Part 10 (1/2)

March 16, 1864: Mr. Tom Taylor

_To Mr. Tom Taylor_.

_March_ 16, 1864.

DEAR TOM,

I cannot tell you how delighted I was to hear that all had gone well with Laura and your little daughter. _Mashallah_! G.o.d bless her! When I told Omar that a friend 'like my brother,' as Arabs say, had got a baby, he proposed to illuminate our house and fire off all the pistols in the premises. Pray give my kind love and best wishes to Laura.

I am living here a very quiet, dreamy sort of life in hot Thebes, visiting a little among my neighbours and learning a little Arabic from a most sweet, gentle young Sheykh who preaches on Fridays in the mosque of Luxor. I wish I could draw his soft brown face and graceful, brown-draped figure; but if I could, he is too devout I believe, to permit it. The police magistrate-el-Maohn-Seleem Effendi, is also a great friend of mine, and the Kadee is civil, but a little scornful to heretical Hareem, I think. It is already very hot, and the few remaining traveller's dahabiehs are now here on their way down the river; after that I shall not see a white face for many months, except Sally's.

Sheykh Yussuf laughed so heartily over a print in an ill.u.s.trated paper, from a picture of Hilton's, of Rebekah at the well, with the old _Vakeel_ of Sidi Ibraheem (Abraham's chief servant) _kneeling_ before the girl he was sent to fetch like an old fool without his turban, and Rebekah and the other girls in queer fancy dresses, and the camels with snouts like pigs. 'If the painter could not go to Es-Sham (Syria) to see how the Arab (Bedaween) really look,' said Sheykh Yussuf, 'why did he not paint a well in England with girls like English peasants? At least it would have looked natural to English people, and the _Vakeel_ would not seem so like a _majnoon_ (a madman) if he had taken off a hat.' I cordially agreed with Yussuf's art criticism. Fancy pictures of Eastern things are hopelessly absurd, and fancy poems too. I have got hold of a stray copy of Victor Hugo's '_Orientales_,' and I think I never laughed more in my life.

The corn is now full-sized here, but still green; in twenty days will be harvest, and I am to go to the harvest-home to a fellah friend of mine in a village a mile or two off. The crop is said to be unusually fine. Old Nile always pays back the damage he does when he rises so very high. The real disaster is the cattle disease, which still goes on, I hear, lower down. It has not at present spread above Minieh, but the destruction has been fearful.

I more and more feel the difficulty of quite understanding a people so unlike ourselves-the more I know them, I mean. One thing strikes me, that like children, they are not conscious of the great gulf which divides educated Europeans from themselves; at least, I believe it is so.

We do not attempt to explain our ideas to them, but I cannot discover any such reticence in them. I wonder whether this has struck people who can talk fluently and know them better than I do? I find they appeal to my sympathy in trouble quite comfortably, and talk of religious and other feelings apparently as freely as to each other. In many respects they are more unprejudiced than we are, and very intelligent, and very good in many ways; and yet they seem so strangely childish, and I fancy I detect that impression even in Lane's book, though he does not say so.

If you write to me, dear Tom, please address me care of Briggs and Co., Cairo. I shall be so glad to hear of you and yours. Janet is going to England. I wish I were going too, but it is useless to keep trying a hopeless experiment. At present I am very comfortable in health as long as I do nothing and the weather is warm. I suffer little pain, only I feel weak and weary.

I have extensive practice in the doctoring line; bad eyes, of course, abound. My love to Watts, and give greetings to any other of my friends.

I grieve over Thackeray much, and more over his girls' lonely sort of position.

I think you would enjoy, as I do, the peculiar sort of social equality which prevails here; it is the exact contrary of French _egalite_. There are the great and powerful people, much honoured (outwardly, at all events), but n.o.body has _inferiors_. A man comes in and kisses my hand, and sits down _off_ the carpet out of respect; but he smokes his pipe, drinks his coffee, laughs, talks and asks questions as freely as if he were an Effendi or I were a fellahah; he is not my inferior, he is my poor brother. The servants in my friends' houses receive me with profound demonstrations of respect, and wait at dinner reverently, but they mix freely in the conversation, and take part in all amus.e.m.e.nts, music, dancing-girls, or reading of the Koran. Even the dancing-girl is not an outcast; she is free to talk to me, and it is highly irreligious to show any contempt or aversion. The rules of politeness are the same for all. The pa.s.ser-by greets the one sitting still, or the one who comes into a room those who are already there, without distinction of rank. When I have greeted the men they always rise, but if I pa.s.s without, they take no notice of me. All this is very pleasant and graceful, though it is connected with much that is evil. The fact that any man may be a Bey or a Pasha to-morrow is not a good fact, for the promotion is more likely to fall on a bad slave than on a good or intelligent free man. Thus, the only honourable cla.s.s are those who have nothing to hope from the great-I won't say anything to fear, for all have cause for that. Hence the high respectability and _gentility_ of the merchants, who are the most independent of the Government. The English would be a little surprised at Arab judgments of them; they admire our veracity and honesty, and like us on the whole, but they blame the men for their conduct to women. They are shocked at the way Englishmen talk about Hareem among themselves, and think the English hard and unkind to their wives, and to women in general. English Hareemat is generally highly approved, and an Arab thinks himself a happy man if he can marry an English girl. I have had an offer for Sally from the chief man here for his son, proposing to allow her a free exercise of her religion and customs as a matter of course. I think the influence of foreigners is much more real and much more useful on the Arabs than on the Turks, though the latter show it more in dress, etc. But all the engineers and physicians are Arabs, and very good ones, too. Not a Turk has learnt anything practical, and the dragomans and servants employed by the English have learnt a strong appreciation of the value of a character for honesty, deserved or no; but many do deserve it. Compared to the couriers and _laquais de place_ of Europe, these men stand very high.

Omar has just run in to say a boat is going, so good-bye, and G.o.d bless you.

March 22, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR, _March_ 22, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

I am glad my letters amuse you. Sometimes I think they must breathe the unutterable dulness of Eastern life: not that it is dull to me, a curious spectator, but how the men with nothing to do can endure it is a wonder.

I went yesterday to call on a Turk at Karnac; he is a gentlemanly man, the son of a former Moudir, who was murdered, I believe, for his cruelty and extortion. He has 1,000 feddans (acres, or a little more) of land, and lives in a mud house, larger but no better than any fellahs, with two wives and the brother of one of them. He leaves the farm to his fellaheen altogether, I fancy. There was one book, a Turkish one; I could not read the t.i.tle-page, and he did not tell me what it was. In short, there was no means of killing time but the narghile, no horse, no gun, nothing, and yet they did not seem bored. The two women are always clamorous for my visits, and very noisy and school-girlish, but apparently excellent friends and very good-natured. The gentleman gave me a _kufyeh_ (thick head kerchief for the sun), so I took the ladies a bit of silk I happened to have. You never heard anything like his raptures over Maurice's portrait, '_Mashallah_, _Mashallah_, _Wallahy zay el ward_' (It is the will of G.o.d, and by G.o.d he is like a rose). But I can't 'cotton to' the Turks. I always feel that they secretly dislike us European women, though they profess huge admiration and pay _personal_ compliments, which an Arab very seldom attempts. I heard Seleem Effendi and Omar discussing English ladies one day lately while I was inside the curtain with Seleem's slave girl, and they did not know I heard them.

Omar described Janet, and was of the opinion that a man who was married to her could want nothing more. 'By my soul, she rides like a Bedawee, she shoots with the gun and pistol, and rows the boat; she speaks many languages, works with the needle like an Efreet, and to see her hands run over the teeth of the music-box (keys of piano) amazes the mind, while her singing gladdens the soul. How then should her husband ever desire the coffee-shop? _Wallahy_! she can always amuse him at home. And as to my lady, the thing is not that she does not know. When I feel my stomach tightened, I go to the divan and say to her, 'Do you want anything, a pipe, or sherbet, or so and so?' and I talk till she lays down her book and talks to me, and I question her and amuse my mind, and, by G.o.d! if I were a rich man and could marry one English Hareem like that I would stand before her and serve her like her memlook. You see I am only this lady's servant, and I have not once sat in the coffee-shop because of the sweetness of her tongue. Is it not therefore true that the man who can marry such Hareem is rich more than with money?' Seleem seemed disposed to think a little more of looks, though he quite agreed with all Omar's enthusiasm, and asked if Janet were beautiful. Omar answered with decorous vagueness that she was a 'moon,' but declined mentioning her hair, eyes, etc. (it is a liberty to describe a woman minutely). I nearly laughed out at hearing Omar relate his manuvres to make me 'amuse his mind'; it seems I am in no danger of being discharged for being dull.

The weather has set in so hot that I have s.h.i.+fted my quarters out of my fine room to the south-west into one with only three sides looking over a lovely green view to the north-east, with a huge sort of solid veranda, as large as the room itself, on the open side; thus I live in the open air altogether. The bats and the swallows are quite sociable; I hope the serpents and scorpions will be more reserved. '_El Khamaseen_' (the fifty) has begun, and the wind is enough to mix up heaven and earth, but it is not distressing like the Cape south-easter, and, though hot, not choking like the Khamseen in Cairo and Alexandria. Mohammed brought me a handful of the new wheat just now. Think of harvest in March and April!

These winds are as good for the crops here as a 'nice steady rain' is in England. It is not necessary to water so much when the wind blows strong. As I rode through the green fields along the d.y.k.e, a little boy sang as he turned round on the musically-creaking Sakah (the water-wheel turned by an ox) the one eternal Sakah tune-the words are _ad libitum_, and my little friend chanted 'Turn oh Sakah to the right and turn to the left-who will take care of me if my father dies? Turn oh Sakah, etc., pour water for the figs and the gra.s.s and for the watermelons. Turn oh Sakah!' Nothing is so pathetic as that Sakah song.

I pa.s.sed the house of the Sheykh-el-Ababdeh, who called out to me to take coffee. The moon was splendid and the scene was lovely. The handsome black-brown Sheykh in dark robes and white turban, Omar in a graceful white gown and red turban, and the wild Ababdeh in all manner of dingy white rags, and with every kind of uncouth weapon, spears, matchlocks, etc., in every kind of wild and graceful att.i.tude, with their long black ringlets and bare heads, a few little black-brown children quite naked and shaped like Cupids. And there we sat and looked so romantic and talked quite like ladies and gentlemen about the merits of Sakna and Almas, the two great rival women-singers of Cairo. I think the Sheykh wished to display his experiences of fas.h.i.+onable life.

The Copts are now fasting and cross. They fast fifty-five days for Lent; no meat, fish, eggs, or milk, no exception for Sundays, no food till after twelve at noon, and no intercourse with the hareem. The only comfort is lots of arrak, and what a Copt can carry decently is an unknown quant.i.ty; one seldom sees them drunk, but they imbibe awful quant.i.ties. They offer me wine and arrak always, and can't think why I don't drink it. I believe they suspect my Christianity in consequence of my preference for Nile water. As to that, though, they scorn all heretics, _i.e._, all Christians but themselves and the Abyssinians, more than they do the Muslims, and dislike them more; the procession of the Holy Ghost question divides us with the Gulf of Jehannum. The gardener of this house is a Copt, such a nice fellow, and he and Omar chaff one another about religion with the utmost good humour; indeed they are seldom touchy with the Moslems. There is a pretty little man called Michal, a Copt, vakeel to M. Mounier. I wish I could draw him to show a perfect specimen of the ancient Egyptian race; his blood must be quite unmixed. He came here yesterday to speak to Ali Bey, the Moudir of Keneh, who was visiting me (a splendid handsome Turk he is); so little Michal crept in to mention his business under my protection, and a few more followed, till Ali Bey got tired of holding a durbar in my divan and went away to his boat. You see the people think the _courbash_ is not quite so handy with an English spectator. The other day Mustapha A'gha got Ali Bey to do a little job for him-to let the people in the Gezeereh (the island), which is Mustapha's property, work at a ca.n.a.l there instead of at the ca.n.a.l higher up for the Pasha. Very well, but down comes the n.a.z.ir (the Moudir's _sub_.), and courbashes the whole Gezeereh, not Mustapha, of course, but the poor _fellaheen_ who were doing his corvee instead of the Pasha's by the Moudir's order. I went to the Gezeereh and thought that Moses was at work again and had killed a firstborn in every house by the crying and wailing, when up came two fellows and showed me their b.l.o.o.d.y feet, which their wives were crying over like for a death, _Shorghl el Mizr_-things of Egypt-like _Cosas de Espana_.

_Wednesday_.-Last night I bored Sheykh Yussuf with Antara and Abou-Zeyd, maintaining the greater valour of Antara who slew 10,000 for the love of Ibla; you know Antara. Yussuf looks down on such profanities, and replied, 'What are Antara and Abou-Zeyd compared to the combats of our Lord Moses with Og and other infidels of might, and what is the love of Antara for Ibla compared to that of our Lord Solomon for Balkees (Queen of Sheba), or their beauty and attractiveness to that of our Lord Joseph?' And then he related the combat of _Seyyidna Mousa_ with Og; and I thought, 'hear O ye Puritans, and give ear O ye Methodists, and learn how religion and romance are one to those whose manners and ideas are the manners and ideas of the Bible, and how Moses was not at all a crop-eared Puritan, but a gallant warrior!' There is the Homeric element in the religion here, the Prophet is a hero like Achilles, and like him directed by G.o.d-Allah instead of Athene. He fights, prays, teaches, makes love, and is truly a _man_, not an abstraction; and as to wonderful events, instead of telling one to 'gulp them down without looking' (as children are told with a nasty dose, and as we are told about Genesis, etc.) they believe them and delight in them, and tell them to amuse people. Such a piece of deep-disguised scepticism as _Credo quia impossibile_ would find no favour here; 'What is impossible to G.o.d?' settles everything. In short, Mohammed has somehow left the stamp of romance on the religion, or else it is in the blood of the people, though the Koran is prosy and 'common-sensical' compared to the Old Testament. I used to think Arabs intensely prosaic till I could understand a little of their language, but now I can trace the genealogy of Don Quixote straight up to some Sheykh-el-Arab.

A fine, handsome woman with a lovely baby came to me the other day. I played with the baby, and gave it a cotton handkerchief for its head.

The woman came again yesterday to bring me a little milk and some salad as a present, and to tell my fortune with date stones. I laughed, and so she contented herself with telling Omar about his family, which he believed implicitly. She is a clever woman evidently, and a great sibyl here. No doubt she has faith in her own predictions. She told Mme.