Letters from Egypt, Lucy Duff Gordon [best color ebook reader .txt] 📗

other. When I see you, _Inshallah_, next summer I shall be a good scholar, I hope.


January 2, 1865: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR,
_January_ 2, 1865.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I posted a letter for you at Girgeh, as we passed Siout with a good wind, I hope you will get it. My crew worked as I never saw men work, they were paid to get to Luxor, and for eighteen days they never rested or slept day or night, and all the time were merry and pleasant. It shows what power of endurance these 'lazy Arabs' have when there is good money at the end of a job, instead of the favourite panacea of 'stick.'

We arrived at midnight and next morning my boat had the air of being pillaged. A crowd of laughing, chattering fellows ran off to the house laden with loose articles snatched up at random, loaves of sugar, pots and pans, books, cushions, all helter-skelter. I feared breakages, but all was housed safe and sound. The small boys of an age licensed to penetrate into the cabin, went off with the oddest cargoes of dressing things and the like--of backsheesh not one word. _Alhamdulillah salaameh_! 'Thank God thou art in peace,' and _Ya Sitt, Ya Emeereh_, till my head went round. Old Ismaeen fairly hugged me and little Achmet hung close to my side. I went up to Mustapha's house while the unpacking took place and breakfasted there, and found letters from all of you, from you to darling Rainie, Sheykh Yussuf was charmed with her big writing and said he thought the news in that was the best of all.

The weather was intensely hot the first two days. Now it is heavenly, a fresh breeze and gorgeous sunshine. I brought two common Arab lanterns for the tomb of Abu-l-Hajjaj and his _moolid_ is now going on. Omar took them and lighted them up and told me he found several people who called on the rest to say the _Fathah_ for me. I was sitting out yesterday with the people on the sand looking at the men doing _fantasia_ on horseback for the Sheykh, and a clever dragoman of the party was relating about the death of a young English girl whom he had served, and so _de fil en aiguille_ we talked about the strangers buried here and how the bishop had extorted 100 pounds. I said, '_Maleysh_ (never mind) the people have been hospitable to me alive and they will not cease if I die, but give me a tomb among the Arabs.' One old man said, 'May I not see thy day, oh Lady, and indeed thou shouldest be buried as a daughter of the Arabs, but we should fear the anger of thy Consul and thy family, but thou knowest that wherever thou art buried thou wilt assuredly lie in a Muslim grave.' 'How so?' said I. 'Why, when a bad Muslim dies the angels take him out of his tomb and put in one of the good from among the Christians in his place.' This is the popular expression of the doctrine that the good are sure of salvation. Omar chimed in at once, 'Certainly there is no doubt of it, and I know a story that happened in the days of Mahommed Ali Pasha which proves it.' We demanded the story and Omar began. 'There was once a very rich man of the Muslims so stingy that he grudged everybody even so much as a "bit of the paper inside the date" (Koran). When he was dying he said to his wife, "Go out and buy me a lump of pressed dates," and when she had brought it he bade her leave him alone. Thereupon he took all his gold out of his sash and spread it before him, and rolled it up two or three pieces at a time in the dates, and swallowed it piece after piece until only three were left, when his wife came in and saw what he was doing and snatched them from his hand. Presently after he fell back and died and was carried out to the burial place and laid in his tomb. When the Kadee's men came to put the seal on his property and found no money they said, "Oh woman, how is this? we know thy husband was a rich man and behold we find no money for his children and slaves or for thee." So the woman told what had happened, and the Kadee sent for three other of the Ulema, and they decided that after three days she should go herself to her husband's tomb and open it, and take the money from his stomach; meanwhile a guard was put over the tomb to keep away robbers. After three days therefore the woman went, and the men opened the tomb and said, "Go in O woman and take thy money." So the woman went down into the tomb alone. When there, instead of her husband's body she saw a box (coffin) of the boxes of the Christians, and when she opened it she saw the body of a young girl, adorned with many ornaments of gold necklaces, and bracelets, and a diamond _Kurs_ on her head, and over all a veil of black muslin embroidered with gold. So the woman said within herself, "Behold I came for money and here it is, I will take it and conceal this business for fear of the Kadee." So she wrapped the whole in her _melayeh_ (a blue checked cotton sheet worn as a cloak) and came out, and the men said "Hast thou done thy business?"' and she answered "Yes" and returned home.

'In a few days she gave the veil she had taken from the dead girl to a broker to sell for her in the bazaar, and the broker went and showed it to the people and was offered one hundred piastres. Now there sat in one of the shops of the merchants a great Ma-allim (Coptic clerk) belonging to the Pasha, and he saw the veil and said, "How much asketh thou?" and the broker said "Oh thine honour the clerk whatever thou wilt." "Take from me then five hundred piastres and bring the person that gave thee the veil to receive the money." So the broker fetched the woman and the Copt, who was a great man, called the police and said, "Take this woman and fetch my ass and we will go before the Pasha," and he rode in haste to the palace weeping and beating his breast, and went before the Pasha and said, "Behold this veil was buried a few days ago with my daughter who died unmarried, and I had none but her and I loved her like my eyes and would not take from her her ornaments, and this veil she worked herself and was very fond of it, and she was young and beautiful and just of the age to be married; and behold the Muslims go and rob the tombs of the Christians and if thou wilt suffer this we Christians will leave Egypt and go and live in some other country, O Effendina, for we cannot endure this abomination."

'Then the Pasha turned to the woman and said, "Woe to thee O woman, art thou a Muslimeh and doest such wickedness?" And the woman spoke and told all that had happened and how she sought money and finding gold had kept it. So the Pasha said, "Wait oh Ma-allim, and we will discover the truth of this matter," and he sent for the three Ulema who had desired that the tomb should be opened at the end of three days and told them the case; and they said, "Open now the tomb of the Christian damsel." And the Pasha sent his men to do so, and when they opened it behold it was full of fire, and within it lay the body of the wicked and avaricious Mussulman.' Thus it was manifest to all that on the night of terror the angels of God had done this thing, and had laid the innocent girl of the Christians among those who have received direction, and the evil Muslim among the rejected. Admire how rapidly legends arise here. This story which everybody declared was quite true is placed no longer ago than in Mahommed Ali Pasha's time.

There are hardly any travellers this year, instead of a hundred and fifty or more boats, perhaps twenty. A son of one of the Rothschilds, a boy of fourteen, has just gone up like a royal prince in one of the Pasha's steamers--all his expenses paid and crowds of attendants. 'All that honour to the money of the Jew,' said an old fellah to me with a tone of scorn which I could not but echo in my heart. He has turned out his dragoman--a respectable elderly man, very sick, and paid him his bare wages and the munificent sum of 5 pounds to take him back to Cairo. On board there was a doctor and plenty of servants, and yet he abandons the man here on Mustapha's hands. I have brought Er-Rasheedee here (the sick man) as poor Mustapha is already overloaded with strangers. I am sorry the name of _Yahoodee_ (Jew) should be made to stink yet more in the nostrils of the Arabs. I am very well, indeed my cough is almost gone and I can walk quite briskly and enjoy it. I think, dear Mutter, I am really better. I never felt the cold so little as this winter since my illness, the chilly mornings and nights don't seem to signify at all now, and the climate feels more delicious than ever.

Mr. Herbert, the painter, went back to Cairo from Farshoot below Keneh; so I have no 'Frangee' society at all. But Sheykh Yussuf and the Kadee drop in to tea very often and as they are agreeable men I am quite content with my company.

Bye the bye I will tell you about the tenure of land in Egypt which people are always disputing about, as the Kadee laid it down for me. The _whole_ land belongs to the Sultan of Turkey, the Pasha being his vakeel (representative), nominally of course as we know. Thus there are no owners, only tenants paying from one hundred piastres tariff (1 pound) down to thirty piastres yearly per feddan (about an acre) according to the quality of the land, or the favour of the Pasha when granting it. This tenancy is hereditary to children only--not to collaterals or ascendants--and it may be sold, but in that case application must be made to the Government. If the owner or tenant dies childless the land reverts to the Sultan, _i.e._ to the Pasha, and _if the Pasha chooses to have any man's land he can take it from him on payment--or without_. Don't let any one tell you that I exaggerate; I have known it happen: I mean the _without_, and the man received feddan for feddan of desert, in return for his good land which he had tilled and watered.

To-morrow night is the great night of Sheykh Abu-l-Hajjaj's _moolid_ and I am desired to go to the mosque for the benefit of my health, and that my friends may say a prayer for my children. The kind hearty welcome I found here has been a real pleasure, and every one was pleased because I was glad to come home to