Lucie Duff Gordon
To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, BOULAK, August 7, 1867.
MY Dearest Alick,
Two sailors of mine of last year went to Paris in the dahabieh for the Empress, and are just come back. When I see them I expect I shall have some fun out of their account of their journey. Poor Adam’s father died of grief at his son’s going, nothing would persuade him that Adam would come back safe, and having a heart complaint, he died. And now the lad is back, well and with fine clothes, but is much cut up, I hear, by his father’s death. Please send me a tremendous whistle; mine is not loud enough to wake Omar at the other end of the cabin; a boatswain’s whistle or something in the line of the ‘last trump’ is needed to wake sleeping Arabs.
My pretty neighbour has gone back into the town. She was a nice little woman, and amused me a good deal. I see that a good respectable Turkish hareem is an excellent school of useful accomplishments—needlework, cookery, etc. But I observed that she did not care a bit for the Pasha, by whom she had a child, but was extremely fond of ‘her lady,’ as she politely called her, also that like every Circassian I ever knew, she regarded being sold as quite a desirable fate, and did not seem sorry for her parents, as the negroes always are.
The heat has been prodigious, but I am a good deal better. Yesterday the Nile had risen above ten cubits, and the cutting of the Kalig took place. The river is pretty full now, but they say it will go down fast this year. I don’t know why. It looks very beautiful, blood-red and tossed into waves by the north wind fighting the rapid stream.
Good-bye dear Alick, I hope to hear a better account of your health soon.