The weather has set in so hot that I have shifted 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 dyke, a little boy sang as he turned round on the musically-creaking Sakiah (the water-wheel turned by an ox) the one eternal Sakiah tune—the words are ad libitum, and my little friend chanted 'Turn oh Sakiah to the right and turn to the left—who will take care of me if my father dies? Turn oh Sakiah, etc., pour water for the figs and the grass and for the watermelons. Turn oh Sakiah!' Nothing is so pathetic as that Sakiah song.

I passed 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 attitude, 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 fashionable 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 quantity; one seldom sees them drunk, but they imbibe awful quantities. 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 Michail, 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 Michail 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 canal there instead of at the canal higher up for the Pasha. Very well, but down comes the Nazir (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 bloody 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 God—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 God?' 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. Mounier (who is a Levantine) that she would never have a child, and was forbidden the house accordingly, and the prophecy has 'come true.' Superstition is wonderfully infectious here. The fact is that the Arabs are so intensely impressionable, and so cowardly about inspiring any ill-will, that if a man looks askance at them it is enough to make them ill, and as calamities are not infrequent, there is always some mishap ready to be laid to the charge of somebody's 'eye.' Omar would fain have had me say nothing about the theft of my purse, for fear the Karnac people should hate me and give me the eye. A part of the boasting about property, etc., is politeness, so that one may not be supposed to be envious of one's neighbours' nice things. My Sakka (water carrier) admired my bracelet yesterday, as he was watering the verandah floor, and instantly told me of all the gold necklaces and earrings he had bought for his wife and daughters, that I might not be uneasy and fear his envious eye. He is such a good fellow. For two shillings a month he brings up eight or ten huge skins of water from the river a day, and never begs or complains, always merry and civil. I shall enlarge his backsheesh. There are a lot of camels who sleep in the yard under my verandah; they are pretty and smell nice, but they growl and swear at night abominably. I wish I could draw you an Egyptian farm-yard, men, women and cattle; but what no one can draw is the amber light, so brilliant and so soft, not like the Cape diamond sunshine at all, but equally beautiful, hotter and less dazzling. There is no glare in Egypt like in the South of France, and, I suppose, in Italy.

Thursday.—I went yesterday afternoon to the island again to see the crops, and show Sally my friend farmer Omar's house and Mustapha's village. Of course we had to eat, and did not come home till the moon had long risen. Mustapha's brother Abdurachman walked about with us, such a noble-looking man, tall, spare, dignified and active, grey-bearded and hard-featured, but as lithe and bright-eyed as a boy, scorning any conveyance but his own feet, and quite dry while we 'ran down.' He was like Boaz, the wealthy gentleman peasant—nothing except the Biblical characters gave any idea of the rich fellah. We sat and drank new milk in a 'lodge in a garden of cucumbers' (the 'lodge' is a neat hut of palm branches), and saw the moon rise over the mountains and light up everything like a softer sun. Here you see all colours as well by moonlight as by day; hence it does not look as brilliant as the Cape moon, or even as I have seen in Paris, where it throws sharp black shadows and white light. The night here is a tender, subdued, dreamy sort of enchanted-looking day. My Turkish acquaintance from Karnac has just been here; he boasted of his house in Damascus, and invited me to go with him after the harvest here, also of his beautiful wife in Syria, and then begged me not to mention her to his wives here.

It is very hot now; what will it be in June? It is now 86 degrees in my shady room at noon; it will be hotter at two or three. But the mornings and evenings are delicious. I am shedding my clothes by degrees; stockings are unbearable. Meanwhile my cough is almost gone, and the pain is quite gone. I feel much stronger, too; the horrible feeling of exhaustion has left me; I suppose I must have salamander blood in my body to be made lively by such heat. Sally is quite well; she does not seem at all the worse at present.

Saturday.—This will go to-morrow by some travellers, the last winter swallows. We went together yesterday to the Tombs of the Kings on the opposite bank. The mountains were red-hot, and the sun went down into Amenti all on fire. We met Mr. Dummichen, the German, who is living in the temple of Dayr el-Bahree, translating inscriptions, and went down Belzoni's tomb. Mr. Dummichen translated a great many things for us which were very curious, and I think I was more struck with the beauty of the drawing of the figures than last year. The face of the Goddess of the Western shore, Amenti, Athor, or Hecate, is ravishing as she welcomes the King to her regions; death was never painted so lovely. The road is a long and most wild one—truly through the valley of the shadow of death—not an insect nor a bird. Our moonlight ride home was beyond belief beautiful. The Arabs who followed us were immensely amused at hearing me interpret between German and English, and at my speaking Arabic; they asked if I was dragoman of all the languages in the world. One of them had droll theories about 'Amellica' (America), as they pronounce it always. Was the King very powerful that the country was called 'Al Melekeh' (the Kings)? I said, 'No: all are Kings there: you would be a King like the rest.' My friend disapproved utterly: 'If all are Kings they must all be taking away every man the other's money'—a delightful idea of the kingly vocation.

When we landed on the opposite shore, I told little Achmet to go back in the ferry-boat, in which he had brought me over my donkey; a quarter of an hour after I saw him by my side. The guide asked why he had not gone as I told him. 'Who would take care of the lady?' the monkey is Rainie's size. Of course he got tired, and on the way home I told him to jump up behind me en croupe after the Fellah fashion. I thought the Arabs would never have done laughing and saying Wallah and Mashallah. Sheykh Yussuf talked about the excavations, and is shocked at the way the mummies are kicked about. One boy told him they were not Muslims as an excuse, and he rebuked him severely, and told him it was haraam (accursed) to do so to the children of Adam. He says they have learned it very much of Mariette Bey, but I suspect it was always so with the fellaheen. To-day a tremendous wind is blowing; excellent for the corn. At Mustapha's farm they are preparing for the harvest, baking bread and selecting a young bull to be killed for the reapers. It is not hot to-day; only 84 degrees in a cool room. The dust is horrid with this high wind; everything is gritty, and it obscures the sun. I am desired to eat a raw onion every day during the Khamseen for health and prosperity. This too must be a remnant of ancient Egypt. How I do long to see you and the children. Sometimes I feel rather down-hearted, but it is no good to say all that. And I am much better and stronger. I stood a long ride and some scrambling quite well last evening.



April 6, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

LUXOR, April 6, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

I received yours of March 10 two days ago; also one from Hekekian Bey, much advising me to stay here the summer and get my disease 'evaporated.' Since I last wrote the great heat abated, and we now have 76 to 80 degrees, with strong north breezes up the river—glorious weather—neither too hot nor chilly at any time. Last evening I went out to the threshing-floor to see the stately oxen treading out the corn, and supped there with Abdurachman on roasted corn, sour cream, and eggs, and saw the reapers take their wages, each a bundle of wheat according to the work he had done—the most lovely sight. The graceful, half-naked, brown figures loaded with sheaves; some had earned so much that their mothers or wives had to help to carry it, and little fawn-like, stark-naked boys trudged off, so proud of their little bundles of wheat or of hummuz (a sort of vetch much eaten both green and roasted). The sakka (water-carrier), who has brought water for the men, gets a handful from each, and drives home his donkey with empty waterskins and a heavy load of wheat, and the barber who has shaved all these brown heads on credit this year past gets his pay, and everyone is cheerful and happy in their gentle, quiet way; here is no beer to make men sweaty and noisy and vulgar; the harvest is the most exquisite pastoral you can conceive. The men work seven hours in the day (i.e., eight, with half-hours to rest and eat), and seven more during the night; they go home at sunset to dinner, and sleep a bit, and then to work again—these 'lazy Arabs'! The man who drives the oxen on the threshing-floor gets a measure and a half for his day and night's work, of threshed corn, I mean. As soon as the wheat, barley, addas (lentils) and hummuz are cut, we shall sow dourrah of two kinds, common maize and Egyptian, and plant sugar-cane, and later cotton. The people work very hard, but here they eat well, and being paid in corn they get the advantage of the high price of corn this year.

I told you how my purse had been stolen and the proceedings thereanent. Well, Mustapha asked me several times what I wished to be done with the thief, who spent twenty-one days here in irons. With my absurd English ideas of justice I refused to interfere at all, and Omar and I had quite a tiff because he wished me to say, 'Oh, poor man, let him go; I leave the affair to God.' I thought Omar absurd, but it was I who was wrong. The authorities concluded that it would oblige me very much if the poor devil were punished with a 'rigour beyond the law,' and had not Sheykh Yussuf come and explained the nature of the proceedings, the man would have been sent up to the mines in Fazogloo for life, out of civility to me, by the Moudir of Keneh, Ali Bey. There was no alternative between my 'forgiving him for the love of God' or sending him to a certain death by a climate insupportable to these people. Mustapha and Co. tried hard to prevent Sheykh Yussuf from speaking to me, for fear I should be angry and complain at Cairo, if my vengeance were not wreaked on the thief, but he said he knew me better, and brought the proces verbal to show me. Fancy my dismay! I went to Seleem Effendi and to the Kadee with Sheykh Yussuf, and begged the man might be let go, and not sent to Keneh at all. Having settled this, I said that I had thought it right that the people of Karnac should pay the money I had lost, as a fine for their bad conduct to strangers, but that I did not require it for the sake of the money, which I would accordingly give to the poor of Luxor in the mosque and in the church (great applause from the crowd). I asked how many were Muslimeen and how many Nazranee, in order to divide the three napoleons and a half, according to the numbers. Sheykh Yussuf awarded one napoleon to the church, two to the mosque, and the half to the water-drinking place—the Sebeel—which was also applauded. I then said, 'Shall we send the money to the bishop?' but a respectable elderly Copt said, 'Malcysh! (never mind) better give it all to Sheykh Yussuf; he will send the bread to the church.' Then the Cadi made me a fine speech, and said I had behaved like a great Emeereh, and one that feared God; and Sheykh Yussuf said he knew the English had mercy in their stomachs, and that I especially had Mussulman feelings (as we say, Christian charity). Did you ever hear of such a state of administration of justice. Of course, sympathy here, as in Ireland, is mostly with the 'poor man' in prison—'in trouble,' as we say. I find that accordingly a vast number of disputes are settled by private arbitration, and Yussuf is constantly sent for to decide between contending parties, who abide by his decision rather than go to law; or else five or six respectable men are called upon to form a sort of amateur jury, and to settle the matter. In criminal cases, if the prosecutor is powerful, he has it all his own way; if the prisoner can bribe high, he is apt to get off. All the appealing to my compassion was quite en regle. Another trait of Egypt.

The other day we found all our water-jars empty and our house unsprinkled. On enquiry it turned out that the sakkas had all run away, carrying with them their families and goods, and were gone no one knew whither, in consequence of some 'persons having authority,' one, a Turkish cawass (policeman), having forced them to fetch water for building purposes at so low a price that they could not bear it. My poor sakka is gone without a whole month's pay—two shillings!—the highest pay by far given in Luxor. I am interested in another story. I hear that a plucky woman here has been to Keneh, and threatened the Moudir that she will go to Cairo and complain to Effendina himself of the unfair drafting for soldiers—her only son taken, while others have bribed off. She'll walk in this heat all the way, unless she succeeds in frightening the Moudir, which, as she is of the more spirited sex in this country, she may possibly do. You see these Saeedes are a bit less patient than Lower Egyptians. The sakkas can strike, and a woman can face a Moudir.

You would be amused at the bazaar here. There is a barber, and on Tuesdays some beads, calico, and tobacco are sold. The only artizan is—a jeweller! We spin and weave our own brown woollen garments, and have no other wants, but gold necklaces and nose and earrings are indispensable. It is the safest way of hoarding, and happily combines saving with ostentation. Can you imagine a house without beds, chairs, tables, cups, glasses, knives—in short, with nothing but an oven, a few pipkins and water-jars, and a couple of wooden spoons, and some mats to sleep on? And yet people are happy and quite civilized who live so. An Arab cook, with his fingers and one cooking-pot, will serve you an excellent dinner quite miraculously. The simplification of life possible in such a climate is not conceivable unless one has seen it. The Turkish ladies whom I visit at Karnac have very little more. They are very fond of me, and always want me to stay and sleep, but how could I sleep in my clothes on a mat-divan, poor spoiled European that I am? But they pity and wonder far more at the absence of my 'master.' I made a bad slip of the tongue and said 'my husband' before Abdul Rafiah, the master of the house. The ladies laughed and blushed tremendously, and I felt very awkward, but they turned the tables on me in a few minutes by some questions they asked quite coolly.

I hardly know what I shall have to do. If the heat does not turn out overpowering, I shall stay here; if I cannot bear it, I must go down the river. I asked Omar if he could bear a summer here, so dull for a young man fond of a little coffee-shop and gossip, for that, if he could not, he might go down for a time and join me again, as I could manage with some man here. He absolutely cried, kissed my hands, and declared he was never so happy as with me, and he could not rest if he thought I had not all I wanted. 'I am your memlook, not your servant—your memlook.' I really believe that these people sometimes love their English masters better than their own people. Omar certainly has shown the greatest fondness for me on all occasions.



April 7, 1864: Mrs. Ross

To Mrs. Ross.

LUXOR, April 7, 1864.

DEAREST JANET,

I have continued very fairly well. We had great heat ten days ago; now it is quite cool. Harvesting is going on, and never did I see in any dream so lovely a sight as the whole process. An acquaintance of mine, one Abdurachman, is Boaz, and as I sat with him on the threshing-floor and ate roasted corn, I felt quite puzzled as to whether I were really alive or only existing in imagination in the Book of Ruth. It is such a kief that one enjoys under the palm-trees, with such a scene. The harvest is magnificent here; I never saw such crops. There is no cattle disease, but a good deal of sickness among the people; I have to practise very extensively, and often feel very anxious, as I cannot refuse to go to the poor souls and give them medicine, with sore misgivings all the while. Fancy that Hekekian Bey can't get me an Arabic dictionary in Cairo. I must send to London, I suppose, which seems hardly worth while. I wish you could see my teacher, Sheykh Yussuf. I never before saw a pious person amiable and good like him. He is intensely devout, and not at all bigoted—a difficult combination; and, moreover, he is lovely to behold, and has the prettiest and merriest laugh possible. It is quite curious to see the mixture of a sort of learning with utter ignorance and great superstition, and such perfect high-breeding and beauty of character. It is exactly like associating with St. John.

I want dreadfully to be able to draw, or to photograph. The group at the Sheykh-el-Ababdeh's last night was ravishing, all but my ugly hat and self. The black ringlets and dirty white drapery and obsolete weapons—the graceful splendid Sheykh 'black but beautiful' like the Shulamite—I thought of Antar and Abou Zeyd.

Give my salaam to Mme. Tastu and ask her whether I may stay on here, or if I go down stream during the heat whether I may return next winter, in which case I might leave some of my goods. Hekekian strongly advises me to remain here, and thinks the heat will be good. I will try; 88 degrees seemed to agree with me wonderfully, my cough is much better.



April 14, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

LUXOR, April 14, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

I have but this moment received your letter of the 18th March, which went after Janet, who was hunting at Tel-el-Kebir. We have had a tremendous Khamseen wind, and now a strong north wind quite fresh and cool. The thermometer was 92 degrees during the Khamseen, but it did me no harm. Luckily I am very well for I am worked hard, as a strange epidemic has broken out, and I am the Hakeemeh (doctress) of Luxor. The Hakeem Pasha from Cairo came up and frightened the people, telling them it was catching, and Yussuf forgot his religion so far as to beg me not to be all day in the people's huts; but Omar and I despised the danger, I feeling sure it was not infectious, and Omar saying Min Allah. The people get stoppage of the bowels and die in eight days unless they are physicked; all who have sent for me in time have recovered. Alhamdulillah, that I can help the poor souls. It is harvest, and the hard work, and the spell of intense heat, and the green corn, beans, etc., which they eat, brings on the sickness. Then the Copts are fasting from all animal food, and full of green beans and salad, and green corn. Mustapha tried to persuade me not to give physick, for fear those who died should pass for being poisoned, but both Omar and I are sure it is only to excuse his own selfishness. Omar is an excellent assistant. The bishop tried to make money by hinting that if I forbade my patients to fast, I might pay for their indulgence. One poor, peevish little man refused the chicken-broth, and told me that we Europeans had our heaven in this world; Omar let out kelb (dog), but I stopped him, and said, 'Oh, my brother, God has made the Christians of England unlike those of Egypt, and surely will condemn neither of us on that account; mayest thou find a better heaven hereafter than I now enjoy here.' Omar threw his arms round me and said, 'Oh, thou good one, surely our Lord will reward thee for acting thus with the meekness of a Muslimeh, and kissing the hand of him who strikes thy face.' (See how each religion claims humility.) Suleyman was not pleased at his fellow-christian's display of charity. It does seem strange that the Copts of the lower class will not give us the blessing, or thank God for our health like the Muslimeen. Most of my patients are Christians, and some are very nice people indeed. The people here have named me Sittee (Lady) Noor-ala-Noor. A poor woman whose only child, a young man, I was happy enough to cure when dreadfully ill, kissed my feet and asked by what name to pray for me. I told her my name meant Noor (light—lux), but as that was one of the names of God I could not use it. 'Thy name is Noor-ala-Noor,' said a man who was in the room. That means something like 'God is upon thy mind,' or 'light from the light,' and Noor-ala-Noor it remains; a combination of one of the names of God is quite proper, like Abdallah, Abdurachman, etc. I begged some medicines from a Countess Braniscki, who went down the other day; when all is gone I don't know what I shall do. I am going to try to make castor oil; I don't know how, but I shall try, and Omar fancies he can manage it. The cattle disease has also broken out desperately up in Esneh, and we see the dead beasts float down all day. Of course we shall soon have it here.

Sunday, April 17.—The epidemic seems to be over, but there is still a great deal of gastric fever, etc., about. The hakeem from Keneh has just been here—such a pleasing, clever young man, speaking Italian perfectly, and French extremely well. He is the son of some fellah of Lower Egypt, sent to study at Pisa, and has not lost the Arab gentility and elegance by a Frenghi education. We fraternized greatly, and the young hakeem was delighted at my love for his people, and my high opinion of their intelligence. He is now gone to inspect the sick, and is to see me again and give me directions. He was very unhappy that he could not supply me with medicines; none are to be bought above Cairo, except from the hospital doctors, who sell the medicines of the Government, as the Italian at Siout did. But Ali Effendi is too honest for that. The old bishop paid me a visit of three and a half hours yesterday, and pour me tirer une carotte he sent me a loaf of sugar, so I must send a present 'for the church' to be consumed in raki. The old party was not very sober, and asked for wine. I coolly told him it was haraam (forbidden) to us to drink during the day—only with our dinner. I never will give the Christians drink here, and now they have left off pressing me to drink spirits at their houses. The bishop offered to alter the hour of prayer for me, and to let me into the Heykel (where women must not go) on Good Friday, which will be eighteen days hence. All of which I refused, and said I would go on the roof of the church and look down through the window with the other Hareemat. Omar kissed the bishop's hand, and I said: 'What! do you kiss his hand like a Copt?' 'Oh yes, he is an old man, and a servant of my God, but dreadful dirty,' added Omar; and it was too true. His presence diffused a fearful monastic odour of sanctity. A Bishop must be a monk, as priests are married.

Monday.—To-day Ali Effendi-el-Hakeem came to tell me how he had been to try to see my patients and failed; all the families declared they were well and would not let him in. Such is the deep distrust of everything to do with the Government. They all waited till he was gone away, and then came again to me with their ailments. I scolded, and they all said, 'Wallah, ya Sitt, ya Emeereh; that is the Hakeem Pasha, and he would send us off to hospital at Keneh, and then they would poison us; by thy eyes do not be angry with us, or leave off from having compassion on us on this account.' I said, 'Ali Effendi is an Arab and a Muslim and an Emeer (gentleman), and he gave me good advice, and would have given more,' etc. No use at all. He is the Government doctor, and they had rather die, and will swallow anything from el-Sittee Noor-ala-Noor. Here is a pretty state of things.

I gave Sheykh Yussuf 4 pounds for three months' daily lessons last night, and had quite a contest to force it upon him. 'It is not for money, oh Lady;' and he coloured crimson. He had been about with Ali Effendi, but could not get the people to see him. The Copts, I find, have a religious prejudice against him, and, indeed, against all heretics. They consider themselves and the Abyssinians as the only true believers. If they acknowledge us as brethren, it is for money. I speak only of the low class, and of the priests; of course the educated merchants are very different. I had two priests and two deacons, and the mother of one, here to-day for physic for the woman. She was very pretty and pleasing; miserably reduced and weak from the long fast. I told her she must eat meat and drink a little wine, and take cold baths, and gave her quinine. She will take the wine and the quinine, but neither eat nor wash. The Bishop tells them they will die if they break the fast, and half the Christians are ill from it. One of the priests spoke a little English; he fabricates false antiques very cleverly, and is tolerably sharp; but, Oh mon Dieu, it is enough to make one turn Muslim to compare these greasy rogues with such high-minded charitable shurafa (noblemen) as Abd-el-Waris and Sheykh Yussuf. A sweet little Copt boy who is very ill will be killed by the stupid bigotry about the fast. My friend Suleyman is much put out, and backs my exhortations to the sick to break it. He is a capital fellow, and very intelligent, and he and Omar are like brothers; it is the priests who do all they can to keep alive religious prejudice. Alhamdulillah, they are only partially successful. Mohammed has just heard that seventy-five head of cattle are dead at El-Moutaneh. Here only a few have died as yet, and Ali Effendi thinks the disease less virulent than in Lower Egypt. I hope he is right; but dead beasts float down the river all day long.

To turn to something more amusing—but please don't tell it—such a joke against my gray hairs. I have had a proposal, or at least an attempt at one. A very handsome Sheykh-el-Arab (Bedawee) was here for a bit, and asked Omar whether I were a widow or divorced, as in either case he would send a dellaleh (marriage brokeress) to me. Omar told him that would never do. I had a husband in England; besides, I was not young, had a married daughter, my hair was gray, etc. The Sheykh swore he didn't care; I could dye my hair and get a divorce; that I was not like stupid modern women, but like an ancient Arab Emeereh, and worthy of Antar or Abou Zeyd—a woman for whom men killed each other or themselves—and he would pay all he could afford as my dowry. Omar came in in fits of laughter at the idea, and the difficulty he had had in stopping the dellaleh's visit. He told the Sheykh I should certainly beat her I should be so offended. The disregard of differences of age here on marriage is very strange. My adorer was not more than thirty, I am sure. Don't tell people, my dear Alick; it is so very absurd; I should be 'ashamed before the people.'

Saturday, April 23.—Alhamdulillah! the sickness is going off. I have just heard Suleyman's report as follows: Hassan Abou-Achmet kisses the Emeereh's feet, and the bullets have cleaned his stomach six times, and he has said the Fathah for the Lady. The two little girls who had diarrhoea are well. The Christian dyer has vomited his powder and wants another. The mother of the Christian cook who married the priest's sister has got dysentery. The hareem of Mustapha Abou-Abeyd has two children with bad eyes. The Bishop had a quarrel, and scolded and fell down, and cannot speak or move; I must go to him. The young-deacon's jaundice is better. The slave girl of Kursheed A'gha is sick, and Kursheed is sitting at her head in tears; the women say I must go to her, too. Kursheed is a fine young Turk, and very good to his Hareemat. That is all; Suleyman has nothing on earth to do, and brings me a daily report; he likes the gossip and the importance.

The reis of a cargo-boat brought me up your Lafontaine, and some papers and books from Hekekian Bey. Sheykh Yussuf is going down to Cairo, to try to get back some of the lands which Mahommed Ali took away from the mosques and the Ulema without compensation. He asked me whether Ross would speak for him to Effendina! What are the Muslimeen coming to? As soon as I can read enough he offers to read in the Koran with me—a most unusual proceeding, as the 'noble Koran' is not generally put into the hands of heretics; but my 'charity to the people in sickness' is looked upon by Abd-el-Waris the Imam, and by Yussuf, as a proof that I have 'received direction,' and am of those Christians of whom Seyyidna Mohammed (upon whose name be peace) has said 'that they have no pride, that they rival each other in good works, and that God will increase their reward.' There is no arriere pensee of conversion that they think hopeless, but charity covers all sins with Muslimeen. Next Friday is the Djuma el-Kebeer (Good Friday) with the Copts, and the prayers are in the daytime, so I shall go to the church. Next moon is the great Bairam, el-Eed el-Kebeer (the great festival), with the Muslimeen—the commemoration of the sacrifice of Isaac or Ishmael (commentators are uncertain which)—and Omar will kill a sheep for the poor for the benefit of his baby, according to custom. I have at length compassed the destruction of mine enemy, though he has not written a book. A fanatical Christian dog (quadruped), belonging to the Coptic family who live on the opposite side of the yard, hated me with such virulent intensity that, not content with barking at me all day, he howled at me all night, even after I had put out the lantern and he could not see me in bed. Sentence of death has been recorded against him, as he could not be beaten into toleration. Michail, his master's son, has just come down from El-Moutaneh, where he is vakeel to M. Mounier. He gives a fearful account of the sickness there among men and cattle—eight and ten deaths a day; here we have had only four a day, at the worst, in a population of (I guess) some 2,000. The Mouniers have put themselves in quarantine, and allow no one to approach their house, as Mustapha wanted me to do. One hundred and fifty head of cattle have died at El-Moutaneh; here only a few calves are dead, but as yet no full-grown beasts, and the people are healthy again. I really think I did some service by not showing any fear, and Omar behaved manfully. By-the-by, will you find out whether a passaporto, as they call it, a paper granting British protection, can be granted in England. It is the object of Omar's highest ambition to belong as much as possible to the English, and feel safe from being forced to serve a Turk. If it can be done by any coaxing and jobbing, pray do it, for Omar deserves any service I can render him in return for all his devotion and fidelity. Someone tried to put it into his head that it was haraam to be too fond of us heretics and be faithful, but he consulted Sheykh Yussuf, who promised him a reward hereafter for good conduct to me, and who told me of it as a good joke, adding that he was raghil ameen, the highest praise for fidelity, the sobriquet of the Prophet. Do not be surprised at my lack of conscience in desiring to benefit my own follower in qualunque modo; justice is not of Eastern growth, and Europeo is 'your only wear,' and here it is only base not to stick by one's friends. Omar kisses the hands of the Sidi-el-Kebeer (the great master), and desires his best salaam to the little master and the little lady, whose servant he is. He asks if I, too, do not kiss Iskender Bey's hand in my letter, as I ought to do as his Hareem, or whether 'I make myself big before my master,' like some French ladies he has seen? I tell him I will do so if Iskender Bey will get him his warak (paper), whereupon he picks up the hem of my gown and kisses that, and I civilly expostulate on such condescension to a woman. Yussuf is quite puzzled about European women, and a little shocked at the want of respect to their husbands they display. I told him that the outward respect shown to us by our men was our veil, and explained how superficial the difference was. He fancied that the law gave us the upper hand. Omar reports yesterday's sermon 'on toleration,' it appears. Yussuf took the text of 'Thou shalt love thy brother as thyself, and never act towards him but as thou wouldest he should act towards thee.' I forget chapter and verse; but it seems he took the bull by the horns and declared all men to be brothers, not Muslimeen only, and desired his congregation to look at the good deeds of others and not at their erroneous faith, for God is all-knowing (i.e., He only knows the heart), and if they saw aught amiss to remember that the best man need say Astafer Allah (I beg pardon of God) seven times a day.

I wish the English could know how unpleasant and mischievous their manner of talking to their servants about religion is. Omar confided to me how bad it felt to be questioned, and then to see the Englishman laugh or put up his lip and say nothing. 'I don't want to talk about his religion at all, but if he talks about mine he ought to speak of his own, too. You, my Lady, say, when I tell you things, that is the same with us, or that is different, or good, or not good in your mind, and that is the proper way, not to look like thinking "all nonsense."'

ESNEH, Saturday, April 30.

On Thursday evening as I was dreamily sitting on my divan, who should walk in but Arthur Taylor, on his way, all alone in a big dahabieh, to Edfou. So I offered to go too, whereupon he said he would go on to Assouan and see Philae as he had company, and we went off to Mustapha to make a bargain with his Reis for it; thus then here we are at Esneh. I embarked on Wednesday evening, and we have been two days en route. Yesterday we had the thermometer at 110; I was the only person awake all day in the boat. Omar, after cooking, lay panting at my feet on the deck. Arthur went fairly to bed in the cabin; ditto Sally. All the crew slept on the deck. Omar cooked amphibiously, bathing between every meal. The silence of noon with the white heat glowing on the river which flowed like liquid tin, and the silent Nubian rough boats floating down without a ripple, was magnificent and really awful. Not a breath of wind as we lay under the lofty bank. The Nile is not quite so low, and I see a very different scene from last year. People think us crazy to go up to Assouan in May, but I do enjoy it, and I really wanted to forget all the sickness and sorrow in which I have taken part. When I went to Mustapha's he said Sheykh Yussuf was ill, and I said 'Then I won't go.' But Yussuf came in with a sick headache only. Mustapha repeated my words to him, and never did I see such a lovely expression in a human face as that with which Yussuf said Eh, ya Sitt! Mustapha laughed, and told him to thank me, and Yussuf turned to me and said, in a low voice, 'my sister does not need thanks, save from God.' Fancy a Shereef, one of the Ulema, calling a Frengeeyeh 'sister'! His pretty little girl came in and played with me, and he offered her to me for Maurice. I cured Kursheed's Abyssinian slave-girl. You would have laughed to see him obeying my directions, and wiping his eyes on his gold-embroidered sleeve. And then the Coptic priest came for me for his wife who was ill. He was in a great quandary, because, if she died, he, as a priest, could never marry again, as he loudly lamented before her; but he was truly grieved, and I was very happy to leave her convalescent.

Verily we are sorely visited. The dead cattle float down by thousands. M. Mounier buried a thousand at El-Moutaneh alone, and lost forty men. I would not have left Luxor, but there were no new cases for four days before, and the worst had been over for full ten days. Two or three poor people brought me new bread and vegetables to the boat when they saw me going, and Yussuf came down and sat with us all the evening, and looked quite sad. Omar asked him why, and he said it made him think how it would seem when 'Inshallah should be well and should leave my place empty at Luxor and go back with the blessing of God to my own place and to my own people.' Whereupon Omar grew quite sentimental too, and nearly cried. I don't know how Arthur would have managed without us, for he had come with two Frenchmen who had proper servants and who left the boat at Girgeh, and he has a wretched little dirty idiotic Coptic tailor as a servant, who can't even sew on a button. It is becoming quite a calamity about servants here. Arthur tells me that men, not fit to light Omar's pipe, asked him 10 pounds a month in Cairo and would not take less, and he gives his Copt 4 pounds. I really feel as if I were cheating Omar to let him stay on for 3 pounds; but if I say anything he kisses my hand and tells me 'not to be cross.'

I have letters from Yussuf to people at Assouan. If I want anything I am to call on the Kadee. We have a very excellent boat and a good crew, and are very comfortable. When the Luxor folk heard the 'son of my uncle' was come, they thought it must be my husband. I was diverted at Omar's propriety. He pointed out to Mustapha and Yussuf how he was to sleep in the cabin between Arthur's and mine, which was considered quite satisfactory apparently, and it was looked upon as very proper of Omar to have arranged it so, as he had been sent to put the boat in order. Arthur has been all along the Suez Canal, and seen a great many curious things. The Delta must be very unlike Upper Egypt from all he tells me. The little troop of pilgrims for Mecca left Luxor about ten days ago. It was a pretty and touching sight. Three camels, five donkeys, and about thirty men and women, several with babies on their shoulders, all uttering the zaghareet (cry of joy). They were to walk to Koseir (eight days' journey with good camels), babies and all. It is the happiest day of their lives, they say, when they have scraped together money enough to make the hajj.

This minute a poor man is weeping beside our boat over a pretty heifer decked with many hegabs (amulets), which have not availed against the sickness. It is heart-rending to see the poor beasts and their unfortunate owners. Some dancing girls came to the boat just now for cigars which Arthur had promised them, and to ask after their friend el Maghribeeyeh, the good dancer at Luxor, whom they said was very ill. Omar did not know at all about her, and the girls seemed much distressed. They were both very pretty, one an Abyssinian. I must leave off to send this to the post; it will cost a fortune, but you won't grudge it.



May 15, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

LUXOR, May 15, 1864, Day before Eed-el-Kebir (Bairam).

DEAREST ALICK,

We returned to Luxor the evening before last just after dark. The salute which Omar fired with your old horse-pistols brought down a lot of people, and there was a chorus of Alhamdulilah Salaameh ya Sitt, and such a kissing of hands, and 'Welcome home to your place' and 'We have tasted your absence and found it bitter,' etc., etc. Mustapha came with letters for me, and Yussuf beaming with smiles, and Mahommed with new bread made of new wheat, and Suleyman with flowers, and little Achmet rushing in wildly to kiss hands. When the welcome had subsided, Yussuf, who stayed to tea, told me all the cattle were dead. Mustapha lost thirty-four, and has three left; and poor farmer Omar lost all—forty head. The distress in Upper Egypt will now be fearful. Within six weeks all our cattle are dead. They are threshing the corn with donkeys, and men are turning the sakiahs (water-wheels) and drawing the ploughs, and dying by scores of overwork and want of food in many places. The whole agriculture depended on the oxen, and they are all dead. At El-Moutaneh and the nine villages round Halim Pasha's estate 24,000 head have died; four beasts were left when we were there three days ago.

We spent two days and nights at Philae and Wallahy! it was hot. The basalt rocks which enclose the river all round the island were burning. Sally and I slept in the Osiris chamber, on the roof of the temple, on our air-beds. Omar lay across the doorway to guard us, and Arthur and his Copt, with the well-bred sailor Ramadan, were sent to bivouac on the Pylon. Ramadan took the hareem under his special and most respectful charge, and waited on us devotedly, but never raised his eyes to our faces, or spoke till spoken to. Philae is six or seven miles from Assouan, and we went on donkeys through the beautiful Shellaleeh (the village of the cataract), and the noble place of tombs of Assouan. Great was the amazement of everyone at seeing Europeans so out of season; we were like swallows in January to them. I could not sleep for the heat in the room, and threw on an abbayeh (cloak) and went and lay on the parapet of the temple. What a night! What a lovely view! The stars gave as much light as the moon in Europe, and all but the cataract was still as death and glowing hot, and the palm-trees were more graceful and dreamy than ever. Then Omar woke, and came and sat at my feet, and rubbed them, and sang a song of a Turkish slave. I said, 'Do not rub my feet, oh brother—that is not fit for thee' (because it is below the dignity of a free Muslim altogether to touch shoes or feet), but he sang in his song, 'The slave of the Turk may be set free by money, but how shall one be ransomed who has been paid for by kind actions and sweet words?' Then the day broke deep crimson, and I went down and bathed in the Nile, and saw the girls on the island opposite in their summer fashions, consisting of a leathern fringe round their slender hips—divinely graceful—bearing huge saucer-shaped baskets of corn on their stately young heads; and I went up and sat at the end of the colonnade looking up into Ethiopia, and dreamed dreams of 'Him who sleeps in Philae,' until the great Amun Ra kissed my northern face too hotly, and drove me into the temple to breakfast, and coffee, and pipes, and kief. And in the evening three little naked Nubians rowed us about for two or three hours on the glorious river in a boat made of thousands of bits of wood, each a foot long; and between whiles they jumped overboard and disappeared, and came up on the other side of the boat. Assouan was full of Turkish soldiers, who came and took away our donkeys, and stared at our faces most irreligiously. I did not go on shore at Kom Ombos or El Kab, only at Edfou, where we spent the day in the temple; and at Esneh, where we tried to buy sugar, tobacco, etc., and found nothing at all, though Esneh is a chef-lieu, with a Moudir. It is only in winter that anything is to be got for the travellers. We had to ask the Nazir in Edfou to order a man to sell us charcoal. People do without sugar, and smoke green tobacco, and eat beans, etc., etc. Soon we must do likewise, for our stores are nearly exhausted.

We stopped at El-Moutaneh, and had a good dinner in the Mouniers' handsome house, and they gave me a loaf of sugar. Mme. Mounier described Rachel's stay with them for three months at Luxor, in my house, where they then lived. She hated it so, that on embarking to leave she turned back and spat on the ground, and cursed the place inhabited by savages, where she had been ennuyee a mort. Mme. Mounier fully sympathized with her, and thought no femme aimable could live with Arabs, who are not at all galants. She is Levantine, and, I believe, half Arab herself, but hates the life here, and hates the Muslims. As I write this I laugh to think of galanterie and Arab in one sentence, and glance at 'my brother' Yussuf, who is sleeping on a mat, quite overcome with the Simoom (which is blowing) and the fast which he is keeping to-day, as the eve of the Eed-el-Kebir (great festival). This is the coolest place in the village. The glass is only 95.5 degrees now (eleven a.m.) in the darkened divan. The Kadee, and the Maohn, and Yussuf came together to visit me, and when the others left he lay down to sleep. Omar is sleeping in the passage, and Sally in her room. I alone don't sleep—but the Simoom is terrible. Arthur runs about all day, sight-seeing and drawing, and does not suffer at all from the heat. I can't walk now, as the sand blisters my feet.

Tuesday, May 17.—Yesterday the Simoom was awful, and last night I slept on the terrace, and was very hot. To-day the north wind sprang up at noon and revived us, though it is still 102 degrees in my divan. My old 'great-grandfather' has come in for a pipe and coffee; he was Belzoni's guide, and his eldest child was born seven days before the French under Bonaparte marched into Luxor. He is superbly handsome and erect, and very talkative, but only remembers old times, and takes me for Mme. Belzoni. He is grandfather to Mahommed, the guard of this house, and great-grandfather to my little Achmet. His grandsons have married him to a tidy old woman to take care of him; he calls me 'My lady grand-daughter,' and Omar he calls 'Mustapha,' and we salute him as 'grandfather.' I wish I could paint him; he is so grand to look at. Old Mustapha had a son born yesterday—his tenth child. I must go and wish him joy, after which I will go to Arthur's boat and have a bathe; the sailors rig me out a capital awning. We had a good boat, and a capital crew; one man Mahommed, called Alatee (the singer), sang beautifully, to my great delight, and all were excellent fellows, quiet and obliging; only his servant was a lazy beast, dirty and conceited—a Copt, spoiled by an Italian education and Greek associates, thinking himself very grand because he was a Christian. I wondered at the patience and good-nature with which Omar did all his work and endured all his insolence. There was one stupendous row at Assouan, however. The men had rigged out a sort of tent for me to bathe in over the side of the boat, and Ramadan caught the Copt trying to peep in, and half strangled him. Omar called him 'dog,' and asked him if he was an infidel, and Macarius told him I was a Christian woman, and not his Hareem. Omar lost his temper, and appealed to the old reis and all the sailors, 'O Muslims, ought not I to cut his throat if he had defiled the noble person of the lady with his pig's eyes? God forgive me for mentioning her in such a manner.' Then they all cursed him for a pig and an infidel, and threatened to put him ashore and leave him for his vile conduct towards noble Hareem. Omar sobbed with passion, saying that I was to him like the 'back of his mother,' and how 'dare Macarius take my name in his dirty mouth,' etc. The Copt tried to complain of being beaten afterwards, but I signified to him that he had better hold his tongue, for that I understood Arabic, upon which he sneaked off.



May 23, 1864: Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.

LUXOR, Monday, May 23, 1864.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I meant to have written to you by Arthur Taylor, who left for Cairo yesterday morning, but the Simoom made me so stupid that I could hardly finish a letter to Alick. So I begin one to-day to recount the wonders of the season here. I went over to Mustapha's island to spend the day in the tent, or rather the hut, of dourrah-stalks and palm-branches, which he has erected there for the threshing and winnowing. He had invited me and 'his worship' the Maohn to a picnic. Only imagine that it rained! all day, a gentle slight rain, but enough to wet all the desert. I laughed and said I had brought English weather, but the Maohn shook his head and opined that we were suffering the anger of God. Rain in summer-time was quite a terror. However, we consoled ourselves, and Mustapha called a nice little boy to recite the 'noble Koran' for our amusement, and out of compliment to me he selected the chapter of the family of Amran (the history of Jesus), and recited it with marvellous readiness and accuracy. A very pleasant-mannered man of the Shourafa of Gurneh came and joined us, and was delighted because I sent away a pipe which Abdurachman brought me (it is highly improper to smoke while the Koran is being read or recited). He thanked me for the respect, and I told him I knew he would not smoke in a church, or while I prayed; why should I? It rather annoys me to find that they always expect from us irreverence to their religion which they would on no account be guilty of to ours. The little boy was a fellah, the child of my friend Omar, who has lost all his cattle, but who came as pleasant and smiling as ever to kiss my hand and wait upon me. After that the Maohn read the second chapter, 'the Cow,' in a rather nasal, quavering chant. I perceived that no one present understood any of it, except just a few words here and there—not much more than I could follow myself from having read the translation. I think it is not any nearer spoken Arabic than Latin is to Italian. After this, Mustapha, the Maohn, Omar, Sally and I, sat down round the dinner-tray, and had a very good dinner of lamb, fowls and vegetables, such as bahmias and melucheeah, both of the mallow order, and both excellent cooked with meat; rice, stewed apricots (mish-mish), with nuts and raisins in it, and cucumbers and water-melons strewed the ground. One eats all durcheinander with bread and fingers, and a spoon for the rice, and green limes to squeeze over one's own bits for sauce. We were very merry, if not very witty, and the Maohn declared, 'Wallahi! the English are fortunate in their customs, and in the enjoyment of the society of learned and excellent Hareemat;' and Omar, lying on the rushes, said: 'This is the happiness of the Arab. Green trees, sweet water, and a kind face, make the "garden"' (paradise), an Arab saying. The Maohn joked him as to how a 'child of Cairo' could endure fellah life. I was looking at the heaps of wheat and thinking of Ruth, when I started to hear the soft Egyptian lips utter the very words which the Egyptian girl spake more than a thousand years ago: 'Behold my mother! where she stays I stay, and where she goes I will go; her family is my family, and if it pleaseth God, nothing but the Separator of friends (death) shall divide me from her.' I really could not speak, so I kissed the top of Omar's turban, Arab fashion, and the Maohn blessed him quite solemnly, and said: 'God reward thee, my son; thou hast honoured thy lady greatly before thy people, and she has honoured thee, and ye are an example of masters and servants, and of kindness and fidelity;' and the brown labourers who were lounging about said: 'Verily, it is true, and God be praised for people of excellent conduct.' I never expected to feel like Naomi, and possibly many English people might only think Omar's unconscious repetition of Ruth's words rather absurd, but to me they sounded in perfect harmony with the life and ways of this country and these people, who are so full of tender and affectionate feelings, when they have not been crushed out of them. It is not humbug; I have seen their actions. Because they use grand compliments, Europeans think they are never sincere, but the compliments are not meant to deceive, they only profess to be forms. Why do the English talk of the beautiful sentiment of the Bible and pretend to feel it so much, and when they come and see the same life before them they ridicule it.

[Picture: Omar, 1864, from a photograph]

Tuesday.—We have a family quarrel going on. Mohammed's wife, a girl of eighteen or so, wanted to go home on Bairam day for her mother to wash her head and unplait her hair. Mohammed told her not to leave him on that day, and to send for a woman to do it for her; whereupon she cut off her hair, and Mohammed, in a passion, told her to 'cover her face' (that is equivalent to a divorce) and take her baby and go home to her father's house. Ever since he has been mooning about the yard and in and out of the kitchen very glum and silent. This morning I went into the kitchen and found Omar cooking with a little baby in his arms, and giving it sugar. 'Why what is that?' say I. 'Oh don't say anything. I sent Achmet to fetch Mohammed's baby, and when he comes here he will see it, and then in talking I can say so and so, and how the man must be good to the Hareem, and what this poor, small girl do when she big enough to ask for her father.' In short, Omar wants to exercise his diplomacy in making up the quarrel. After writing this I heard Mohammed's low, quiet voice, and Omar's boyish laugh, and then silence, and went to see the baby and its father. My kitchen was a pretty scene. Mohammed, in his ample brown robes and white turban, lay asleep on the floor with the baby's tiny pale face and little eyelids stained with kohl against his coffee-brown cheek, both fast asleep, baby in her father's arms. Omar leant against the fournaise in his house-dress, a white shirt open at the throat and white drawers reaching to the knees, with the red tarboosh and red and yellow kufyeh (silk handkerchief) round it turban-wise, contemplating them with his great, soft eyes. The two young men made an excellent contrast between Upper and Lower Egypt. Mohammed is the true Arab type—coffee-brown, thin, spare, sharp-featured, elegant hands and feet, bright glittering small eyes and angular jaw—not a handsome Arab, but bien characterise. Omar, the colour of new boxwood or old ivory, pale, with eyes like a cow, full lips, full chin and short nose, not the least negro, but perfectly Egyptian, the eyes wide apart—unlike the Arab—moustache like a woman's eyebrow, curly brown hair, bad hands and feet and not well made, but graceful in movement and still more in countenance, very inferior in beauty to the pure Arab blood which prevails here, but most sweet in expression. He is a true Akh-ul-Benat (brother of girls), and truly chivalrous to Hareem. How astonished Europeans would be to hear Omar's real opinion of their conduct to women. He mentioned some Englishman who had divorced his wife and made her frailty public. You should have seen him spit on the floor in abhorrence. Here it is quite blackguard not to forfeit the money and take all the blame in a divorce.

Friday.—We have had better weather again, easterly wind and pretty cool, and I am losing the cough and languor which the damp of the Simoom brought me. Sheykh Yussuf has just come back from Keneh, whither he and the Kadee went on their donkeys for some law business. He took our saddle bags at Omar's request, and brought us back a few pounds of sugar and some rice and tobacco (isn't it like Fielding's novels?). It is two days' journey, so they slept in the mosque at Koos half way. I told Yussuf how Suleyman's child has the smallpox and how Mohammed only said it was Min Allah (from God) when I suggested that his baby should be vaccinated at once. Yussuf called him in and said: 'Oh man, when thou wouldst build a house dost thou throw the bricks in a heap on the ground and say the building thereof is from God, or dost thou use the brains and hands which God has given thee, and then pray to Him to bless thy work? In all things do the best of thy understanding and means, and then say Min Allah, for the end is with Him!' There is not a pin to choose in fatalism here between Muslim and Christian, the lazy, like Mohammed and Suleyman (one Arab the other Copt), say Min Allah or any form of dawdle you please; but the true Muslim doctrine is just what Yussuf laid down—'do all you can and be resigned to whatever be the result.' Fais ce que dois advienne qui pourra is good doctrine. In fact, I am very much puzzled to discover the slightest difference between Christian and Muslim morality or belief—if you exclude certain dogmas—and in fact, very little is felt here. No one attempts to apply different standards of morals or of piety to a Muslim and a Copt. East and West is the difference, not Muslim and Christian. As to that difference I could tell volumes. Are they worse? Are they better? Both and neither. I am, perhaps, not quite impartial, because I am sympathique to the Arabs and they to me, and I am inclined to be 'kind' to their virtues if not 'blind' to their faults, which are visible to the most inexperienced traveller. You see all our own familiar 'bunkum' (excuse the vulgarity) falls so flat on their ears, bravado about 'honour,' 'veracity,' etc., etc., they look blank and bored at. The schoolboy morality as set forth by Maurice is current here among grown men. Of course we tell lies to Pashas and Beys, why shouldn't we? But shall I call in that ragged sailor and give him an order to bring me up 500 pounds in cash from Cairo when he happens to come? It would not be an unusual proceeding. I sleep every night in a makaab (sort of verandah) open to all Luxor, and haven't a door that has a lock. They bother me for backsheesh; but oh how poor they are, and how rich must be a woman whose very servants drink sugar to their coffee! and who lives in the Kasr (palace) and is respectfully visited by Ali Bey—and, come to that, Ali Bey would like a present even better than the poorest fellah, who also loves to give one. When I know, as I now do thoroughly, all Omar's complete integrity—without any sort of mention of it—his self-denial in going ragged and shabby to save his money for his wife and child (a very great trial to a good-looking young Arab), and the equally unostentatious love he has shown to me, and the delicacy and real nobleness of feeling which come out so oddly in the midst of sayings which, to our ideas, seem very shabby and time-serving, very often I wonder if there be anything as good in the civilized West. And as Sally most justly says, 'All their goodness is quite their own. God knows there is no one to teach anything but harm!'

Tuesday.—Two poor fellows have just come home from the Suez Canal work with gastric fever, I think. I hope it won't spread. The wife of one said to me yesterday, 'Are there more Sittat (ladies) like you in your village?' 'Wallah,' said I, 'there are many better, and good doctors, Alhamdullillah!' 'Alhamdullillah,' said she, 'then the poor people don't want you so much, and by God you must stay here for we can't do without you, so write to your family to say so, and don't go away and leave us.'

Thursday, June 2,—A steamer has just arrived which will take this letter, so I can only say good-bye, my dearest Mutter, and God bless you. I continue very fairly well. The epidemic here is all but over; but my medical fame has spread so, that the poor souls come twenty miles (from Koos) for physic. The constant phrase of 'Oh our sister, God hath sent thee to look to us!' is so sad. Such a little help is a wonder to my poor fellaheen. It is not so hot as it was I think, except at night, and I now sleep half the night outside the house. The cattle are all dead; perhaps five are left in all Luxor. Allah kereem! (God is merciful) said fellah Omar, 'I have one left from fifty-four.' The grain is unthreshed, and butter three shillings a pound! We get nothing here but by post; no papers, no nothing. I suppose the high Nile will bring up boats. Now the river is down at its lowest, and now I really know how Egyptians live.



June 12, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

LUXOR, Sunday, June 12, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

Three letters have I received from you within a few days, for the post of the Saeed is not that of the Medes and Persians. I have had an abominable toothache, which quite floored me, and was aggravated by the Oriental custom, namely, that all the beau monde of Thebes would come and sit with me, and suggest remedies, and look into my mouth, and make quite a business of my tooth. Sheykh Yussuf laid two fingers on my cheek and recited verses from the Koran, I regret to say with no effect, except that while his fingers touched me the pain ceased. I find he is celebrated for soothing headaches and other nervous pains, and I daresay is an unconscious mesmeriser. The other day our poor Maohn was terrified by a communication from Ali Bey (Moudir of Keneh) to the effect that he had heard from Alexandria that someone had reported that the dead cattle had lain about the streets of Luxor and that the place was pestilential. The British mind at once suggested a counter-statement, to be signed by the most respectable inhabitants. So the Cadi drew it up, and came and read it to me, and took my deposition and witnessed my signature, and the Maohn went his way rejoicing, in that 'the words of the Englishwoman' would utterly defeat Ali Bey. The truth was that the worthy Maohn worked really hard, and superintended the horrible dead cattle business in person, which is some risk and very unpleasant. To dispose of three or four hundred dead oxen every day with a limited number of labourers is no trifle, and if a travelling Englishman smells one a mile off he calls us 'lazy Arabs.' The beasts could not be buried deep enough, but all were carried a mile off from the village. I wish some of the dilettanti who stop their noses at us in our trouble had to see or to do what I have seen and done.

June 17.—We have had four or five days of such fearful heat with a Simoom that I have been quite knocked up, and literally could not write. Besides, I sit in the dark all day, and am now writing so—and at night go out and sit in the verandah, and can't have candles because of the insects. I sleep outside till about six a.m., and then go indoors till dark again. This fortnight is the hottest time. To-day the drop falls into the Nile at its source, and it will now rise fast and cool the country. It has risen one cubit, and the water is green; next month it will be blood colour. My cough has been a little troublesome again, I suppose from the Simoom. The tooth does not ache now. Alhamdulillah! for I rather dreaded the muzeyinn (barber) with his tongs, who is the sole dentist here. I was amused the other day by the entrance of my friend the Maohn, attended by Osman Effendi and his cawass and pipe-bearer, and bearing a saucer in his hand, wearing the look, half sheepish, half cocky, with which elderly gentlemen in all countries announce what he did, i.e., that his black slave-girl was three months with child and longed for olives, so the respectable magistrate had trotted all over the bazaar and to the Greek corn-dealers to buy some, but for no money were they to be had, so he hoped I might have some and forgive the request, as I, of course, knew that a man must beg or even steal for a woman under these circumstances. I called Omar and said, 'I trust there are olives for the honourable Hareem of Seleem Effendi—they are needed there.' Omar instantly understood the case, and 'Praise be to God a few are left; I was about to stuff the pigeons for dinner with them; how lucky I had not done it.' And then we belaboured Seleem with compliments. 'Please God the child will be fortunate to thee,' say I. Omar says, 'Sweeten my mouth, oh Effendim, for did I not tell thee God would give thee good out of this affair when thou boughtest her?' While we were thus rejoicing over the possible little mulatto, I thought how shocked a white Christian gentleman of our Colonies would be at our conduct to make all this fuss about a black girl—'he give her sixpence' (under the same circumstances I mean) 'he'd see her d—-d first,' and my heart warmed to the kind old Muslim sinner (?) as he took his saucer of olives and walked with them openly in his hand along the street. Now the black girl is free, and can only leave Seleem's house by her own good will and probably after a time she will marry and he will pay the expenses. A man can't sell his slave after he has made known that she is with child by him, and it would be considered unmanly to detain her if she should wish to go. The child will be added to the other eight who fill the Maohn's quiver in Cairo and will be exactly as well looked on and have equal rights if he is as black as a coal.

A most quaint little half-black boy a year and a half old has taken a fancy to me and comes and sits for hours gazing at me and then dances to amuse me. He is Mahommed our guard's son by a jet-black slave of his and is brown-black and very pretty. He wears a bit of iron wire in one ear and iron rings round his ankles, and that is all—and when he comes up little Achmet, who is his uncle, 'makes him fit to be seen' by emptying a pitcher of water over his head to rinse off the dust in which of course he has been rolling—that is equivalent to a clean pinafore. You would want to buy little Said I know, he is so pretty and so jolly. He dances and sings and jabbers baby Arabic and then sits like a quaint little idol cross-legged quite still for hours.

I am now writing in the kitchen, which is the coolest place where there is any light at all. Omar is diligently spelling words of six letters, with the wooden spoon in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth, and Sally is lying on her back on the floor. I won't describe our costume. It is now two months since I have worn stockings, and I think you would wonder at the fellaha who 'owns you,' so deep a brown are my face, hands and feet. One of the sailors in Arthur's boat said: 'See how the sun of the Arabs loves her; he has kissed her so hotly that she can't go home among English people.'

June 18.—I went last night to look at Karnac by moonlight. The giant columns were overpowering. I never saw anything so solemn. On our way back we met the Sheykh-el-Beled, who ordered me an escort of ten men home. Fancy me on my humble donkey, guarded most superfluously by ten tall fellows, with oh! such spears and venerable matchlocks. At Mustapha's house we found a party seated before the door, and joined it. There was a tremendous Sheykh-el-Islam from Tunis, a Maghribee, seated on a carpet in state receiving homage. I don't think he liked the heretical woman at all. Even the Maohn did not dare to be as 'politeful' as usual to me, but took the seat above me, which I had respectfully left vacant next to the holy man. Mustapha was in a stew, afraid not to do the respectful to me, and fussing after the Sheykh. Then Yussuf came fresh from the river, where he had bathed and prayed, and then you saw the real gentleman. He salaamed the great Sheykh, who motioned to him to sit before him, but Yussuf quietly came round and sat below me on the mat, leaned his elbow on my cushion, and made more demonstration of regard for me than ever, and when I went came and helped me on my donkey. The holy Sheykh went away to pray, and Mustapha hinted to Yussuf to go with him, but he only smiled, and did not stir; he had prayed an hour before down at the Nile. It was as if a poor curate had devoted himself to a rank papist under the eye of a scowling Shaftesbury Bishop. Then came Osman Effendi, a young Turk, with a poor devil accused in a distant village of stealing a letter with money in it addressed to a Greek money-lender. The discussion was quite general, the man, of course, denying all. But the Nazir had sent word to beat him. Then Omar burst out, 'What a shame to beat a poor man on the mere word of a Greek money-lender who eats the people; the Nazir shouldn't help him.' There was a Greek present who scowled at Omar, and the Turk gaped at him in horror. Yussuf said, with his quiet smile, 'My brother, thou art talking English,' with a glance at me; and we all laughed, and I said, 'Many thanks for the compliment.' All the village is in good spirits; the Nile is rising fast, and a star of most fortunate character has made its appearance, so Yussuf tells me, and portends a good year and an end to our afflictions. I am much better to-day, and I think I too feel the rising Nile; it puts new life into all things. The last fortnight or three weeks have been very trying with the Simoom and intense heat. I suppose I look better for the people here are for ever praising God about my amended looks. I am too hot, and it is too dark to write more.



June 26, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

LUXOR, June 26, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

I have just paid a singular visit to a political detenu or exile rather. Last night Mustapha came in with a man in great grief who said his boy was very ill on board a cangia just come from Cairo and going to Assouan. The watchman on the river-bank had told him that there was an English Sitt 'who would not turn her face from anyone in trouble' and advised him to come to me for medicine, so he went to Mustapha and begged him to bring him to me, and to beg the cawass (policeman) in charge of El-Bedrawee (who was being sent to Fazoghlou in banishment) to wait a few hours. The cawass (may he not suffer for his humanity) consented. He described his boy's symptoms and I gave him a dose of castor oil and said I would go to the boat in the morning. The poor fellow was a Cairo merchant but living at Khartoum, he poured out his sorrow in true Eastern style. 'Oh my boy, and I have none but he, and how shall I come before his mother, a Habbesheeyeh, oh Lady, and tell her "thy son is dead"?' So I said, 'Allah kereem ya Seedee, and Inshallah tayib,' etc., etc., and went this morning early to the boat. It was a regular old Arab cangia lumbered up with corn, sacks of matting, a live sheep, etc., and there I found a sweet graceful boy of fifteen or so in a high fever. His father said he had visited a certain Pasha on the way and evidently meant that he had been poisoned or had the evil eye. I assured him it was only the epidemic and asked why he had not sent for the doctor at Keneh. The old story! He was afraid, 'God knows what a government doctor might do to the boy.' Then Omar came in and stood before El-Bedrawee and said, 'Oh my master, why do we see thee thus? Mashallah, I once ate of thy bread when I was of the soldiers of Said Pasha, and I saw thy riches and thy greatness, and what has God decreed against thee?' So El-Bedrawee who is (or was) one of the wealthiest men of Lower Egypt and lived at Tantah, related how Effendina (Ismail Pasha) sent for him to go to Cairo to the Citadel to transact some business, and how he rode his horse up to the Citadel and went in, and there the Pasha at once ordered a cawass to take him down to the Nile and on board a common cargo boat and to go with him and take him to Fazoghlou. Letters were given to the cawass to deliver to every Moudir on the way, and another despatched by hand to the Governor of Fazoghlou with orders concerning El-Bedrawee. He begged leave to see his son once more before starting, or any of his family. 'No, he must go at once and see no one.' But luckily a fellah, one of his relations had come after him to Cairo and had 700 pounds in his girdle; he followed El-Bedrawee to the Citadel and saw him being walked off by the cawass and followed him to the river and on board the boat and gave him the 700 pounds which he had in his girdle. The various Moudirs had been civil to him, and friends in various places had given him clothes and food. He had not got a chain round his neck or fetters, and was allowed to go ashore with the cawass, for he had just been to the tomb of Abou-l-Hajjaj and had told that dead Sheykh all his affliction and promised, if he came back safe, to come every year to his moolid (festival) and pay the whole expenses (i.e. feed all comers). Mustapha wanted him to dine with him and me, but the cawass could not allow it, so Mustapha sent him a fine sheep and some bread, fruit, etc. I made him a present of some quinine, rhubarb pills, and sulphate of zinc for eye lotion. Here you know we all go upon a more than English presumption and believe every prisoner to be innocent and a victim—as he gets no trial he never can be proved guilty—besides poor old El-Bedrawee declared he had not the faintest idea what he was accused of or how he had offended Effendina.

I listened to all this in extreme amazement, and he said, 'Ah! I know you English manage things very differently; I have heard all about your excellent justice.'

He was a stout, dignified-looking fair man, like a Turk, but talking broad Lower Egypt fellah talk, so that I could not understand him, and had to get Mustapha and Omar to repeat his words. His father was an Arab, and his mother a Circassian slave, which gave the fair skin and reddish beard. He must be over fifty, fat and not healthy; of course he is meant to die up in Fazoghlou, especially going at this season. He owns (or owned, for God knows who has it now) 12,000 feddans of fine land between Tantah and Samanhoud, and was enormously rich. He consulted me a great deal about his health, and I gave him certainly very good advice. I cannot write in a letter which I know you will show what drugs a Turkish doctor had furnished him with to 'strengthen' him in the trying climate of Fazoghlou. I wonder was it intended to kill him or only given in ignorance of the laws of health equal to his own?

After a while the pretty boy became better and recovered consciousness, and his poor father, who had been helping me with trembling hands and swimming eyes, cried for joy, and said, 'By God the most high, if ever I find any of the English, poor or sick or afflicted up in Fazoghlou, I will make them know that I Abu Mahommed never saw a face like the pale face of the English lady bent over my sick boy.' And then El-Bedrawee and his fellah kinsman, and all the crew blessed me and the Captain, and the cawass said it was time to sail. So I gave directions and medicine to Abu Mahommed, and kissed the pretty boy and went out. El-Bedrawee followed me up the bank, and said he had a request to make—would I pray for him in his distress. I said, 'I am not of the Muslimeen,' but both he and Mustapha said, Maleysh (never mind), for that it was quite certain I was not of the Mushkireen, as they hate the Muslimeen and their deeds are evil—but blessed be God, many of the English begin to repent of their evil, and to love the Muslims and abound in kind actions. So we parted in much kindness. It was a strange feeling to me to stand on the bank and see the queer savage-looking boat glide away up the stream, bound to such far more savage lands, and to be exchanging kind farewells quite in a homely manner with such utter 'aliens in blood and faith.' 'God keep thee Lady, God keep thee Mustapha.' Mustapha and I walked home very sad about poor El-Bedrawee.

Friday, July 7.—It has been so 'awfully' hot that I have not had pluck to go on with my letter, or indeed to do anything but lie on a mat in the passage with a minimum of clothes quite indescribable in English. Alhamdulilah! laughs Omar, 'that I see the clever English people do just like the lazy Arabs.' The worst is not the positive heat, which has not been above 104 and as low as 96 degrees at night, but the horrible storms of hot wind and dust which are apt to come on at night and prevent one's even lying down till twelve or one o'clock. Thebes is bad in the height of summer on account of its expanse of desert, and sand and dust. The Nile is pouring down now gloriously, and really red as blood—more crimson than a Herefordshire lane—and in the distance the reflection of the pure blue sky makes it deep violet. It had risen five cubits a week ago; we shall soon have it all over the land here. It is a beautiful and inspiriting sight to see the noble old stream as young and vigorous as ever. No wonder the Egyptians worshipped the Nile: there is nothing like it. We have had all the plagues of Egypt this year, only the lice are commuted for bugs, and the frogs for mice; the former have eaten me and the latter have eaten my clothes. We are so ragged! Omar has one shirt left, and has to sleep without and wash it every night. The dust, the drenching perspiration, and the hard-fisted washing of Mahommed's slave-women destroys everything.

Mustapha intends to give you a grand fantasia if you come, and to have the best dancing girls down from Esneh for you; but I am consternated to hear that you can't come till December. I hoped you would have arrived in Cairo early in November, and spent a month there with me, and come up the river in the middle of December when Cairo gets very cold.

I remain very well in general health, but my cough has been troublesome again. I do not feel at all like breathing cold damp air again. This depresses me very much as you may suppose. You will have to divorce me, and I must marry some respectable Kadee. I have been too 'lazy Arab,' as Omar calls it, to go on with my Arabic lessons, and Yussuf has been very busy with law business connected with the land and the crops. Every harvest brings a fresh settling of the land. Wheat is selling at 1 pound the ardeb {188} here on the threshing-floor, and barley at one hundred and sixteen piastres; I saw some Nubians pay Mustapha that. He is in comic perplexity about saying Alhamdulillah about such enormous gains—you see it is rather awkward for a Muslim to thank God for dear bread—so he compounds by very lavish almsgiving. He gave all his fellaheen clothes the other day—forty calico shirts and drawers. Do you remember my describing an Arab emancipirtes Fraulein at Siout? Well, the other day I saw as I thought a nice-looking lad of sixteen selling corn to my opposite neighbour, a Copt. It was a girl. Her father had no son and is infirm, so she works in the field for him, and dresses and does like a man. She looked very modest and was quieter in her manner than the veiled women often are.

I am so glad to hear such good accounts of my Rainie and Maurice. I can hardly bear to think of another year without seeing them. However it is fortunate for me that 'my lines have fallen in pleasant places,' so long a time at the Cape or any Colony would have become intolerable. Best love to Janet, I really can't write, it's too hot and dusty. Omar desires his salaam to his great master and to that gazelle Sittee Ross.



August 13, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

LUXOR, August 13, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

For the last month we have had a purgatory of hot wind and dust, such as I never saw—impossible to stir out of the house. So in despair I have just engaged a return boat—a Gelegenheit—and am off to Cairo in a day or two, where I shall stop till Inshallah! you come to me. Can't you get leave to come at the beginning of November? Do try, that is the pleasant time in Cairo.

I am a 'stupid, lazy Arab' now, as Omar says, having lain on a mat in a dark stone passage for six weeks or so, but my chest is no worse—better I think, and my health has not suffered at all—only I am stupid and lazy. I had a pleasant visit lately from a great doctor from Mecca—a man so learned that he can read the Koran in seven different ways, he is also a physician of European Hekmeh (learning). Fancy my wonder when a great Alim in gorgeous Hegazee dress walked in and said: 'Madame, tout ce qu'on m'a dit de vous fait tellement l'eloge de votre coeur et de votre esprit que je me suis arrete pour tacher de me procurer le plaisir de votre connaissance!' A lot of Luxor people came in to pay their respects to the great man, and he said to me that he hoped I had not been molested on account of religion, and if I had I must forgive it, as the people here were so very ignorant, and barbarians were bigots everywhere. I said, 'Wallahy, the people of Luxor are my brothers!' and the Maohn said, 'True, the fellaheen are like oxen, but not such swine as to insult the religion of a lady who has served God among them like this one. She risked her life every day.' 'And if she had died,' said the great theologian, 'her place was made ready among the martyrs of God, because she showed more love to her brothers than to herself!'

Now if this was humbug it was said in Arabic before eight or ten people, by a man of great religious authority.

Omar was aux anges to hear his Sitt spoken of 'in such a grand way for the religion.' I believe that a great change is taking place among the Ulema, that Islam is ceasing to be a mere party flag, just as occurred with Christianity, and that all the moral part is being more and more dwelt on. My great Alim also said I had practised the precepts of the Koran, and then laughed and added, 'I suppose I ought to say the Gospel, but what matters it, el Hakh (the truth) is one, whether spoken by Our Lord Jesus or by Our Lord Mahommed!' He asked me to go with him to Mecca next winter for my health, as it was so hot and dry there. I found he had fallen in with El-Bedrawee and the Khartoum merchant at Assouan. The little boy was well again, and I had been outrageously extolled by them. We are now sending off all the corn. I sat the other evening on Mustapha's doorstep and saw the Greeks piously and zealously attending to the divine command to spoil the Egyptians. Eight months ago a Greek bought up corn at 60 piastres the ardeb (he follows the Coptic tax-gatherer like a vulture after a crow), now wheat is at 170 piastres the ardeb here, and the fellah has paid 3.5 per cent. a month besides. Reckon the profit! Two men I know are quite ruined, and have sold all they had. The cattle disease forced them to borrow at these ruinous rates, and now alas, the Nile is sadly lingering in its rise, and people are very anxious. Poor Egypt! or rather, poor Egyptians! Of course, I need not say that there is great improvidence in those who can be fleeced as they are fleeced. Mustapha's household is a pattern of muddling hospitality, and Mustapha is generous and mean by turns; but what chance have people like these, so utterly uncivilized and so isolated, against Europeans of unscrupulous characters.

I can't write more in the wind and dust. You shall hear again from Cairo.



October 9, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

CAIRO, October 9, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

I have not written for a long time because I have had a fever. Now I am all right again, only weak. If you can come please bring the books in enclosed list for an American Egyptologist at Luxor—a friend of mine. My best love to Janet and my other chicks. I wish I could see my Maurice. Tell Janet that Hassan donkey boy, has married a girl of eleven, and Phillips that Hassan remembers him quite tenderly and is very proud of having had his 'face' drawn by him, 'certainly he was of the friends if not a brother of the Sitt, he so loved the things of the Arabs.' I went to the Hareem soiree at Hassan's before the wedding—at that event I was ill. My good doctor was up the river, and Hekekian Bey is in Italy, so I am very lonely here. The weather is bad, so very damp; I stream with perspiration more than in June at Luxor, and I don't like civilization so very much. It keeps me awake at night in the grog shops and rings horrid bells and fights and quarrels in the street, and disturbs my Muslim nerves till I utter such epithets as kelb (dog) and khanseer (pig) against the Frangi, and wish I were in a 'beastly Arab' quarter.



October 21, 1864: Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.

CAIRO, October 21, 1864.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I got your letter yesterday. I hope Alick got mine of two weeks ago before leaving, and told you I was better. I am still rather weak, however I ride my donkey and the weather has suddenly become gloriously dry and cool. I rather shiver with the thermometer at 79 degrees—absurd is it not, but I got so used to real heat.

I never wrote about my leaving Luxor or my journey, for our voyage was quite tempestuous after the three first days and I fell ill as soon as I was in my house here. I hired the boat for six purses (18 pounds) which had taken Greeks up to Assouan selling groceries and strong drinks, but the reis would not bring back their cargo of black slaves to dirty the boat and picked us up at Luxor. We sailed at daybreak having waited all one day because it was an unlucky day.

As I sat in the boat people kept coming to ask whether I was coming back very anxiously and bringing fresh bread, eggs and things as presents, and all the quality came to take leave and hope, Inshallah, I should soon 'come home to my village safe and bring the Master, please God, to see them,' and then to say the Fattah for a safe journey and my health. In the morning the balconies of my house were filled with such a group to see us sail—a party of wild Abab'deh with their long Arab guns and flowing hair, a Turk elegantly dressed, Mohammed in his decorous brown robes and snow-white turban, and several fellaheen. As the boat moved off the Abab'deh blazed away with their guns and Osman Effendi with a sort of blunderbuss, and as we dropped down the river there was a general firing; even Todoros (Theodore), the Coptic Mallim, popped off his American revolver. Omar keeping up a return with Alick's old horse pistols which are much admired here on account of the excessive noise they make.