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

though I am quite sick of my book--it is very ungracious of me, but I can't help it.


November 2, 1865: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

ALEXANDRIA,
_November_ 2, 1865.

DEAREST MUTTER,

The boat like all other things goes but slowly--however the weather here is unusually dry and fine.

I have just been to see my poor friend Sittee Zubeydeh, widow of Hassaneyn Effendi who died in England--and I am filled with admiration at her good sense and courage. She has determined to carry on her husband's business of letting boats herself, and to educate her children to the best of her power in habits of independence. I hope she will be successful, and receive the respect such rare conduct in a Turkish woman deserves from the English. I was much gratified to hear from her how kindly she had been treated in Glasgow. She said that nothing that could be done for her was left undone. She arrived this morning and I went to see her directly and was really astonished at all she said about her plans for herself and her children. Poor thing! it is a sad blow--for she and Hassaneyn were as thoroughly united as any Europeans could be.

I went afterwards to my boat, which I hope will be done in five or six days. I am extremely impatient to be off. She will be a most charming boat--both comfortable and pretty. The boom for the big sail is new--and I exclaimed, 'why you have broken the new boom and mended it with leather!' Omar had put on a _sham splice_ to avert the evil eye from such a fine new piece of wood! Of course I dare not have the blemish renewed or _gare_ the first puff of wind--besides it is too characteristic.

There is some cholera about again, I hear--ten deaths yesterday--so Olagnier tells me. I fancy the rush of Europeans back again, each bringing 'seven other devils worse than himself' is the cause of it.

I think I am beginning to improve a little; my cough has been terribly harassing especially at night--but the weather is very good, cool, and not damp.


November 27, 1865: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

CAIRO,
_Monday_, _November_ 27, 1865.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I arrived here last night and found a whole heap of letters--and yours I will answer first. I had no heart to write any more from Alexandria where I was worried out of all courage and strength. At last after endless delays and vexations the dahabieh was _tant bien que mal_ ready.

Talk of Arab dawdle! after what I went through--and now I have to wait here for fresh repairs, as we came up baling all the way and I fear cursing the Christian workmen who had bungled so shamefully.

However that is over, and I am much better as to my cough--indeed it is all but gone. Omar was very ill having had dysentery for two months, but he too is well again. He is very grateful for your kind mention of him and says, 'Send the Great Mother my best Salaam, and tell her her daughter's people are my people, and where she goes I will go too, and please God I will serve her rich or poor till "He who separates us" shall take me from her.' The words of Ruth came after all these centuries quite fresh from the soft Egyptian lips.

The 'He who separated us' I must explain to you. It is one of the attributes of God, _The Separator of Religions_ implies toleration and friendship by attributing the two religions alike to God--and is never used towards one whose religion is not to be respected.

I have got a levee of former reis's, sailors, etc. some sick--but most come to talk.

The climate changes quite suddenly as one leaves the Delta, and here I sit at eight in the evening with open doors and windows.

I am so glad to hear of the great success of my dear Father's book, and to think of your courage in working at it still.

I suppose I shall be here a week longer as I have several jobs to do to my boat, and I shall try to get towed up so as to send back the boat as soon as possible in order to let her. Ali will give 80 pounds a month for her if he gets a party of four to take up. I pay my Reis five napoleons a month while travelling and three while lying still. He is a good, active little fellow.

We were nearly smashed under the railway bridge by an iron barge--and _Wallah_! how the Reis of the bridge did whack the Reis of the barge. I thought it a sad loss of time, but Reis Ali and my Reis Mohammed seemed to look on the stick as the most effective way of extricating my anchor from the Pasha's rudder. My crew can't say 'Urania' so they sing 'go along, oh darling bride' _Arooset er-ralee_, as the little Sitt's best description, and 'Arooset er-ralee' will be the dahabieh's exoteric name--as '_El Beshoosheeh_, is my popular name.


December 5, 1865: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

CAIRO,
_December_ 5, 1865.

DEAREST MUTTER,

_Alhamdulillah_--now I am at rest. I have got all the boat in order. My captain, Reis Mohammed, is very satisfactory, and to-day we sail as soon as Omar comes back with the meat, etc. from market.

I received Meadow's review; I wish he had not said so much about me in it.

Mohammed Gazowee begs to give his best Salaam to Sheykh Stanley whom he longs to see again. He says that all the people said he was not a Christian, for he was not proud ever towards them as Christians are, but a real Sheykh, and that the Bedaween still talk of Sheykh Stanley and of his piety. The old half-witted jester of Luxor has found me out--he has wandered down here to see his eldest son who is serving in the army. He had brought a little boy with him, but is 'afraid for him' here, I don't know why, and has begged me to take the child up to his mother. These licensed _possenreisser_ are like our fools in old times--but less witty than we fancy them to have been--thanks to Shakespeare, I suppose. Each district has one who attends all _moolids_ and other gatherings of the people, and picks up a living. He tells me that the Turkish Nazir of Zeneea has begun some business against our Kadee, Sheykh Ibraheem, and Sheykh Yussuf, accused them of something--he does not know what--_perhaps of being friends of Hajjee Sultan, or of stealing wood_!! If all the friends of Hajjee Sultan are to be prosecuted that will include the whole Saeed.

Of course I am anxious about my friends. All Haleem Pasha Oghdee's villages have been confiscated (those tributary to him for work) _sous pretexte_ that he ill-used the people, _n.b._ he alone paid them--a bad example. Pharoah is indeed laying intolerable burthens--not on the Israelites--but on the fellaheen.

Omar said of the great dinner to-day, 'I think all the food will taste of blood, it is the blood of the poor, and more _haram_ than any pork or wine or blood of beasts.' Of course such sentiments are not to be repeated--but they are general. The _meneggets_ who picked and made ten mattrasses and fourteen cushions for me in half a day, were laughing and saying, 'for the Pasha's boat we work also, at so much a day and we should have done it in four days.' 'And for me if I paid by the day instead of by the piece, how long?' 'One day instead of half, O Lady, for fear thou shouldest say to us, you have finished in half a day and half the wages is enough for you.' That is the way in which all the work is done for _Effendeena_--no wonder his steamers don't pay.

I saw Ross yesterday--he tells me the Shereef of Mecca has sent him a horse.


December 25, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

THEBES,
_From December_ 25, 1865, _to January_ 3, 1866.

DEAREST ALICK,

I wish you all, 'may the year be good to thee' as we say here--and now for my history. We left Cairo on the 5th Decr. I was not well. No wind as usual, and we were a week getting to Benisonef where the Stamboolee Greek lady who was so kind to me last summer in my illness came on board with a very well-bred Arab lady. I was in bed, and only stayed a few hours. On to Minieh another five or six days--walked about and saw the preparations for the Pasha's arrival. Nothing so flat as these affairs here. Not a creature went near the landing-place but his own servants, soldiers, and officials. I thought of the arrival of the smallest of German princes, which makes ten times the noise. Next on to Siout. Ill again, and did not land or see anyone. On to Girgeh, where we only stayed long enough to deliver money and presents which I had been begged to take for some old sailors of mine to their mothers and wives there.

Between Siout and Girgeh an Abyssinian slave lad came and wanted me to steal him; he said his master was a Copt and ill-used him, and the lady beat him. But Omar sagely observed to the sailors, who were very anxious to take him, that a bad master did not give his slave such good clothes and even a pair of shoes--_quel luxe_!--and that he made too much of his master being a Copt; no doubt he was a lazy fellow, and perhaps had run away with other property besides himself. Soon after I was sitting on the pointed prow of the boat with the Reis, who was sounding with his painted pole (_vide_ antique sculptures and paintings), and the men towing, when suddenly something rose to the surface close to us: the men cried out _Beni Adam_! and the Reis prayed for the dead. It was a woman: the silver bracelets glittered on the arms raised and stiffened in the agony of death, the knees up and the beautiful Egyptian breasts floated above the water. I shall never forget the horrid sight. 'God have mercy on her,' prayed my men, and the Reis added to me, 'let us also pray for her father, poor man: you see, no robber has done this (on account of the bracelets). We are in the Saeed now, and most likely she has blackened her father's face, and he has been forced to strangle her, poor man.' I said 'Alas!' and the Reis continued, 'ah, yes, it is a heavy thing, but a man must whiten his face, poor man, poor man. God have mercy on him.' Such is Saeedee _point d'honneur_. However, it turned out she was drowned bathing.

Above Girgeh we stopped awhile at Dishne, a large village. I strolled up alone, _les mains dans les poches_, '_sicut meus est mos_:' and was soon accosted with an invitation to coffee and pipes in the strangers' place, a sort of room open on one side with a column in the middle, like two arches of