Poor old Ismain, who always thought I was Mme. Belzoni and wanted to take me up to Abou Simbel to meet my husband, was in dire distress that he could not go with me to Cairo. He declared he was still shedeed (strong enough to take care of me and to fight). He is ninety-seven and only remembers fifty or sixty years ago and old wild times—a splendid old man, handsome and erect. I used to give him coffee and listen to his old stories which had won his heart. His grandson, the quiet, rather stately, Mohammed who is guard of the house I lived in, forgot all his Muslim dignity, broke down in the middle of his set speech and flung himself down and kissed and hugged my knees and cried. He had got some notion of impending ill-luck, I found, and was unhappy at our departure—and the backsheesh failed to console him. Sheykh Yussuf was to come with me, but a brother of his just wrote word that he was coming back from the Hejaz where he had been with the troops in which he is serving his time; I was very sorry to lose his company. Fancy how dreadfully irregular for one of the Ulema and a heretical woman to travel together. What would our bishops say to a parson who did such a thing? We had a lovely time on the river for three days, such moonlight nights, so soft and lovely; and we had a sailor who was as good as a professional singer, and who sang religious songs, which I observe excite people here far more than love songs. One which began 'Remove my sins from before thy sight Oh God' was really beautiful and touching, and I did not wonder at the tears which ran down Omar's face. A very pretty profane song was 'Keep the wind from me Oh Lord, I fear it will hurt me' (wind means love, which is like the Simoom) 'Alas! it has struck me and I am sick. Why do ye bring the physician? Oh physician put back thy medicine in the canister, for only he who has hurt can cure me.' The masculine pronoun is always used instead of she in poetry out of decorum—sometimes even in conversation.

October 23.—Yesterday I met a Saedee—a friend of the brother of the Sheykh of the wild Abab'deh, and as we stood handshaking and kissing our fingers in the road, some of the Anglo-Indian travellers passed and gazed with fierce disgust; the handsome Hassan, being black, was such a flagrant case of a 'native.' Mutter dear, it is heart-breaking to see what we are sending to India now. The mail days are dreaded, we never know when some outrage may not excite 'Mussulman fanaticism.' The English tradesmen here complain as much as anyone, and I, who as the Kadee of Luxor said am 'not outside the family' (of Ishmael, I presume), hear what the Arabs really think. There are also crowds 'like lice' as one Mohammed said, of low Italians, French, etc., and I find my stalwart Hassan's broad shoulders no superfluous porte-respect in the Frangee quarter. Three times I have been followed and insolently stared at (a mon age)!! and once Hassan had to speak. Fancy how dreadful to Muslims! I hate the sight of a hat here now.

I can't write more now my eyes are weak still. Omar begs me to give you his best salaam and say, Inshallah, he will take great care of your daughter, which he most zealously and tenderly does.



December 23, 1864: Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.

ON THE NILE, Friday, December 23, 1864.

DEAREST MUTTER,

Here I am again between Benisouef and Minieh, and already better for the clear air of the river and the tranquil boat life; I will send you my Christmas Salaam from Siout. While Alick was with me I had as much to do as I was able and could not write for there was much to see and talk about. I think he was amused but I fear he felt the Eastern life to be very poor and comfortless. I have got so used to having nothing that I had quite forgotten how it would seem to a stranger.

I am quite sorry to find how many of my letters must have been lost from Luxor; in future I shall trust the Arab post which certainly is safer than English travellers. I send you my long plaits by Alick, for I had my hair cut short as it took to falling out by handfuls after my fever, and moreover it is more convenient Turkish hareem fashion.

Please tell Dean Stanley how his old dragoman Mahommed Gazawee cried with pleasure when he told me he had seen Sheykh Stanley's sister on her way to India, and the 'little ladies' knew his name and shook hands with him, which evidently was worth far more than the backsheesh. I wondered who 'Sheykh' Stanley could be, and Mahommed (who is a darweesh and very pious) told me he was the Gassis (priest) who was Imam (spiritual guide) to the son of our Queen, 'and in truth,' said he, 'he is really a Sheykh and one who teaches the excellent things of religion, why he was kind even to his horse! and it is of the mercies of God to the English that such a one is the Imam of your Queen and Prince.' I said laughing, 'How dost thou, a darweesh among Muslims, talk thus of a Nazarene priest?' 'Truly oh Lady,' he answered, 'one who loveth all the creatures of God, him God loveth also, there is no doubt of that.' Is any one bigot enough to deny that Stanley has done more for real religion in the mind of that Muslim darweesh than if he had baptised a hundred savages out of one fanatical faith into another?

There is no hope of a good understanding with Orientals until Western Christians can bring themselves to recognise the common faith contained in the two religions, the real difference consists in all the class of notions and feelings (very important ones, no doubt) which we derive—not from the Gospels at all—but from Greece and Rome, and which of course are altogether wanting here.

Alick will tell you how curiously Omar illustrated the patriarchal feelings of the East by entirely dethroning me in favour of the 'Master.' 'That our Master, we all eat bread from his hand, and he work for us.' Omar and I were equal before our Seedee. He can sit at his ease at my feet, but when the Master comes in he must stand reverently, and gave me to understand that I too must be respectful.

I have got the boat of the American Mission at an outrageous price, 60 pounds, but I could get nothing under; the consolation is that the sailors profit, poor fellows, and get treble wages. My crew are all Nubians. Such a handsome reis and steersman—brothers—and there is a black boy, of fourteen or so, with legs and feet so sweetly beautiful as to be quite touching—at least I always feel those lovely round young innocent forms to be somehow affecting. Our old boat of last summer (Arthur Taylor's) is sailing in company with us, and stately old reis Mubharak hails me every morning with the Blessing of God and the Peace of the Prophet. Alee Kuptan, my steamboat captain will announce our advent at Thebes; he passed us to-day. This boat is a fine sailer, but iron built and therefore noisy, and not convenient. The crew encourage her with 'Get along, father of three,' because she has three sails, whereas two is the usual number. They are active good-humoured fellows—my men—but lack the Arab courtesy and simpatico ways, and then I don't understand their language which is pretty and sounds a little like Caffre, rather bird-like and sing-song, instead of the clattering guttural Arabic. I now speak pretty tolerably for a stranger, i.e. I can keep up a conversation, and understand all that is said to me much better than I can speak, and follow about half what people say to each other. When I see you, Inshallah, next summer I shall be a good scholar, I hope.



January 2, 1865: Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.

LUXOR, January 2, 1865.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I posted a letter for you at Girgeh, as we passed Siout with a good wind, I hope you will get it. My crew worked as I never saw men work, they were paid to get to Luxor, and for eighteen days they never rested or slept day or night, and all the time were merry and pleasant. It shows what power of endurance these 'lazy Arabs' have when there is good money at the end of a job, instead of the favourite panacea of 'stick.'

We arrived at midnight and next morning my boat had the air of being pillaged. A crowd of laughing, chattering fellows ran off to the house laden with loose articles snatched up at random, loaves of sugar, pots and pans, books, cushions, all helter-skelter. I feared breakages, but all was housed safe and sound. The small boys of an age licensed to penetrate into the cabin, went off with the oddest cargoes of dressing things and the like—of backsheesh not one word. Alhamdulillah salaameh! 'Thank God thou art in peace,' and Ya Sitt, Ya Emeereh, till my head went round. Old Ismaeen fairly hugged me and little Achmet hung close to my side. I went up to Mustapha's house while the unpacking took place and breakfasted there, and found letters from all of you, from you to darling Rainie, Sheykh Yussuf was charmed with her big writing and said he thought the news in that was the best of all.

The weather was intensely hot the first two days. Now it is heavenly, a fresh breeze and gorgeous sunshine. I brought two common Arab lanterns for the tomb of Abu-l-Hajjaj and his moolid is now going on. Omar took them and lighted them up and told me he found several people who called on the rest to say the Fathah for me. I was sitting out yesterday with the people on the sand looking at the men doing fantasia on horseback for the Sheykh, and a clever dragoman of the party was relating about the death of a young English girl whom he had served, and so de fil en aiguille we talked about the strangers buried here and how the bishop had extorted 100 pounds. I said, 'Maleysh (never mind) the people have been hospitable to me alive and they will not cease if I die, but give me a tomb among the Arabs.' One old man said, 'May I not see thy day, oh Lady, and indeed thou shouldest be buried as a daughter of the Arabs, but we should fear the anger of thy Consul and thy family, but thou knowest that wherever thou art buried thou wilt assuredly lie in a Muslim grave.' 'How so?' said I. 'Why, when a bad Muslim dies the angels take him out of his tomb and put in one of the good from among the Christians in his place.' This is the popular expression of the doctrine that the good are sure of salvation. Omar chimed in at once, 'Certainly there is no doubt of it, and I know a story that happened in the days of Mahommed Ali Pasha which proves it.' We demanded the story and Omar began. 'There was once a very rich man of the Muslims so stingy that he grudged everybody even so much as a "bit of the paper inside the date" (Koran). When he was dying he said to his wife, "Go out and buy me a lump of pressed dates," and when she had brought it he bade her leave him alone. Thereupon he took all his gold out of his sash and spread it before him, and rolled it up two or three pieces at a time in the dates, and swallowed it piece after piece until only three were left, when his wife came in and saw what he was doing and snatched them from his hand. Presently after he fell back and died and was carried out to the burial place and laid in his tomb. When the Kadee's men came to put the seal on his property and found no money they said, "Oh woman, how is this? we know thy husband was a rich man and behold we find no money for his children and slaves or for thee." So the woman told what had happened, and the Kadee sent for three other of the Ulema, and they decided that after three days she should go herself to her husband's tomb and open it, and take the money from his stomach; meanwhile a guard was put over the tomb to keep away robbers. After three days therefore the woman went, and the men opened the tomb and said, "Go in O woman and take thy money." So the woman went down into the tomb alone. When there, instead of her husband's body she saw a box (coffin) of the boxes of the Christians, and when she opened it she saw the body of a young girl, adorned with many ornaments of gold necklaces, and bracelets, and a diamond Kurs on her head, and over all a veil of black muslin embroidered with gold. So the woman said within herself, "Behold I came for money and here it is, I will take it and conceal this business for fear of the Kadee." So she wrapped the whole in her melayeh (a blue checked cotton sheet worn as a cloak) and came out, and the men said "Hast thou done thy business?"' and she answered "Yes" and returned home.

'In a few days she gave the veil she had taken from the dead girl to a broker to sell for her in the bazaar, and the broker went and showed it to the people and was offered one hundred piastres. Now there sat in one of the shops of the merchants a great Ma-allim (Coptic clerk) belonging to the Pasha, and he saw the veil and said, "How much asketh thou?" and the broker said "Oh thine honour the clerk whatever thou wilt." "Take from me then five hundred piastres and bring the person that gave thee the veil to receive the money." So the broker fetched the woman and the Copt, who was a great man, called the police and said, "Take this woman and fetch my ass and we will go before the Pasha," and he rode in haste to the palace weeping and beating his breast, and went before the Pasha and said, "Behold this veil was buried a few days ago with my daughter who died unmarried, and I had none but her and I loved her like my eyes and would not take from her her ornaments, and this veil she worked herself and was very fond of it, and she was young and beautiful and just of the age to be married; and behold the Muslims go and rob the tombs of the Christians and if thou wilt suffer this we Christians will leave Egypt and go and live in some other country, O Effendina, for we cannot endure this abomination."

'Then the Pasha turned to the woman and said, "Woe to thee O woman, art thou a Muslimeh and doest such wickedness?" And the woman spoke and told all that had happened and how she sought money and finding gold had kept it. So the Pasha said, "Wait oh Ma-allim, and we will discover the truth of this matter," and he sent for the three Ulema who had desired that the tomb should be opened at the end of three days and told them the case; and they said, "Open now the tomb of the Christian damsel." And the Pasha sent his men to do so, and when they opened it behold it was full of fire, and within it lay the body of the wicked and avaricious Mussulman.' Thus it was manifest to all that on the night of terror the angels of God had done this thing, and had laid the innocent girl of the Christians among those who have received direction, and the evil Muslim among the rejected. Admire how rapidly legends arise here. This story which everybody declared was quite true is placed no longer ago than in Mahommed Ali Pasha's time.

There are hardly any travellers this year, instead of a hundred and fifty or more boats, perhaps twenty. A son of one of the Rothschilds, a boy of fourteen, has just gone up like a royal prince in one of the Pasha's steamers—all his expenses paid and crowds of attendants. 'All that honour to the money of the Jew,' said an old fellah to me with a tone of scorn which I could not but echo in my heart. He has turned out his dragoman—a respectable elderly man, very sick, and paid him his bare wages and the munificent sum of 5 pounds to take him back to Cairo. On board there was a doctor and plenty of servants, and yet he abandons the man here on Mustapha's hands. I have brought Er-Rasheedee here (the sick man) as poor Mustapha is already overloaded with strangers. I am sorry the name of Yahoodee (Jew) should be made to stink yet more in the nostrils of the Arabs. I am very well, indeed my cough is almost gone and I can walk quite briskly and enjoy it. I think, dear Mutter, I am really better. I never felt the cold so little as this winter since my illness, the chilly mornings and nights don't seem to signify at all now, and the climate feels more delicious than ever.

Mr. Herbert, the painter, went back to Cairo from Farshoot below Keneh; so I have no 'Frangee' society at all. But Sheykh Yussuf and the Kadee drop in to tea very often and as they are agreeable men I am quite content with my company.

Bye the bye I will tell you about the tenure of land in Egypt which people are always disputing about, as the Kadee laid it down for me. The whole land belongs to the Sultan of Turkey, the Pasha being his vakeel (representative), nominally of course as we know. Thus there are no owners, only tenants paying from one hundred piastres tariff (1 pound) down to thirty piastres yearly per feddan (about an acre) according to the quality of the land, or the favour of the Pasha when granting it. This tenancy is hereditary to children only—not to collaterals or ascendants—and it may be sold, but in that case application must be made to the Government. If the owner or tenant dies childless the land reverts to the Sultan, i.e. to the Pasha, and if the Pasha chooses to have any man's land he can take it from him on payment—or without. Don't let any one tell you that I exaggerate; I have known it happen: I mean the without, and the man received feddan for feddan of desert, in return for his good land which he had tilled and watered.

To-morrow night is the great night of Sheykh Abu-l-Hajjaj's moolid and I am desired to go to the mosque for the benefit of my health, and that my friends may say a prayer for my children. The kind hearty welcome I found here has been a real pleasure, and every one was pleased because I was glad to come home to my beled (town), and they all thought it so nice of 'my master' to have come so far to see me because I was sick—all but one Turk, who clearly looked with pitying contempt on so much trouble taken about a sick old woman.

I have left my letter for a long while. You will not wonder—for after some ten days' fever, my poor guest Mohammed Er-Rasheedee died to-day. Two Prussian doctors gave me help for the last four days, but left last night. He sank to sleep quietly at noon with his hand in mine, a good old Muslim sat at his head on one side and I on the other. Omar stood at his head and his black boy Khayr at his feet. We had laid his face to the Kibleh and I spoke to him to see if he knew anything and when he nodded the three Muslims chanted the Islamee La Illaha, etc., etc., while I closed his eyes. The 'respectable men' came in by degrees, took an inventory of his property which they delivered to me, and washed the body, and within an hour and a half we all went out to the burial place; I following among a troop of women who joined us to wail for 'the brother who had died far from his place.' The scene as we turned in between the broken colossi and the pylons of the temple to go to the mosque was over-powering. After the prayer in the mosque we went out to the graveyard, Muslims and Copts helping to carry the dead, and my Frankish hat in the midst of the veiled and wailing women; all so familiar and yet so strange. After the burial the Imam, Sheykh Abd-el-Waris, came and kissed me on the shoulders and the Shereef, a man of eighty, laid his hands on my shoulders and said, 'Fear not my daughter, neither all the days of thy life nor at the hour of thy death, for God is with thee.' I kissed the old man's hand and turned to go, but numberless men came and said 'A thousand thanks, O our sister, for what thou hast done for one among us,' and a great deal more. Now the solemn chanting of the Fikees, and the clear voice of the boy reciting the Koran in the room where the man died are ringing through the house. They will pass the night in prayer, and to-morrow there will be the prayer of deliverance in the mosque. Poor Khayr has just crept in to have a quiet cry—poor boy. He is in the inventory and to-morrow I must deliver him up to les autorites to be forwarded to Cairo with the rest of the property. He is very ugly with his black face wet and swollen, but he kisses my hand and calls me his mother quite 'natural like'—you see colour is no barrier here.

The weather is glorious this year, and in spite of some fatigue I am extremely well and strong, and have hardly any cough at all. I am so sorry that the young Rothschild was so hard to Er-Rasheedee and that his French doctor refused to come and see him. It makes bad blood naturally. However, the German doctors were most kind and helpful.

The festival of Abu-l-Hajjaj was quite a fine sight, not splendid at all—au contraire—but spirit-stirring; the flags of the Sheykh borne by his family chanting, and the men tearing about in mimic fight on horseback with their spears. My acquaintance of last year, Abd-el-Moutovil, the fanatical Sheykh from Tunis was there. At first he scowled at me. Then someone told him how Rothschild had left Er-Rasheedee, and he held forth about the hatred of all the unbelievers to the Muslims, and ended by asking where the sick man was. A quaint little smile twinkled in Sheykh Yussuf's soft eyes and he curled his silky moustache as he said demurely, 'Your Honour must go and visit him at the house of the English Lady.' I am bound to say that the Pharisee 'executed himself handsomely, for in a few minutes he came up to me and took my hand and even hoped I would visit the tomb of Abu-l-Hajjaj with him!!

Since I wrote last I have been rather poorly—more cough, and most wearing sleeplessness. A poor young Englishman died here at the house of the Austrian Consular agent. I was too ill to go to him, but a kind, dear young Englishwoman, a Mrs. Walker, who was here with her family in a boat, sat up with him three nights and nursed him like a sister. A young American lay sick at the same time in the house, he is now gone down to Cairo, but I doubt whether he will reach it alive. The Englishman was buried on the first day of Ramadan where they bury strangers, on the site of a former Coptic church. Archdeacon Moore read the service; Omar and I spread my old flag over the bier, and Copts and Muslims helped to carry the poor stranger. It was a most impressive sight. The party of Europeans, all strangers to the dead but all deeply moved; the group of black-robed and turbaned Copts; the sailors from the boats; the gaily dressed dragomans; several brown-shirted fellaheen and the thick crowd of children—all the little Abab'deh stark naked and all behaving so well, the expression on their little faces touched me most of all. As Muslims, Omar and the boatmen laid him down in the grave, and while the English prayer was read the sun went down in a glorious flood of light over the distant bend of the Nile. 'Had he a mother, he was young?' said an Abab'deh woman to me with tears in her eyes and pressing my hand in sympathy for that far-off mother of such a different race.

Passenger steamboats come now every fortnight, but I have had no letter for a month. I have no almanack and have lost count of European time—to-day is the 3 of Ramadan, that is all I know. The poor black slave was sent back from Keneh, God knows why—because he had no money and the Moudir could not 'eat off him' as he could off the money and property—he believes. He is a capital fellow, and in order to compensate me for what he eats he proposed to wash for me, and you would be amused to see Khayr with his coal-black face and filed teeth doing laundry-maid out in the yard. He fears the family will sell him and hopes he may fetch a good price for 'his boy'—only on the other hand he would so like me to buy him—and so his mind is disturbed. Meanwhile the having all my clothes washed clean is a great luxury.

The steamer is come and I must finish in haste. I have corrected the proofs. There is not much to alter, and though I regret several lost letters I can't replace them. I tried, but it felt like a forgery. Do you cut out and correct, dearest Mutter, you will do it much better than I.



January 8, 1865: Dowager Lady Duff Gordon

To the Dowager Lady Duff Gordon.

LUXOR, January 8, 1865.

DEAR OLD LADY,

I received your kind letter in the midst of the drumming and piping and chanting and firing of guns and pistols and scampering of horses which constitute a religious festival in Egypt. The last day of the moolid of Abu-l-Hajjaj fell on the 1st January so you came to wish me 'May all the year be good to thee' as the people here were civil enough to do when I told them it was the first day of the Frankish year. (The Christian year here begins in September.)

I was very sorry to hear of poor Lady Theresa's (Lady Theresa Lewis) death. I feel as if I had no right to survive people whom I left well and strong when I came away so ill. As usual the air of Upper Egypt has revived me again, but I am still weak and thin, and hear many lamentations at my altered looks. However, 'Inshallah, thou wilt soon be better.'

Why don't you make Alexander edit your letters from Spain? I am sure they would be far more amusing than mine can possibly be—for you can write letters and I never could. I wish I had Miss Berry's though I never did think her such a genius as most people, but her letters must be amusing from the time when they were written. Alexander will tell you how heavy the hand of Pharaoh is upon this poor people. 'My father scourged you with whips but I will scourge you with scorpions,' did not Rehoboam say so? or I forget which King of Judah. The distress here is frightful in all classes, and no man's life is safe.

Ali Bey Rheda told me the other day that Prince Arthur is coming here and that he was coming up with him after taking a Prince of Hohenzollern back to Cairo. There will be all the fantasia possible for him here. Every man that has a horse will gallop him to pieces in honour of the son of the Queen of the English, and not a charge of powder will be spared. If you see Layard tell him that Mustapha A'gha had the whole Koran read for his benefit at the tomb of Abu-l-Hajjaj besides innumerable fathahs which he said for him himself. He consulted me as to the propriety of sending Layard a backsheesh, but I declared that Layard was an Emeer of the Arabs and a giver, not a taker of backsheesh.



January 9, 1865: Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.

LUXOR, January 9, 1865.

I gave Sheykh Yussuf your knife to cut his kalem (reed pen) with, and to his little girl the coral waistband clasp you gave me as from you. He was much pleased. I also brought the Shereef the psalms in Arabic to his great delight. The old man called on all 'our family' to say a fathah for their sister, after making us all laugh by shouting out 'Alhamdulillah! here is our darling safe back again.'

I wish you could have seen me in the crowd at Keneh holding on to the Kadee's farageeyeh (a loose robe worn by the Ulema). He is the real original Kadee of the Thousand and One Nights. Did ever Kadee tow an Englishwoman round a Sheykh's tomb before? but I thought his determination to show the people that he considered a Christian not out of place in a Muslim holy place very edifying.

I find an exceedingly pleasant man here, an Abab'deh, a very great Sheykh from beyond Khartoum, a man of fifty I suppose, with manners like an English nobleman, simple and polite and very intelligent. He wants to take me to Khartoum for two months up and back, having a tent and a takhterawan (camel-litter) and to show me the Bishareen in the desert. We traced the route on my map which to my surprise he understood, and I found he had travelled into Zanzibar and knew of the existence of the Cape of Good Hope and the English colony there. He had also travelled in the Dinka and Shurook country where the men are seven feet and over high (Alexander saw a Dinka girl at Cairo three inches taller than himself!). He knows Madlle. Tine and says she is 'on everyone's head and in their eyes' where she has been. You may fancy that I find Sheykh Alee very good company.

To-day the sand in front of the house is thronged with all the poor people with their camels, of which the Government has made a new levy of eight camels to every thousand feddans. The poor beasts are sent off to transport troops in the Soudan, and not being used to the desert, they all die—at all events their owners never see one of them again. The discontent is growing stronger every day. Last week the people were cursing the Pasha in the streets of Assouan, and every one talks aloud of what they think.

January 11.—The whole place is in desolation, the men are being beaten, one because his camel is not good enough, another because its saddle is old and shabby, and the rest because they have not money enough to pay two months' food and the wages of one man, to every four camels, to be paid for the use of the Government beforehand. The courbash has been going on my neighbours' backs and feet all the morning. It is a new sensation too when a friend turns up his sleeve and shows the marks of the wooden handcuffs and the gall of the chain on his throat. The system of wholesale extortion and spoliation has reached a point beyond which it would be difficult to go. The story of Naboth's vineyard is repeated daily on the largest scale. I grieve for Abdallah-el-Habbashee and men of high position like him, sent to die by disease (or murder), in Fazoghou, but I grieve still more over the daily anguish of the poor fellaheen, who are forced to take the bread from the mouths of their starving families and to eat it while toiling for the private profit of one man. Egypt is one vast 'plantation' where the master works his slaves without even feeding them. From my window now I see the men limping about among the poor camels that are waiting for the Pasha's boats to take them, and the great heaps of maize which they are forced to bring for their food. I can tell you the tears such a sight brings to one's eyes are hot and bitter. These are no sentimental grievances; hunger, and pain, and labour without hope and without reward, and the constant bitterness of impotent resentment. To you all this must sound remote and almost fabulous. But try to imagine Farmer Smith's team driven off by the police and himself beaten till he delivered his hay, his oats and his farm-servant for the use of the Lord Lieutenant, and his two sons dragged in chains to work at railway embankments—and you will have some idea of my state of mind to-day. I fancy from the number of troops going up to Assouan that there is another rising among the blacks. Some of the black regiments revolted up in the Soudan last summer, and now I hear Shaheen Pasha is to be here in a day or two on his way up, and the camels are being sent off by hundreds from all the villages every day. But I am weary of telling, and you will sicken of hearing my constant lamentations.

Sheykh Hassan dropped in and dined with me yesterday and described his mother and her high-handed rule over him. It seems he had a 'jeunesse orageuse' and she defended him against his father's displeasure, but when the old Sheykh died she informed her son that if he ever again behaved in a manner unworthy of a Sheykh-el-Arab she would not live to see it. 'Now if my mother told me to jump into the river and drown I should say hader (ready), for I fear her exceedingly and love her above all people in the world, and have left everything in her hand.' He was good enough to tell me that I was the only woman he knew like his mother and that was why he loved me so much. I am to visit this Arab Deborah at the Abab'deh village two days ride from the first Cataract. She will come and meet me at the boat. Hassan was splendid when he said how he feared his mother exceedingly.

To my amazement to-day in walked the tremendous Alim from Tunis, Sheykh Abd-el-Moutovil, who used to look so black at me. He was very civil and pleasant and asked no end of questions about steam engines, and telegraphs and chemistry; especially whether it was true that the Europeans still fancied they could make gold. I said that no one had believed that for nearly two hundred years, and he said that the Arabs also knew it was 'a lie,' and he wondered to hear that Europeans, who were so clever, believed it. He had just been across the Nile to see the tombs of the Kings and of course 'improved the occasion' and uttered a number of the usual fine sayings about the vanity of human things. He told me I was the only Frank he had ever spoken to. I observed he did not say a word about religion, or use the usual pious phrases. By the bye, Sheykh Yussuf filled up my inkstand for me the other evening and in pouring the ink said 'Bismillah el-Rachman el-Racheem' (In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate). I said 'I like that custom, it is good to remind us that ink may be a cruel poison or a good medicine.'

I am better, and have hardly any cough. The people here think it is owing to the intercession of Abu-l-Hajjaj who specially protects me. I was obliged to be wrapped in the green silk cover of his tomb when it was taken off to be carried in procession, partly for my health and general welfare, and as a sort of adoption into the family. I made a feeble resistance on the score of being a Nazraneeyeh but was told 'Never fear, does not God know thee and the Sheykh also? no evil will come to thee on that account but good.' And I rather think that general goodwill and kindness is wholesome.



February 7, 1865: Miss Austin

To Miss Austin.

LUXOR, February 7, 1865.

MY DEAREST CHARLEY,

I am tolerably well, but I am growing very homesick—or rather children-sick. As the time slips on I get more and more the feeling of all I am losing of my children. We have delicious weather here and have had all the time; there has been no cold at all this winter here.

M. Prevost Paradol is here for a few days—a very pleasant man indeed, and a little good European talk is a very agreeable interlude to the Arab prosiness, or rather enfantillage, on the part of the women. I have sought about for shells and a few have been brought me from the Cataract, but of snails I can learn no tidings nor have I ever seen one, neither can I discover that there are any shells in the Nile mud. At the first Cataract they are found sticking to the rocks. The people here are very stupid about natural objects that are of no use to them. Like with the French small birds are all sparrows, and wild flowers there are none, and only about five varieties of trees in all Egypt.

This is a sad year—all the cattle are dead, the Nile is now as low as it was last July, and the song of the men watering with the shadoofs sounds sadly true as they chant Ana ga-ahn, etc. 'I am hungry, I am hungry for a piece of dourrah bread,' sings one, and the other chimes in, Meskeen, meskeen 'Poor man, poor man,' or else they sing a song about Seyyidna Iyoob 'Our master Job' and his patience. It is sadly appropriate now and rings on all sides as the shadoofs are greatly multiplied for lack of oxen to turn the sakiahs (waterwheels). All is terribly dear, and many are sick from sheer weakness owing to poor food; and then I hear fifty thousand are to be taken to work at the canal from Geezeh to Siout through the Fayoum. The only comfort is the enormous rise of wages, which however falls heavy on the rich. The sailors who got forty to fifty piastres five years ago now get three to five hundred piastres a month. So I fear I must give up my project of a dahabieh. If the new French Consul-General 'knows not Joseph' and turns me out, I am to live in a new house which Sheykh Yussuf is now building and of which he would give me the terrace and build three rooms on it for me. I wish I got better or worse, and could go home. I do get better, but so slowly, I cough a good deal at times, and I am very thin, but not so weak as I was or so breathless.



February 7, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

LUXOR, February 7, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

I am enjoying a 'great indulgence of talk' with M. Prevost Paradol as heartily as any nigger. He is a delightful person. This evening he is coming with Arakel Bey, his Armenian companion, and I will invite a few Arabs to show him. I sent off the proofs yesterday per passenger steamer. I trust they will arrive safe. It is too disheartening about letters, so many are lost. I am dreadfully disappointed in my letters, I really don't think them good—you know I don't blaguer about my own performances. I am very glad people like my Cape letters which I forget—but honestly I don't think the Egyptian good. You know I don't 'pretend' if I think I have done something well and I was generally content with my translations, but I feel these all to be poor and what Maurice calls 'dry' when I know how curious and interesting and poetical the country really is.

I paid Fadil Pasha a visit on his boat, and it was just like the middle ages. In order to amuse me he called up a horrid little black boy of about four to do tricks like a dancing dog, which ended in a performance of the Mussulman prayer. The little beast was dressed in a Stamboulee dress of scarlet cloth.

All the Arab doctors come to see me now as they go up and down the river to give me help if I want it. Some are very pleasant men. Mourad Effendi speaks German exactly like a German. The old Sheykh-el-Beled of Erment who visits me whenever he comes here, and has the sweetest voice I ever heard, complained of the climate of Cairo. 'There is no sun there at all, it is no brighter or warmer than the moon.' What do you think our sun must be now you know Cairo. We have had a glorious winter, like the finest summer weather at home only so much finer.

Janet wishes to go with me if I go to Soden, I must make enquiries about the climate. Ross fears it is too cold for an Egyptian like me. I should enjoy to have all the family au grand complet. I will leave Luxor in May and get to you towards the latter part of June, if that pleases you, Inshallah!



February 7, 1865: Mrs. Ross

To Mrs. Ross.

LUXOR, February 7, 1865.

DEAREST JANET,

It is quite heartrending about my letters. I have 'got the eye' evidently. The black slave of the poor dragoman who died in my house is here still, and like a dog that has lost his master has devoted himself to me. It seems nobody's business to take him away—as the Kadee did the money and the goods—and so it looks as if I should quietly inherit poor ugly Khayr. He is of a degree of ugliness quite transcendent, with teeth filed sharp 'in order to eat people' as he says, but the most good-humoured creature and a very fair laundry-maid. It is evidently no concern of mine to send him to be sold in Cairo, so I wait the event. If nobody ever claims him I shall keep him at whatever wages may seem fit, and he will subside into liberty. Du reste, the Maohn here says he is legally entitled to his freedom. If the new French Consul-General will let me stay on here I will leave my furniture and come down straight to your hospitable roof in Alexandria en route for Europe. I fear my plan of a dahabieh of my own would be too expensive, the wages of common boatmen now are three napoleons a month. M. Prevost Paradol, whose company has been a real bonne fortune to me, will speak to the Consul-General. I know all Thebes would sign a round-robin in my favour if they only knew how, for I am very popular here, and the only Hakeen. I have effected some brilliant cures, and get lots of presents. Eggs, turkeys, etc., etc., it is quite a pleasure to see how the poor people instead of trying to sponge on one are anxious to make a return for kindness. I give nothing whatever but my physick. These country people are very good. A nice young Circassian Cawass sat up with a stranger, a dying Englishman, all night because I had doctored his wife. I have also a pupil, Mustapha's youngest boy, a sweet intelligent lad who is pining for an education. I wish he could go to England. He speaks English very well and reads and writes indifferently, but I never saw a boy so wild to learn. Is it difficult to get a boy into the Abbassieh college? as it is gratuitous I suppose it is. I quite grieve over little Ach met forced to dawdle away his time and his faculties here.



March 13, 1865: Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.

LUXOR, March 13, 1865.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I hope your mind has not been disturbed by any rumours of 'battle, murder and sudden death' up in our part of the world. A week ago we heard that a Prussian boat had been attacked, all on board murdered, and the boat burned; then that ten villages were in open revolt, and that Effendina (the Viceroy) himself had come up and 'taken a broom and swept them clean' i.e.—exterminated the inhabitants. The truth now appears to be that a crazy darweesh has made a disturbance—but I will tell it as I heard it. He did as his father likewise did thirty years ago, made himself Ism (name) by repeating one of the appellations of God, like Ya Latif three thousand times every night for three years which rendered him invulnerable. He then made friends with a Jinn who taught him many more tricks—among others, that practised in England by the Davenports of slipping out of any bonds. He then deluded the people of the desert by giving himself out as El-Mahdi (he who is to come with the Lord Jesus and to slay Antichrist at the end of the world), and proclaimed a revolt against the Turks. Three villages below Keneh—Gau, Rayanaeh and Bedeh took part in the disturbance, and Fodl Pasha came up with steamboats, burnt the villages, shot about one hundred men and devastated the fields. At first we heard one thousand were shot, now it is one hundred. The women and children will be distributed among other villages. The darweesh some say is killed, others that he is gone off into the desert with a body of bedaween and a few of the fellaheen from the three ravaged villages. Gau is a large place—as large, I think as Luxor. The darweesh is a native of Salamieh, a village close by here, and yesterday his brother, a very quiet man, and his father's father-in-law old Hajjee Sultan were carried off prisoners to Cairo, or Keneh, we don't know which. It seems that the boat robbed belonged to Greek traders, but no one was hurt, I believe, and no European boat has been molested.

Baron Kevenbrinck was here yesterday with his wife, and they saw all the sacking of the villages and said no resistance was offered by the people whom the soldiers shot down as they ran, and they saw the sheep etc. being driven off by the soldiers. You need be in no alarm about me. The darweesh and his followers could not pounce on us as we are eight good miles from the desert, i.e. the mountain, so we must have timely notice, and we have arranged that if they appear in the neighbourhood the women and children of the outlying huts should come into my house which is a regular fortress, and also any travellers in boats, and we muster little short of seven hundred men able to fight including Karnac, moreover Fodl Pasha and the troops are at Keneh only forty miles off.

Three English boats went down river to-day and one came up. The Kevenbrincks went up last night. I dined with them, she is very lively and pleasant. I nearly died of laughing to-day when little Achmet came for his lesson. He pronounced that he was sick of love for her. He played at cards with her yesterday afternoon and it seems lost his heart (he is twelve and quite a boyish boy, though a very clever one) and he said he was wishing to play a game for a kiss as the stake. He had put on a turban to-day, on the strength of his passion, to look like a man, and had neglected his dress otherwise because 'when young men are sick of love they always do so.' The fact is the Baroness was kind and amiable and tried to amuse him as she would have done to a white boy, hence Achmet's susceptible heart was 'on fire for her.' He also asked me if I had any medicine to make him white, I suppose to look lovely in her eyes. He little knows how very pretty he is with his brown face—as he sits cross-legged on the carpet at my feet in his white turban and blue shirt reading aloud—he was quite a picture. I have grown very fond of the little fellow, he is so eager to learn and to improve and so remarkably clever.

My little Achmet, who is donkey-boy and general little slave, the smallest slenderest quietest little creature, has implored me to take him with me to England. I wish Rainie could see him, she would be so 'arprized' at his dark brown little face, so fein, and with eyes like a dormouse. He is a true little Arab—can run all day in the heat, sleeps on the stones and eats anything—quick, gentle and noiseless and fiercely jealous. If I speak to any other boy he rushes at him and drives him away, and while black Khayr was in the house, he suffered martyrdom and the kitchen was a scene of incessant wrangle about the coffee. Khayr would bring me my coffee and Achmet resented the usurpation of his functions—of course quite hopelessly, as Khayr was a great stout black of eighteen and poor little Achmet not bigger than Rainie. I am really tempted to adopt the vigilant active little creature.

March 15.—Sheykh Yussuf returned from a visit to Salamieh last night. He tells me the darweesh Achmet et-Tayib is not dead, he believes that he is a mad fanatic and a communist. He wants to divide all property equally and to kill all the Ulema and destroy all theological teaching by learned men and to preach a sort of revelation or interpretation of the Koran of his own. 'He would break up your pretty clock,' said Yussuf, 'and give every man a broken wheel out of it, and so with all things.'

One of the dragomans here had been urging me to go down but Yussuf laughed at any idea of danger, he says the people here have fought the bedaween before and will not be attacked by such a handful as are out in the mountain now; du reste the Abu-l-Hajjajieh (family of Abu-l-Hajjaj) will 'put their seal' to it that I am their sister and answer for me with a man's life. It would be foolish to go down into whatever disturbance there may be alone in a small country boat and where I am not known. The Pasha himself we hear is at Girgeh with steamboats and soldiers, and if the slightest fear should arise steamers will be sent up to fetch all the Europeans. What I grieve over is the poor villagers whose little property is all confiscated, guilty and innocent alike, and many shot as they ran away. Hajjee Ali tells me privately that he believes the discontent against the Government is very deep and universal and that there will be an outbreak—but not yet. The Pasha's attempt to regulate the price of food by edicts has been very disastrous, and of course the present famine prices are laid to his charge—if a man will be omnipotent he must take the consequences when he fails. I don't believe in an outbreak—I think the people are too thoroughly accustomed to suffer and to obey, besides they have no means of communication, and the steamboats can run up and down and destroy them en detail in a country which is eight hundred miles long by from one to eight wide, and thinly peopled. Only Cairo could do anything, and everything is done to please the Cairenes at the expense of the fellaheen.

The great heat has begun these last three days. My cough is better and I am grown fatter again. The Nile is so low that I fancy that six weeks or two months hence I shall have to go down in two little boats—even now the dahabiehs keep sticking fast continually. I have promised some neighbours to bring back a little seed corn for them, some of the best English wheat without beard. All the wheat here is bearded and they have an ambition for some of ours. I long to bring them wheelbarrows and spades and pickaxes. The great folks get steamploughs, but the labourers work with their bare hands and a rush basket pour tout potage, and it takes six to do the work of one who has got good tools.



March 25, 1865: Mrs. Ross

To Mrs. Ross.

LUXOR, March 25, 1865.

DEAREST JANET,

I hope you have not had visions of me plundered and massacred by the crazy darweesh who has caused the destruction of Gau and three other villages. I assure you we are quite quiet here and moreover have arranged matters for our defence if Achmet et Tayib should honour us with a visit. The heat has just set in, thermometer 89 degrees to-day, of course I am much better, fatter and cough less.

Many thanks to Henry about Achmet Ibn-Mustapha, but his father is going to send him to England into Mr. Fowler's workshop, which will be a much better training I think. Mr. Fowler takes him without a premium most kindly. Lord Dudley will tell you what a splendid entertainment I gave him; I think he was quite frightened at the sight of the tray and the black fingers in the dishes.

The Abab'deh Sheykh and his handsome brother propose to take me to the moolid of Sheykh-el-Shadhilee (the coffee saint) in the desert to see all the wild Abab'deh and Bishareeyeh. It is very tempting, if I feel pretty well I must go I think and perhaps the change might do me good. They believe no European ever went to that festival. There are camel-races and a great show of pretty girls says the handsome Hassan. A fine young Circassian cawass here has volunteered to be my servant anywhere and to fight anybody for me because I have cured his pretty wife. You would love Kursheed with his clear blue eyes, fair face and brisk neat soldierly air. He has a Crimean medal and such a lot of daggers and pistols and is such a tremendous Muslim, but never-the-less he loves me and tells me all his affairs and how tiresome his wife's mother is. I tell him all wives' mothers always are, but he swears Wallahi, Howagah (Mr.) Ross don't say so, Wallahi, Inshallah!



March 30, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

LUXOR, March 30, 1865.

DEAREST ALICK,

I have just received your letter of March 3 with one from Janet, which shows of how little moment the extermination of four villages is in this country, for she does not allude to our revolt and evidently has not heard of it.

In my last letter to Mutter I told how one Achmet et Tayib, a mad darweesh had raised a riot at Gau below Keneh and how a boat had been robbed and how we were all rather looking out for a razzia and determined to fight Achmet et Tayib and his followers. Then we called them haramee (wicked ones) and were rather blood-thirstily disposed towards them and resolved to keep order and protect our property. But now we say nas messakeen (poor people) and whisper to each other that God will not forget what the Pasha has done. The truth of course we shall never know. But I do know that one Pasha said he had hanged five hundred, and another that he had sent three hundred to Fazoghlou (comme qui dirait Cayenne) and all for the robbery of one Greek boat in which only the steersman was killed. I cannot make out that anything was done by the 'insurgents' beyond going out into the desert to listen to the darweesh's nonsense, and 'see a reed shaken by the wind;' the party that robbed the boat was, I am told, about forty strong. But the most horrid stories are current among the people of the atrocities committed on the wretched villagers by the soldiers. Not many were shot, they say, and they attempted no resistance, but the women and girls were outraged and murdered and the men hanged and the steamers loaded with plunder. The worst is that every one believes that the Europeans aid and abet, and all declare that the Copts were spared to please the Frangees. Mind I am not telling you facts only what the people are saying—in order to show you their feelings. One most respectable young man sat before me on the floor the other day and told me what he had heard from those who had come up the river. Horrible tales of the stench of the bodies which are left unburied by the Pasha's order—of women big with child ripped open, etc., etc. 'Thou knowest oh! our Lady, that we are people of peace in this place, and behold now if one madman should come and a few idle fellows go out to the mountain (desert) with him, Effendina will send his soldiers to destroy the place and spoil our poor little girls and hang us—is that right, oh Lady and Achmet el-Berberi saw Europeans with hats in the steamer with Effendina and the soldiers. Truly in all the world none are miserable like us Arabs. The Turks beat us, and the Europeans hate us and say quite right. By God, we had better lay down our heads in the dust (die) and let the strangers take our land and grow cotton for themselves. As for me I am tired of this miserable life and of fearing for my poor little girls.'

Mahommed was really eloquent, and when he threw his melayeh over his face and sobbed, I am not ashamed to say that I cried too. I know very well that Mahommed was not quite wrong in what he says of the Europeans. I know the cruel old platitudes about governing Orientals by fear which the English pick up like mocking birds from the Turks. I know all about 'the stick' and 'vigour' and all that—but—'I sit among the people' and I know too that Mohammed feels just as John Smith or Tom Brown would feel in his place, and that men who were very savage against the rioters in the beginning, are now almost in a humour to rise against the Turks themselves just exactly as free-born Britons might be. There are even men of the class who have something to lose who express their disgust very freely.

I saw the steamer pass up to Fazoghlou but the prisoners were all below. The Sheykh of the Abab'deh here has had to send a party of his men to guard them through the desert. Altogether this year is miserable in Egypt. I have not once heard the zaghareet. Every one is anxious and depressed, and I fear hungry, the land is parched from the low Nile, the heat has set in six weeks earlier than usual, the animals are scarecrows for want of food, and now these horrid stories of bloodshed and cruelty and robbery (for the Pasha takes the lands of these villages for his own) have saddened every face. I think Hajjee Ali is right and that there will be more disturbances. If there are they will be caused by the cruelty and oppression at Gau and the three neighbouring villages. From Salamieh, two miles above Luxor, every man woman and child in any degree kin to Achmet et-Tayib has been taken in chains to Keneh and no one here expects to see one of them return alive. Some are remarkably good men, I hear, and I have heard men say 'if Hajjee Sultan is killed and all his family we will never do a good action any more, for we see it is of no use.'

There was a talk among the three or four Europeans here at the beginning of the rumours of a revolt of organizing a defence among Christians only. Conceive what a silly and gratuitous provocation! There was no religion in the business at all and of course the proper person to organize defence was the Maohn, and he and Mustapha and others had planned using my house as a castle and defending that in case of a visit from the rioters. I have no doubt the true cause of the row is the usual one—hunger—the high price of food. It was like our Swing, or bread riots, nothing more and a very feeble affair too. It is curious to see the travellers' gay dahabiehs just as usual and the Europeans as far removed from all care or knowledge of the distresses as if they were at home. When I go and sit with the English I feel almost as if they were foreigners to me too, so completely am I now Dint el-Beled (daughter of the country) here.

I dined three days running with the Kevenbrincks and one day after dinner we sent for a lot of Arab Sheykhs to come for coffee—the two Abab'deh and a relation of theirs from Khartoum, the Sheykh of Karnac, one Mohammed a rich fellah, and we were joined by the A'gha of Halim Pasha's Hareem, and an ugly beast he is. The little Baroness won all hearts. She is a regular vif argent or as we say Efreeteh and to see the dark faces glittering with merry smiles as they watched her was very droll. I never saw a human being so thoroughly amused as the black Sheykh from the Soudan. Next day we dined at the Austrian agent's and the Baroness at last made the Maohn dance a polka with her while the agent played the guitar. There were a lot of Copts about who nearly died of laughing and indeed so did I. Next day we had a capital dinner at Mustapha's, and the two Abab'deh Sheykhs, the Sheykh of Karnac, the Maohn and Sheykh Yussuf dined with us. The Sheykh of Karnac gave a grand performance of eating like a Bedawee. I have heard you talk of tripas elasticas in Spain but Wallahi! anything like the performance of Sheykh Abdallah none but an eyewitness could believe. How he plucked off the lamb's head and handed it to me in token of the highest respect, and how the bones cracked beneath his fingers—how huge handfuls of everything were chucked right down his throat all scorching hot. I encouraged him of course, quoting the popular song about 'doing deeds that Antar did not' and we all grew quite uproarious. When Sheykh Abdallah asked for drink, I cried 'bring the ballaree (the big jar the women fetch water in) for the Sheykh,' and Sheykh Yussuf compared him to Samson and to Og, while I more profanely told how Antar broke the bones and threw them about. The little Baroness was delighted and only expressed herself hurt that no one had crammed anything into her mouth. I told the Maohn her disappointment which caused more laughter as such a custom is unknown here, but he of course made no end of sweet speeches to her. After dinner she showed the Arabs how ladies curtsey to the Queen in England, and the Abab'deh acted the ceremonial of presentation at the court of Darfour, where you have to rub your nose in the dust at the King's feet. Then we went out with lanterns and torches and the Abab'deh did the sword dance for us. Two men with round shields and great straight swords do it. One dances a pas seul of challenge and defiance with prodigious leaps and pirouettes and Hah! Hahs! Then the other comes and a grand fight ensues. When the handsome Sheykh Hassan (whom you saw in Cairo) bounded out it really was heroic. All his attitudes were alike grand and graceful. They all wanted Sheykh Yussuf to play el-Neboot (single stick) and said he was the best man here at it, but his sister was not long dead and he could not. Hassan looks forward to Maurice's coming here to teach him 'the fighting of the English.' How Maurice would pound him!

On the fourth night I went to tea in Lord Hopetoun's boat and their sailors gave a grand fantasia excessively like a Christmas pantomime. One danced like a woman, and there was a regular pantaloon only 'more so,' and a sort of clown in sheepskin and a pink mask who was duly tumbled about, and who distributed claques freely with a huge wooden spoon. It was very good fun indeed, though it was quite as well that the ladies did not understand the dialogue, or that part of the dance which made the Maohn roar with laughter. The Hopetouns had two handsome boats and were living like in May Fair. I am so used now to our poor shabby life that it makes quite a strange impression on me to see all that splendour—splendour which a year or two ago I should not even have remarked—and thus out of 'my inward consciousness' (as Germans say), many of the peculiarities and faults of the people of Egypt are explained to me and accounted for.

April 2.—It is so dreadfully hot and dusty that I shall rather hasten my departure if I can. The winds seem to have begun, and as all the land which last year was green is now desert and dry the dust is four times as bad. If I hear that Ross has bought and sent up a dahabieh I will wait for that, if not I will go in three weeks if I can.



April 3, 1865: Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.

LUXOR, April 3, 1865.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I have just finished a letter to Alick to go by a steamer to-day. You will see it, so I will go on with the stories about the riots. Here is a thing happening within a few weeks and within sixty miles, and already the events assume a legendary character. Achmet et-Tayib is not dead and where the bullets hit him he shows little marks like burns. The affair began thus: A certain Copt had a Muslim slave-girl who could read the Koran and who served him. He wanted her to be his Hareem and she refused and went to Achmet et-Tayib who offered money for her to her master. He refused it and insisted on his rights, backed by the Government, and thereupon Achmet proclaimed a revolt and the people, tired of taxes and oppressions, said 'we will go with thee.' This is the only bit of religious legend connected with the business. But Achmet et-Tayib still sits in the Island, invisible to the Turkish soldiers who are still there.

Now for a little fact. The man who told me fourteen hundred had been beheaded was Hassan Sheykh of the Abab'deh who went to Gau to bring up the prisoners. The boat stopped a mile above Luxor, and my Mohammed, a most quiet respectable man and not at all a romancer went up in her to El-Moutaneh. I rode with him along the Island. When we came near the boat she went on as far as the point of the Island, and I turned back after only looking at her from the bank and smelling the smell of a slave-ship. It never occurred to me, I own, that the Bey on board had fled before a solitary woman on a donkey, but so it was. He told the Abab'deh Sheykh on board not to speak to me or to let me on board, and told the Captain to go a mile or two further. Mohammed heard all this. He found on board 'one hundred prisoners less two' (ninety-eight). Among them the Moudir of Souhaj, a Turk, in chains and wooden handcuffs like the rest. Mohammed took him some coffee and was civil to him. He says the poor creatures are dreadfully ill-used by the Abab'deh and the Nubians (Berberi) who guard them.

It is more curious than you can conceive to hear all the people say. It is just like going back four or five centuries at least, but with the heterogeneous element of steamers, electric telegraphs and the Bey's dread of the English lady's pen—at least Mohammed attributed his flight to fear of that weapon. It was quite clear that European eyes were dreaded, as the boat stopped three miles above Luxor and its dahabiehs, and had all its things carried that distance.

Yussuf and his uncle want to take me next year to Mecca, the good folks in Mecca would hardly look for a heretical face under the green veil of a Shereefateh of Abu-l-Hajjaj. The Hajjees (pilgrims) have just started from here to Cosseir with camels and donkeys, but most are on foot. They are in great numbers this year. The women chanted and drummed all night on the river bank, and it was fine to see fifty or sixty men in a line praying after their Imam with the red glow of the sunset behind them. The prayer in common is quite a drill and very stately to see. There are always quite as many women as men; one wonders how they stand the march and the hardships.

My little Achmet grows more pressing with me to take him. I will take him to Alexandria, I think, and leave him in Janet's house to learn more house service. He is a dear little boy and very useful. I don't suppose his brother will object and he has no parents. Achmet ibn-Mustapha also coaxes me to take him with me to Alexandria, and to try again to persuade his father to send him to England to Mr. Fowler. I wish most heartily I could. He is an uncommon child in every way, full of ardour to learn and do something, and yet childish and winning and full of fun. His pretty brown face is quite a pleasure to me. His remarks on the New Testament teach me as many things as I can teach him. The boy is pious and not at all ill taught, he is much pleased to find so little difference between the teaching of the Koran and the Aangeel. He wanted me, in case Omar did not go with me, to take him to serve me. Here there is no idea of its being derogatory for a gentleman's son to wait on one who teaches him, it is positively incumbent. He does all 'menial offices' for his mother, hands coffee, waits at table or helps Omar in anything if I have company, nor will he eat or smoke before me, or sit till I tell him—it is like service in the middle ages.



April 3, 1865: Mrs. Ross

To Mrs. Ross.

LUXOR, April 3, 1865.

DEAREST JANET,

The weather has set in so horrid, as to dust, that I shall be glad to get away as soon as I can. If you have bought a dahabieh for me of course I will await its arrival. If not I will have two small boats from Keneh, whereby I shall avoid sticking in this very low water. Sheykh Hassan goes down in his boat in twenty days and urges me to travel under his escort, as of course the poor devils who are 'out on their keeping' after the Gau business have no means of living left but robbery, and Sheykh Hassan's party is good for seven or eight guns. You will laugh at my listening to such a cowardly proposition (on my part) but my friends here are rather bent upon it, and Hassan is a capital fellow. If therefore the dahabieh is in rerum naturae and can start at once, well and good.

April 14.—The dahabieh sounds an excellent bargain to me and good for you also to get your people to Assouan first. Many thanks for the arrangement.

Your version of our massacre is quite curious to us here. I know very intimately the Sheykh-el-Arab who helped to catch the poor people and also a young Turk who stood by while Fadil Pasha had the men laid down by ten at a time and chopped with pioneers' axes. My Turkish friend (a very good-humoured young fellow) quite admired the affair and expressed a desire to do likewise to all the fellaheen in Egypt. I have seen with my own eyes a second boatload of prisoners. I wish to God the Pasha knew the deep exasperation which his subordinates are causing. I do not like to say all I hear. As to the Ulema, Kadees, Muftis, etc., I know many from towns and villages, and all say 'We are Muslims, but we should thank God to send Europeans to govern us,' the feeling is against the Government and the Turks up here—not against Christians. A Coptic friend of mine has lost all his uncle's family at Gau, all were shot down—Copt and Christian alike. As to Hajjee Sultan, who lies in chains at Keneh and his family up at Esneh, a better man never lived, nor one more liberal to Christians. Copts ate of his bread as freely as Muslims. He lies there because he is distantly related by marriage to Achmet et-Tayib, the real reason is because he is wealthy and some enemy covets his goods.

Ask M. Mounier what he knows. Perhaps I know even more of the feeling as I am almost adopted by the Abu-l-Hajjajeeah, and sit every evening with some party or another of decent men. I assure you I am in despair at all I see—and if the soldiers do come it will be worse than the cattle disease. Are not the cawasses bad enough? Do they not buy in the market at their own prices and beat the sakkas in sole payment for the skins of water? Who denies it here? Cairo is like Paris, things are kept sweet there, but up here—! Of course Effendina hears the 'smooth prophecies' of the tyrants whom he sends up river. When I wrote before I knew nothing certain but now I have eye-witnesses' testimony, and I say that the Pasha deceives or is deceived—I hope the latter. An order from him did stop the slaughter of women and children which Fadil Pasha was about to effect.

To turn to less wretched matters. I will come right down Alexandria with the boat, I shall rejoice to see you again.

Possibly the Abab'deh may come with me and I hope Sheykh Yussuf, 'my chaplain' as Arthur Taylor called him. We shall be quite a little fleet.



April, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

April, 1865.

DEAREST ALEXANDER,

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

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

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

[Picture: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, from sketch by G. F. Watts, R.A.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



April 29, 1865: Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.

LUXOR, April 29, 1865.

DEAREST MUTTER,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is the same here. The people come and pat and stroke me with their hands, and one corner of my brown abbaieh is faded with much kissing. I am hailed as Sitt Betaana 'Our own Lady,' and now the people are really enthusiastic because I refused the offer of some cawasses as a guard which a Bimbashee made me. As if I would have such fellows to help to bully my friends. The said Bimbashee (next in rank to a Bey) a coarse man like an Arnoout, stopped here a day and night and played his little Turkish game, telling me to beware—for the Ulema hated all Franks and set the people against us—and telling the Arabs that Christian Hakeems were all given to poison Muslims. So at night I dropped in at the Maohn's with Sheykh Yussuf carrying my lantern—and was loudly hailed with a Salaam Aleykee from the old Shereef himself—who began praising the Gospel I had given him, and me at the same time. Yussuf had a little reed in his hand—the kalem for writing, about two feet long and of the size of a quill. I took it and showed it to the Bimbashee and said—'Behold the neboot wherewith we are all to be murdered by this Sheykh of the Religion.' The Bimbashee's bristly moustache bristled savagely, for he felt that the 'Arab dogs' and the Christian khanzeereh (feminine pig) were laughing at it together.

Another steam boat load of prisoners from Gau has just gone up. A little comfort is derived here from the news that, 'Praise be to God, Moussa Pasha (Governor of the Soudan) is dead and gone to Hell.' It must take no trifle to send him there judging by the quiet way in which Fadil Pasha is mentioned.

You will think me a complete rebel—but I may say to you what most people would think 'like my nonsense'—that one's pity becomes a perfect passion, when one sits among the people—as I do, and sees it all; least of all can I forgive those among Europeans and Christians who can help to 'break these bruised reeds.' However, in Cairo and more still in Alexandria, all is quite different. There, the same system which has been so successfully copied in France prevails. The capital is petted at the expense of the fellaheen. Prices are regulated in Cairo for meat and bread as they are or were in Paris, and the 'dangerous classes' enjoy all sorts of exemptions. Just like France! The Cairenes eat the bread and the fellaheen eat the stick.

The people here used to dislike Mounier who arrived poor and grew rich and powerful, but they all bless him now and say at El-Moutaneh a man eats his own meat and not the courbash of the Moudir—and Mounier has refused soldiers (as I refused them on my small account) and 'Please God,' he will never repent it. Yussuf says 'What the Turkish Government fears is not for your safety, but lest we should learn to love you too well,' and it is true. Here there is but one voice. 'Let the Franks come, let us have the laws of the Christians.'

In Cairo the Franks have dispelled this douce illusion and done the Turk's work as if they were paid for it. But here come only travellers who pay with money and not with stick—a degree of generosity not enough to be adored.

I perceive that I am a bore—but you will forgive my indignant sympathy with the kind people who treat me so well. Yussuf asked me to let the English papers know about the Gau business. An Alim ed Deen ul-Islam would fain call for help to the Times! Strange changes and signs of the times—these—are they not so?

I went to Church on Good Friday with the Copts. The scene was very striking—the priest dressed like a beautiful Crusader in white robes with crimson crosses. One thing has my hearty admiration. The few children who are taken to Church are allowed to play! Oh my poor little Protestant fellow Christians, can you conceive a religion so delightful as that which permits Peep-bo behind the curtain of the sanctuary! I saw little Butrus and Scendariah at it all church time—and the priest only patted their little heads as he carried the sacrament out to the Hareem. Fancy the parson kindly patting a noisy boy's head, instead of the beadle whacking him! I am entirely reconciled to the Coptic rules.



May, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

NILE BOAT, URANIA, May, 1865.

Happy as I was in the prospect of seeing you all and miserable as poor Upper Egypt has become, I could not leave without a pang. Our Bairam was not gay. There was horse riding for Sheykh Gibreel (the cousin of Abu'l Haggag) and the scene was prettier than ever I saw. My old friend Yunis the Shereef insisted on showing me that at eighty-five he could still handle a horse and throw a Gereed 'for Sheykh Gibreel and the Lady' as he said. Then arrived the Mufettish of Zenia with his gay attendants and filled the little square in front of the Cadi's castellated house where we were sitting. The young Sheykh of Salamieh rode beautifully and there was some excellent Neboot play (sort of very severe quarterstaff peculiar to the Fellaheen).

Next day was the great dinner given by Mohammed and Mustapha outside Mohammed's house opposite Sheykh Gibreel's tomb—200 men ate at his gate. I went to see it and was of course asked to eat. 'Can one like thee eat the Melocheea of the Fellaheen?' So I joined a party of five round a little wooden tray, tucked up my sleeve and ate—dipping the bread into the Melocheea which is like very sloppy spinach but much nicer. Then came the master and his servants to deal the pieces of meat out of a great basket—sodden meat—and like Benjamin my piece was the largest, so I tore off a bit and handed it to each of my companions, who said 'God take thee safe and happy to thy place and thy children and bring thee back to us in safety to eat the meat of the festival together once more.'

The moon rose clear and bright behind the one tall palm tree that overhangs the tomb of Sheykh Gibreel. He is a saint of homely tastes and will not have a dome over him or a cover for his tomb, which is only surrounded by a wall breast-high, enclosing a small square bit of ground with the rough tomb on one side. At each corner was set up a flag, and a few dim lanterns hung overhead. The 200 men eating were quite noiseless—and as they rose, one by one washed their hands and went, the crowd melted away like a vision. But before all were gone, came the Bulook, or sub-magistrate—a Turkish Jack in office with the manners of a Zouave turned parish beadle. He began to sneer at the melocheea of the fellaheen and swore he could not eat it if he sat before it 1,000 years. Hereupon, Omar began to 'chaff' him. 'Eat, oh Bulook Pasha and if it swells thy belly the Lady will give thee of the physick of the English to clean thy stomach upwards and downwards of all thou hast eaten of the food of the fellaheen.' The Bulook is notorious for his exactions—his 'eating the people'—so there was a great laugh. Poor Omar was very ill next day—and every one thought the Bulook had given him the eye.

Then came the Mufettish in state to pay his devoirs to the Sheykh in the tomb. He came and talked to Mustapha and Yussuf and enumerated the people taken for the works, 200 from Luxor, 400 from Carnac, 310 from Zenia, 320 from Byadyeh, and 380 from Salamieh—a good deal more than half the adult men to go for sixty days leaving their fields uncultivated and their Hareem and children hungry—for they have to take all the food for themselves.

I rose sick at heart from the Mufettish's harsh voice, and went down to listen to the Moonsheeds chanting at the tomb and the Zikheers' strange sobbing, Allah, Allah.

I leaned on the mud wall watching the slender figures swaying in the moonlight, when a tall, handsome fellah came up in his brown shirt, felt libdeh (scull cap), with his blue cotton melaya tied up and full of dried bread on his back. The type of the Egyptian. He stood close beside me and prayed for his wife and children. 'Ask our God to pity them, O Sheykh, and to feed them while I am away. Thou knowest how my wife worked all night to bake all the wheat for me and that there is none left for her and the children.' He then turned to me and took my hand and went on, 'Thou knowest this lady, oh Sheykh Gibreel, take her happy and well to her place and bring her back to us—el Fathah, yah Beshoosheh!' and we said it together. I could have laid my head on Sheykh Gibreel's wall and howled. I thanked him as well as I could for caring about one like me while his own troubles were so heavy. I shall never forget that tall athletic figure and the gentle brown face, with the eleven days' moon of Zulheggeh, and the shadow of the palm tree. That was my farewell. 'The voice of the miserable is with thee, shall God not hear it?'

Next day Omar had a sharp attack of fever and was delirious—it lasted only two days but left him very weak and the anxiety and trouble was great—for my helping hands were as awkward as they were willing.

In a few days arrived the boat Urania. She is very nice indeed. A small saloon, two good berths—bath and cabinet, and very large kasneh (stern cabin). She is dirty, but will be extremely comfortable when cleaned and painted. On the 15th we sailed. Sheykh Yussuf went with me to Keneh, Mustapha and Seyd going by land—and one of Hajjee Sultan's disciples and several Luxor men were deck passengers. The Shereef gave me the bread and jars of butter for his grandsons in Gama'l Azhar, and came to see me off. We sat on the deck outside as there was a crowd to say good-bye and had a lot of Hareem in the cabin. The old Shereef made me sit down on the carpet close to him and then said 'we sit here like two lovers'—at eighty-five even an Arab and a Shereef may be "gaillard"—so I cried, 'Oh Shereef, what if Omar tells my master the secret thou hast let out—it is not well of thee.' There was a great laugh which ended in the Shereef saying 'no doubt thy master is of the best of the people, let us say the Fathah for him,' and he called on all the people 'El Fathah for the master of the lady!' I hope it has benefited you to be prayed for at Luxor.

I had written so far and passed Minieh when I fell ill with pleurisy—I've lots more to tell of my journey but am too weak after two weeks in bed (and unable to lie down from suffocation)—but I am much better now. A man from the Azhar is reading the Koran for me outside—while another is gone with candles to Seyeedele Zeynet 'the fanatics!'



June 16, 1865: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.

CAIRO, June 16, 1865.

DEAREST ALICK,

I will go down to Alexandria in the boat and Omar will work at her. She wants a great deal of repairing I find, and his superintendence will save much money—besides he will do one man's work as he is a much better carpenter than most here having learnt of the English workmen on the railroad—but the Reis says the boat must come out of the water as her bottom is unsound. She is a splendid sailer I hear and remarkably comfortable. The beds in the kasneh would do for Jacob Omnium. So when you 'honour our house' you will be happy. The saloon is small, and the berths as usual. Also she is a very handsome shape—but she wants no end of repairs. So Omar is consoled at being left because he will 'save our money' a great deal by piecing sails, and cutting and contriving, and scraping and painting himself. Only he is afraid for me. However, Allah Kereem.

I have a very good Reis I think. The usual tight little black fellow from near Assouan—very neat and active and good tempered—the same cross steersman that we had up to Bedreshayn—but he knows his work well. We had contrary gales the whole way. My men worked all they possibly could, and pulled the rope all day and rowed all night, day after day—but we were twenty-eight days getting down.

I can't write any more.



October 28, 1865: Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.

ALEXANDRIA, October 28, 1865.

I am truly grieved to hear of your wrist and to see your writing look cramped. I arrived here on Thursday after a splendid passage and was very comfortable on board. I found M. Olagnier waiting for me, and Omar, of course, and am installe at Ross's till my boat gets done which I am told will be in six days. She will be remarkably comfortable. Omar had caused a sort of divan with a roof and back to be constructed just outside the cabin-door where I always sat every evening, which will be the most delightful little nest one can conceive. I shall sit like a Pasha there.

My cough is still very harassing, but my chest less tight and painful, and I feel less utterly knocked down. The weather is beautiful here just now—warm and not nearly so damp as usual.

Lord Edward St. Maur was on board, he has much of his aunt's pleasantness. Also a very young Bombay Merchant—a Muslim who uttered not one syllable to any one but to me. His talk was just like that of a well-bred and intelligent young Englishman. I am glad to say that his views of the state of India were very encouraging—he seemed convinced that the natives were gradually working their way up to more influence, and said 'We shall have to thank you for a better form of government by far than any native one ever would have been'—he added, 'We Muslims have this advantage over the Hindus—that our religion is no barrier at all, socially or politically—between us and you—as theirs is. I mean it ought not to be when both faiths are cleared of superstition and fanaticism.' He spoke very highly of Sir Bartle Frere but said 'I wish it were possible for more English gentlemen to come out to India.' He had been two years in England on mercantile business and was going back to his brother Ala-ed-deen much pleased with the English in England. It is one of the most comforting Erscheinungen I have seen coming from India—if that sort of good sense is pretty common among the very young men they certainly will work their way up.