I may send Omar to Alexandria to meet him. Omar begs me to give you and Sitti Rainie his best salaam, and his a.s.surance that he will take great care of the young master and 'keep him very tight.' I think Maurice will be diverted with small Darfour. Mabrook now really cooks very fairly under Omar's orders, but he is beyond belief uncouth, and utters the wildest howls now that his voice is grown big and strong like himself. Moreover he 'won't be spoken to,' as our servants say; but he is honest, clean, and careful. I should not have thought any human creature could remain so completely a savage in a civilized community. I rather respect his savage _hauteur_, especially as it is combined with truth and honesty.

October 17, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

BOULAK, BOAT _MARIE LOUISE_, _October_ 17, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

You must not be wroth with me because I have not written for a long time-I have been ill, but am much better. Omar will go down to Alexandria to meet Maurice on Monday.

My boat is being painted, but is nearly finished; as soon as it is done I shall move back into her. I got out into a little cangia but it swarmed with bugs and wasps, and was too dirty, so I moved yesterday into a good boat belonging to a dragoman, and hope to be back in my own by Sunday.

But oh Lord! I got hold of the Barber himself turned painter; and as the little cangia was moored alongside the _Urania_ in order to hold all the mattresses, carpets, etc. I was his victim. First, it was a request for 'three pounds to buy paint.' 'None but the best of paint is fitting for a n.o.ble person like thee, and that thou knowest is costly, and I am thy servant and would do thee honour.' 'Very well,' say I, 'take the money, and see, oh man, that the paint is of the best, or thy backsheesh will be bad also.' Well, he begins and then rushes in to say: 'Come oh Bey, oh Pasha! and behold the brilliancy of the white paint, like milk, like gla.s.s, like the full moon.' I go and say, 'Mashallah! but now be so good as to work fast, for my son will be here in a few days, and nothing is ready.' Fatal remark. 'Mashallah! Bismillah! may the Lord spare him, may G.o.d prolong thy days, let me advise thee how to keep the eye from him, for doubtless thy son is beautiful as a memlook of 1,000 purses.

Remember to spit in his face when he comes on board, and revile him aloud that all the people may hear thee, and compel him to wear torn and dirty clothes when he goes out:-and how many children hast thou, and our master, thy master, and is he well?' etc. etc. '_Shukr Allah_! all is well with us,' say I; 'but, by the Prophet, paint, oh _Ma-alim_ (exactly the German _Meister_) and do not break my head any more.' But I was forced to take refuge at a distance from Hajj' Alee's tongue. Read the story of the Barber, and you will know exactly what Ma-alim Hajj' Alee is. Also just as I got out of my boat and he had begun, the painter whom I had last year and with whom I was dissatisfied, went to the Sheykh of the painters and persuaded him to put my man in prison for working too cheap-that was at daybreak. So I sent up my Reis to the Sheykh to inform him that if my man did not return by next day at daybreak, I would send for an European painter and force the Sheykh to pay the bill. Of course my man came.

My steersman Ha.s.san, and a good man, Hoseyn, who can wash and is generally nice and pleasant, arrived from el-Bastowee a few days ago, and are waiting here till I want them. Poor little ugly black Ha.s.san has had his house burnt down in his village, and lost all the clothes which he had bought with his wages; they were very good clothes, some of them, and a heavy loss. He is my Reis's brother, and a good man, clean and careful and quiet, better than my Reis even-they are a respectable family. Big stout Hazazin owes me 200 piastres which he is to work out, so I have still five men and a boy to get. I hope a nice boy, called Hederbee (the lizard), will come. They don't take pay till the day before we sail, except the Reis and Abdul Sadig, who are permanent. But Ha.s.san and Hoseyn are working away as merrily as if they were paid. People growl at the backsheesh, but they should also remember what a quant.i.ty of service one gets for nothing here, and for which, oddly enough, no one dreams of asking backsheesh. Once a week we s.h.i.+ft the anchors, for fear of their silting over, and six or eight men work for an hour; then the mast is lowered-twelve or fourteen men work at this-and n.o.body gets a farthing.

The other day Omar met in the market an 'agreeable merchant,' an Abyssinian fresh from his own country, which he had left because of the tyranny of Ka.s.sa, alias Todoros, the Sultan. The merchant had brought his wife and concubines to live here. His account is that the ma.s.s of the people are delighted to hear that the English are coming to conquer them, as they hope, and that everyone hates the King except two or three hundred scamps who form his bodyguard. He had seen the English prisoners, who, he says, are not ill-treated, but certainly in danger, as the King is with difficulty restrained from killing them by the said scamps, who fear the revenge of the English; also that there is one woman imprisoned with the native female prisoners. Ha.s.san the donkeyboy, when he was a _marmiton_ in Cairo, knew the Sultan Todoros, he was the only man who could be found to interpret between the then King of Abyssinia and Mohammed Ali Pasha, whom Todoros had come to visit. The merchant also expressed a great contempt for the Patriarch, and for their _Matraam_ or Metropolitan, whom the English papers call the _Abuna_.

_Abuna_ is Arabic for 'our father.' The man is a Cairene Copt and was a hanger-on of two English missionaries (they were really Germans) here, and he is more than commonly a rascal and a hypocrite. I know a respectable Jew whom he had robbed of all his merchandise, only Ras Alee forced the _Matraam_ to disgorge. Pray what was all that nonsense about the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem writing to Todoros? what could he have to do with it? The Coptic Patriarch, whose place is Cairo, could do it if he were forced.

At last my boat is finished, so to-morrow Omar will clean the windows, and on Sat.u.r.day move in the cus.h.i.+ons, etc. and me, and on Sunday go to Alexandria. I hear the dreadful voice of Hajj' Alee, the painter, outside, and will retire before he gets to the cabin door, for fear he should want to bore me again. I do hope Maurice will enjoy his journey; everyone is anxious to please him. The Sheykh of the Hawara sent his brother to remind me to stop at his 'palace' near Girgeh, that he might make a fantasia for my son. So Maurice will see real Arab riding, and jereed, and sheep roasted whole and all the rest of it. The Sheykh is the last of the great Arab chieftains of Egypt, and has thousands of fellaheen and a large income. He did it for Lord Spencer and for the Duke of Rutland and I shall get as good a fantasia, I have no doubt.

Perhaps at Keneh Maurice had better not see the dancing, for Zeyneb and Latefeeh are terribly fascinating, they are such pleasant jolly girls as well as pretty and graceful, but old Oum ez-Zeyn (mother of beauty), so-called on account of his hideousness, will want us to eat his good dinner.

October 21, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.