Part 30

EED EL KEBEER, Wednesday, April, 1866.

DEAREST JANET,

I had not heard a word of Henry's illness till Mr. Palgrave arrived and told me, and also that he was better. Alhamdulillah! I only hope that you are not knocked up, my darling. I am not ill, but still feel unaccountably weak and listless. I don't cough much, and have got fatter on my regime of camel's milk,--so I hope I may get over the languor. The box has not made its appearance. What a clever fellow Mr. Palgrave is! I never knew such a hand at languages. The folks here are in admiration at his Arabic. I hope you will see M. Brune. I am sure you would like him. He is a very accomplished and gentlemanly man.

You have never told me your plans for this year or whether I shall find you when I go down. The last three days the great heat has begun and I am accordingly feeling better. I have just come home from the Bairam early prayer out in the burial-place, at which Palgrave also assisted. He is unwell, and tells me he leaves Luxor to-morrow morning. I shall stay on till I am too hot here, as evidently the summer suits me.

Many thanks for Miss Berry and for the wine, which makes a very pleasant change from the rather bad claret I have got. Palgrave's book I have read through hard, as he wished to take it back for you. It is very amusing.

If you come here next winter Mustapha hopes you will bring a saddle, and ride 'all his horses.' I think I could get you a very good horse from a certain Sheykh Abdallah here.

Well, I must say good-bye. Kulloo sana intee tayib, love to Henry.

April, 1866: Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.

BAIRAM, April, 1866.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I write this to go down by Mr. Palgrave who leaves to-morrow. He has been with Mustapha Bey conducting an enquiry into Mustapha A'gha's business. Mariette Bey struck Mustapha, and I and some Americans took it ill and wrote a very strong complaint to our respective Consuls. Mariette denied the blow and the words 'liar, and son of a dog'--so the American and English Consuls sent up Palgrave as commissioner to enquire into the affair, and the Pasha sent Mustapha Bey with him. Palgrave is very amusing of course, and his knowledge of languages is wonderful, Sheykh Yussuf says few Ulema know as much of the literature and niceties of grammar and composition. Mustapha Bey is a darling; he knew several friends of mine, Hassan Effendi, Mustapha Bey Soubky, and others, so we were friends directly.

I have not yet got a woman-servant, but I don't miss it at all; little Achmet is very handy, Mahommed's slave girl washes, and Omar irons and cleans the house and does housemaid, and I have kept on the meek cook, Abd el-Kader, whom I took while the Frenchman was here. I had not the heart to send him away; he is such a meskeen. He was a smart travelling waiter, but his brother died, leaving a termagant widow with four children, and poor Abd el-Kader felt it his duty to bend his neck to the yoke, married her, and has two more children. He is a most worthy, sickly, terrified creature.

I have heard that a decent Copt here wants to sell a black woman owing to reverses of fortune, and that she might suit me. Sheykh Yussuf is to negotiate the affair and to see if the woman herself likes me for a mistress, and I am to have her on trial for a time, and if I like her and she me, Sheykh Yussuf will buy her with my money in his name. I own I have very little scruple about the matter, as I should consider her price as an advance of two or three years' wages and tear the paper of sale as soon as she had worked her price out, which I think would be a fair bargain. But I must see first whether Feltass (the Copt) really wants to sell her or only to get a larger price than is fair, in which case I will wait till I go to Cairo. Anything is better than importing a European who at once thinks one is at her mercy on account of the expense of the journey back.

I went out this morning to the early prayer of Bairam day, held in the burial-place. Mahmoud ibn-Mustapha preached, but the boys and the Hareem made such a noise behind us that I could not hear the sermon. The weather has set in hot these last days, and I am much the better. It seems strange that what makes others languid seems to strengthen me. I have been very weak and languid all the time, but the camel's milk has fattened me prodigiously, to Sherayeff's great delight; and the last hot days have begun to take away the miserable feeling of fatigue and languor.

Palgrave is not well at all, and his little black boy he fears will die, and several people in the steamer are ill, but in Luxor there is no sickness to speak of, only chronic old women, so old and ugly and achy, that I don't know what to do with them, except listen to their complaints, which begin, 'Ya ragleh.' Ragel is man, so ragleh is the old German Mannin, and is the civil way of addressing a Saeedee woman. To one old body I gave a powder wrapped up in a fragment of a Saturday Review. She came again and declared Mashallah! the hegab (charm) was a powerful one, for though she had not been able to wash off all the fine writing from the paper, even that little had done her a deal of good. I regret that I am unable to inform you what the subject of the article in the Saturday which had so drastic an effect.

Good-bye, dearest Mutter, I must go and take a sleep before the time of receiving the visits of to-day (the great festival). I was up before sunrise to see the prayer, so must have a siesta in a cool place. To-morrow morning early this will go. I hope you got a letter I sent ten days or so ago.

May 10, 1866: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

LUXOR, May 10, 1866.

DEAREST ALICK,

The real summer heat--the Skems el-Kebeer (big sun) has fairly set in, and of course I am all the better. You would give my camel a good backsheesh if you saw how prodigiously fat I have grown on her milk; it beats codliver-oil hollow. You can drink a gallon without feeling it, it is so easy of digestion.

I have lent the dahabieh to Mustapha and to one or two more, to go to Keneh on business, and when she returns (which will be to-day) I shall make ready to depart too, and drop down stream. Omar wants me to go down to Damietta, to 'amuse my mind and dilate my stomach' a little; and I think of doing so.

Palgrave was here about a fortnight ago, on Mustapha's and Mariette's business. 'By God! this English way is wonderful,' said a witness, 'that English Bey questioned me till my stomach came out.' I loved Mustapha Bey, who was with him; such a nice, kind, gentle creature, and very intelligent and full of good sense. I rejoice to hear that he returns my liking, and has declared himself 'one of my darweeshes.' Talking of darweeshes reminds me of the Festival of Sheykh Gibrieel this year. I had forgotten the day, but in the evening some people came for me to go and eat some of the meat of the Sheykh, who is also a good patron of mine, they say; being a poor man's saint, and of a humble spirit, it is said he favours me. There was plenty of meat and melocheea and bread; and then zikrs of different kinds, and a Gama el Fokara (assembly of the poor). Gama is the true word for Mosque--i.e., Meeting, which consists in a great circle of men seated thick on the ground, with two poets facing each other, who improvise religious verses. On this occasion the rule of the game was to end each stanza with a word having the sound of wahed (one), or el Had (the first). Thus one sung: 'Let a man take heed how he walks,' etc., etc.; and 'pray to God not to let him fall,' which sound like Had. And so they went on, each chanting a verse alternately. One gesticulated almost as much as an Italian and pronounced beautifully; the other was quiet, but had a nice voice, and altogether it was very pretty. At the end of each verse the people made a sort of chorus, which was sadly like the braying of asses. The zikr of the Edfoo men was very curious. Our people did it quietly, and the moonsheed sang very sweetly--indeed 'the song of the moonsheed is the sugar in the sherbet to the Zikkeer,' said a man who came up when it was over, streaming with perspiration and radiant with smiles. Some day I will write to you the whole 'grund Idee' of a zikr, which is, in fact, an attempt to make present 'the communion of saints,' dead or living. As I write arrives the Arooset er-rallee, and my crew furl her big sail quite 'Bristol fashion.' My men have come together again, some from Nubia and some from the Delta; and I shall go down with my old lot.

Omar and Achmet have implored me not to take another maid at all; they say they live like Pashas now they have only the lady to please; that it will be a pleasure to 'lick my shoes clean,' whereas the boots of the Cameriera were intolerable. The feeling of the Arab servants towards European colleagues is a little like that of 'niggers' about 'mean whites'--mixed hatred, fear, and scorn. The two have done so well to make me comfortable that I have no possible reason for insisting on encumbering myself with 'an old man of the sea,' in the shape of a maid; and the difference in cost is immense. The one dish of my dinner is ample relish to their bread and beans, while the cooking for a maid, and her beer and wine, cost a great deal. Omar irons my clothes very tidily, and little Achmet cleans the house as nicely as possible. I own I am quite as much relieved by the absence of the 'civilized element' as my retainers are.

Did I describe the Coptic Good Friday? Imagine 450 Rekahs in church! I have seen many queer things, but nothing half so queer as the bobbing of the Copts.

I went the other day to the old church six or eight miles off, where they buried the poor old Bishop who died a week ago. Abu Khom, a Christian shaheed (martyr), is buried there. He appeared to Mustapha's father when lost in the desert, and took him safe home. On that occasion he was well mounted, and robed all in white, with a litham in over his face. No one dares to steal anything near his tomb, not one ear of corn. He revealed himself long ago to one of the descendants of Abu-l-Hajjaj, and to this day every Copt who marries in Luxor gives a pair of fowls to the family of that Muslim in remembrance of Abu Khom.

I shall leave Luxor in five or six days--and write now to stop all letters in Cairo.