Part 23

Yesterday was the Bairam I rejoice to say and I have lots of physic to make up, for all the stomachs damaged by Ramadan.

I have persuaded Mr. Fowler the engineer who was with Lord Dudley to take my dear little pupil Achmet son of Ibn Mustapha to learn the business at Leeds instead of idling in his father's house here. I will give the child a letter to you in case he should go to London. He has been reading the gospels with me at his own desire. I refused till I had asked his father's consent, and Sheykh Yussuf who heard me begged me by all means to make him read it carefully so as to guard him against the heretical inventions he might be beset with among the English 'of the vulgar sort.' What a poser for a missionary!

I sent down the poor black lad with Arakel Bey. He took leave of me with his ugly face all blubbered like a sentimental hippopotamus. He said 'for himself, he wished to stay with me, but then what would his boy, his little master do--there was only a stepmother who would take all the money, and who else would work for the boy?' Little Achmet was charmed to see Khayr go, of whom he chose to be horribly jealous, and to be wroth at all he did for me. Now the Sheykh-el-Beled of Baidyeh has carried off my watchman, and the Christian Sheykh-el-Hara of our quarter of Luxor has taken the boy Yussuf for the Canal. The former I successfully resisted and got back Mansoor, not indeed incolumes for he had been handcuffed and bastinadoed to make me pay 200 piastres, but he bore it like a man rather than ask me for the money and was thereupon surrendered. But the Copt will be a tougher business--he will want more money and be more resolved to get it. Veremus. I must I suppose go to the Nazir at the Canal--a Turk--and beg off my donkey boy.

I saw Hassan Sheykh-el-Abab'deh yesterday, who was loud in praise of your good looks and gracious manners. 'Mashallah, thy master is a sweet man, O Lady!'

Yesterday was Bairam, and lots of Hareem came in their best clothes to wish me a happy year and enjoyed themselves much with sweet cakes, coffee, and pipes. Kursheed's wife (whom I cured completely) looked very handsome. Kursheed is a Circassian, a fine young fellow much shot and hacked about and with a Crimean medal. He is cawass here and a great friend of mine. He says if I ever want a servant he will go with me anywhere and fight anybody--which I don't doubt in the least. He was a Turkish memlook and his condescension in wishing to serve a Christian woman is astounding. His fair face and clear blue eyes, and brisk, neat, soldier-like air contrast curiously with the brown fellaheen. He is like an Englishman only fairer and like them too fond of the courbash. What would you say if I appeared in Germany attended by a memlook with pistols, sword, dagger, carbine and courbash, and with a decided and imperious manner the very reverse of the Arab softness--and such a Muslim too--prays five times a day and extra fasts besides Ramadan. 'I beat my wife' said Kursheed, 'oh! I beat her well! she talked so, and I am like the English, I don't like too many words.' He was quite surprised that I said I was glad my master didn't dislike talking so much.

I was talking the other day with Yussuf about people trying to make converts and I said that eternal betise, 'Oh they mean well.' 'True, oh Lady! perhaps they do mean well, but God says in the Noble Koran that he who injures or torments those Christians whose conduct is not evil, merely on account of religion, shall never smell the fragrance of the Garden (paradise). Now when men begin to want to make others change their faith it is extremely hard for them not to injure or torment them and therefore I think it better to abstain altogether and to wish rather to see a Christian a good Christian and a Muslim a good Muslim.'

No wonder a most pious old Scotchman told me that the truth which undeniably existed in the Mussulman faith was the work of Satan and the Ulema his meenesters. My dear saint of a Yussuf a meenester of Satan! I really think I have learnt some 'Muslim humility' in that I endured the harangue, and accepted a two-penny tract quite mildly and politely and didn't argue at all. As his friend 'Satan' would have it, the Fikees were reading the Koran in the hall at Omar's expense who gave a Khatmeh that day, and Omar came in and politely offered him some sweet prepared for the occasion. I have been really amazed at several instances of English fanaticism this year. Why do people come to a Mussulman country with such bitter hatred 'in their stomachs' as I have seen three or four times. I feel quite hurt often at the way the people here thank me for what the poor at home would turn up their noses at. I think hardly a dragoman has been up the river since Rashedee died but has come to thank me as warmly as if I had done himself some great service--and many to give some little present. While the man was ill numbers of the fellaheen brought eggs, pigeons, etc. etc. even a turkey, and food is worth money now, not as it used to be. I am quite weary too of hearing 'Of all the Frangee I never saw one like thee.' Was no one ever at all humane before? For remember I give no money--only a little physic and civility. How the British cottagers would 'thank ye for nothing'--and how I wish my neighbours here could afford to do the same.

After much wrangling Mustapha has got back my boy Yussuf but the Christian Sheykh-el-Hara has made his brother pay 2 pounds whereat Mohammed looks very rueful. Two hundred men are gone out of our village to the works and of course the poor Hareem have not bread to eat as the men had to take all they had with them. I send you a very pretty story like Tannhauser.

There was once a man who loved a woman that lived in the same quarter. But she was true to her husband, and his love was hopeless, and he suffered greatly. One day as he lay on his carpet sick with love, one came to him and said, O, such-a-one, thy beloved has died even now, and they are carrying her out to the tomb. So the lover arose and followed the funeral, and hid himself near the tomb, and when all were gone he broke it open, and uncovered the face of his beloved, and looked upon her, and passion overcame him, and he took from the dead that which when living she had ever denied him.

But he went back to the city and to his house in great grief and anguish of mind, and his sin troubled him. So he went to a Kadee, very pious and learned in the noble Koran, and told him his case, and said, 'Oh my master the Kadee, can such a one as I obtain salvation and the forgiveness of God? I fear not.' And the Kadee gave him a staff of polished wood which he held in his hand, and said 'Who knoweth the mercy of God and his justice, but God alone--take then this staff and stick it in the sand beside the tomb where thou didst sin and leave it the night, and go next morning and come and tell me what thou shalt find, and may the Lord pardon thee, for thy sin is great.'

And the man went and did as the Kadee had desired, and went again at sunrise, and behold the staff had sprouted and was covered with leaves and fruit. And he returned and told the Kadee what had happened, and the Kadee replied, 'Praise be to God, the merciful, the compassionate.'

April 29, 1865: Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.

LUXOR, April 29, 1865.

DEAREST MUTTER,

Since I wrote last I have received the box with the cheese quite fresh (and very good it tastes), and the various things. Nothing called forth such a shout of joy from me as your photo of the village pothouse. How green and fresh and tidy! Many Mashallah's have been uttered over the beyt-el-fellaheen (peasant's house) of England. The railings, especially, are a great marvel. I have also heard from Janet that Ross has bought me a boat for 200 pounds which is to take four of his agents to Assouan and then come back for me. So all my business is settled, and, Inshallah! I shall depart in another three or four weeks.

The weather is quite cool and fresh again but the winds very violent and the dust pours over us like water from the dried up land, as well as from the Goomeh mountain. It is miserably uncomfortable, but my health is much better again--spite of all.

The Hakeem business goes on at a great rate. I think on an average I have four sick a day. Sometimes a dozen. A whole gipsy camp are great customers--the poor souls will bring all manner of gifts it goes to my heart to eat, but they can't bear to be refused. They are astounded to hear that people of their blood live in England and that I knew many of their customs--which are the same here.

Kursheed Agha came to take final leave being appointed to Keneh. He had been at Gau and had seen Fadil Pasha sit and make the soldiers lay sixty men down on their backs by ten at a time and chop them to death with the pioneers' axes. He estimated the people killed--men, women, and children at 1,600--but Mounier tells me it was over 2,000. Sheykh Hassan agreed exactly with Kursheed, only the Arab was full of horror and the Circassian full of exultation. His talk was exactly what we all once heard about 'Pandies,' and he looked and talked and laughed so like a fine young English soldier, that I was ashamed to call him the kelb (dog) which rose to my tongue, and I bestowed it on Fadil Pasha instead. I must also say in behalf of my own countrymen that they had provocation while here there was none. Poor Haggee Sultan lies in chains at Keneh. One of the best and kindest of men! I am to go and take secret messages to him, and money from certain men of religion to bribe the Moudir with. The Shurafa who have asked me to do this are from another place, as well as a few of the Abu-l-Hajjajieh. A very great Shereef indeed from lower Egypt, said to me the other day, 'Thou knowest if I am a Muslim or no. Well, I pray to the most Merciful to send us Europeans to govern us, and to deliver us from these wicked men.' We were all sitting after the funeral of one of the Shurafa and I was sitting between the Shereef of Luxor and the Imam--and this was said before thirty or forty men, all Shurafa. No one said 'No,' and many assented aloud.

The Shereef asked me to lend him the New Testament, it was a pretty copy and when he admired it I said, 'From me to thee, oh my master the Shereef, write in it as we do in remembrance of a friend--the gift of a Nazraneeyeh who loves the Muslimeen.' The old man kissed the book and said 'I will write moreover--to a Muslim who loves all such Christians'--and after this the old Sheykh of Abou Ali took me aside and asked me to go as messenger to Haggee Sultan for if one of them took the money it would be taken from them and the man get no good by it.

Soldiers are now to be quartered in the Saeed--a new plague worse than all the rest. Do not the cawasses already rob the poor enough? They fix their own price in the market and beat the sakkas as sole payment. What will the soldiers do? The taxes are being illegally levied on lands which are sheragi, i.e. totally unwatered by the last Nile and therefore exempt by law--and the people are driven to desperation. I feel sure there will be more troubles as soon as there arises any other demagogue like Achmet et-Tayib to incite the people and now every Arab sympathises with him. Janet has written me the Cairo version of the affair cooked for the European taste--and monstrous it is. The Pasha accuses some Sheykh of the Arabs of having gone from Upper Egypt to India to stir up the Mutiny against us! Pourquoi pas to conspire in Paris or London? It is too childish to talk of a poor Saeedee Arab going to a country of whose language and whereabouts he is totally ignorant, in order to conspire against people who never hurt him. You may suppose how Yussuf and I talk by ourselves of all these things. He urged me to try hard to get my husband here as Consul-General--assuming that he would feel as I do. I said, my master is not young, and to a just man the wrong of such a place would be a martyrdom. 'Truly thou hast said it, but it is a martyr we Arabs want; shall not the reward of him who suffers daily vexation for his brethren's sake be equal to that of him who dies in battle for the faith? If thou wert a man, I would say to thee, take the labour and sorrow upon thee, and thine own heart will repay thee.' He too said like the old Sheykh, 'I only pray for Europeans to rule us--now the fellaheen are really worse off than any slaves.' I am sick of telling of the daily oppressions and robberies. If a man has a sheep, the Moodir comes and eats it, if a tree, it goes to the Nazir's kitchen. My poor sakka is beaten by the cawasses in sole payment of his skins of water--and then people wonder my poor friends tell lies and bury their money.

I now know everybody in my village and the 'cunning women' have set up the theory that my eye is lucky; so I am asked to go and look at young brides, visit houses that are building, inspect cattle, etc. as a bringer of good luck--which gives me many a curious sight.

I went a few days ago to the wedding of handsome Sheykh Hassan the Abab'deh, who married the butcher's pretty little daughter. The group of women and girls lighted by the lantern which little Achmet carried up for me was the most striking thing I have seen. The bride--a lovely girl of ten or eleven all in scarlet, a tall dark slave of Hassan's blazing with gold and silver necklaces and bracelets, with long twisted locks of coal black hair and such glittering eyes and teeth, the wonderful wrinkled old women, and the pretty, wondering, yet fearless children were beyond description. The mother brought the bride up to me and unveiled her and asked me to let her kiss my hand, and to look at her, I said all the usual Bismillah Mashallah's, and after a time went to the men who were eating, all but Hassan who sat apart and who begged me to sit by him, and whispered anxious enquiries about his aroosah's looks. After a time he went to visit her and returned in half an hour very shy and covering his face and hand and kissed the hands of the chief guests. Then we all departed and the girl was taken to look at the Nile, and then to her husband's house. Last night he gave me a dinner--a very good dinner indeed, in his house which is equal to a very poor cattle shed at home. We were only five. Sheykh Yussuf, Omar, an elderly merchant and I. Hassan wanted to serve us but I made him sit.

The merchant, a well-bred man of the world who has enjoyed life and married wives everywhere--had arrived that day and found a daughter of his dead here. He said he felt very miserable--and everyone told him not to mind and consoled him oddly enough to English ideas. Then people told stories. Omar's was a good version of the man and wife who would not shut the door and agreed that the first to speak should do it--very funny indeed. Yussuf told a pretty tale of a Sultan who married a Bint el-Arab (daughter of the Bedawee) and how she would not live in his palace, and said she was no fellaha to dwell in houses, and scorned his silk clothes and sheep killed for her daily, and made him live in the desert with her. A black slave told a prosy tale about thieves--and the rest were more long than pointed.

Hassan's Arab feelings were hurt at the small quantity of meat set before me. (They can't kill a sheep now for an honoured guest.) But I told him no greater honour could be paid to us English than to let us eat lentils and onions like one of the family, so that we might not feel as strangers among them--which delighted all the party. After a time the merchant told us his heart was somewhat dilated--as a man might say his toothache had abated--and we said 'Praise be to God' all round.

A short time ago my poor friend the Maohn had a terrible 'tile' fall on his head. His wife, two married daughters and nine miscellaneous children arrived on a sudden, and the poor man is now tasting the pleasures which Abraham once endured between Sarah and Hagar. I visited the ladies and found a very ancient Sarah and a daughter of wonderful beauty. A young man here--a Shereef--has asked me to open negotiations for a marriage for him with the Maohn's grand daughter a little girl of eight--so you see how completely I am 'one of the family.'

My boat has not yet made its appearance. I am very well indeed now, in spite, or perhaps because of, the great heat. But there is a great deal of sickness--chiefly dysentery. I never get less than four new patients a day and my 'practice' has become quite a serious business. I spent all day on Friday in the Abab'deh quarters where Sheykh Hassan and his slave Rahmeh were both uncommonly ill. Both are 'all right' now. Rahmeh is the nicest negro I ever knew, and a very great friend of mine. He is a most excellent, honest, sincere man, and an Effendi (i.e. writes and reads) which is more than his master can do. He has seen all the queer people in the interior of Africa.

The Sheykh of the Bishareen--eight days' journey from Assouan has invited me and promises me all the meat and milk I can eat, they have nothing else. They live on a high mountain and are very fine handsome people. If only I were strong I could go to very odd places where Frangees are not. Read a very stupid novel (as a story) called 'le Secret du Bonheur'--it gives the truest impression of the manners of Arabs that I have read--by Ernest Feydeau. According to his book achouat (we are brothers). The 'caressant' ways of Arabs are so well described.