Dearest Mutter,
I shall stay on here till it gets colder, and then go up the Nile either in a steamer or
a boat. The old father of my donkey-boy, Hassan, gave me a fine illustration of Arab feeling towards women to-day. I
asked if Abd el-Kader was coming here, as I had heard; he did not know, and asked me if
he were not Achul en-Benàt, a brother of girls. I
prosaically said I did not know if he had sisters. ‘The Arabs, O lady, call that man a
“brother of girls” to whom God has given a clean heart to love all women as his sisters,
and strength and courage to fight for their protection.’ Omar suggested a ‘thorough gentleman’ as the equivalent of Abou Hassan’s
title. Our European galimatias about the ‘smiles of the
fair,’ etc., look very mean beside ‘Achul en Benàt,’ methinks. Moreover, they carry it
into common life. Omar was telling me of some
little family tribulations, showing that he is not a little henpecked. His wife wanted
all his money. I asked how much she had of her own, as I knew she had property. ‘Oh,
ma’am! I can’t speak of that, shame for me if I ask what money she got.’ A man married
at Alexandria , and took home the daily
provisions for the first week; after that he neglected it for two days, and came home
with a lemon in his hand. He asked for some dinner, and his wife placed the stool and
the tray and the washing basin and napkin, and in the tray the lemon cut in quarters.
‘Well, and the dinner?’ ‘Dinner! you want dinner? Where from? What man are you to want
women when you don’t keep them? I am going to the Cadi
to be divorced from you;’ and she did. The man must provide all necessaries for his
Hareem, and if she has money or earns any she spends
it in dress; if she makes him a skullcap or a handkerchief he must pay her for her work.
Tout n’est pas roses for these Eastern tyrants, not
to speak of the unbridled license of tongue allowed to women and children. Zeyneb hectors Omar and I cannot persuade him to check her. ‘How I say anything to it, that
one child?’ Of course, the children are insupportable, and, I fancy, the women little
better.
A poor neighbour of mine lost his little boy yesterday, and came out in the
streets, as usual, for sympathy. He stood under my window leaning his head against the
wall, and sobbing and crying till, literally, his tears wetted the dust. He was too
grieved to tear off his turban or to lament in form, but clasped his hands and cried,
‘Yah weled, yah weled, yah weled’ (O my boy, my
boy). The bean-seller opposite shut his shop, the dyer took no notice but smoked his
pipe. Some people passed on, but many stopped and stood round the poor man, saying
nothing, but looking concerned. Two were well-dressed Copts on handsome donkeys, who
dismounted, and all waited till he went home, when about twenty men accompanied him with
a respectful air. How strange it seems to us to go out into the street and call on the
passers-by to grieve with one! I was at the house of Hekekian Bey the other day when he received a parcel from
his former slave, now the Sultan’s chief eunuch. It contained a very fine photograph of
the eunuch—whose face, though negro, is very intelligent and of charming expression—a
present of illustrated English books, and some printed music composed by the Sultan, Abd
el Aziz, himself. O tempera! O mores! one was a waltz.
The very ugliest and scrubbiest of street dogs has adopted me—like the Irishman who
wrote to Lord Lansdowne that he had
selected him as his patron—and he guards the house and follows me in the street. He is
rewarded with scraps, and Sally cost me a new
tin mug by letting the dog drink out of the old one, which was used to scoop the water
from the jars, forgetting that Omar and Zeyneb could not drink after the poor beast.
Monday.—I went yesterday to the port of Cairo, Boulak, to see Hassaneyn
Effendi about boats. He was gone up the Nile, and I sat with his wife—a very nice
Turkish woman who speaks English to perfection—and heard all sorts of curious things. I
heard the whole story of an unhappy marriage made by Leyla, my hostess’s sister, and
much Cairo gossip. Like all Eastern ladies that I
have seen she complains of indigestion, and said she knew she ought to go out more and
to walk, but custom e contra il nostro decoro.
Mr. Thayer will be back in Egypt on December
15, so I shall embark about that time, as he may want his house here. It is now a little
fresh in the early morning, but like fine English summer weather.
Tuesday.—Since I have been here my cough is nearly gone, and I am better
for having good food again. Omar manages to get
good mutton, and I have discovered that some of the Nile fish is excellent. The abyad, six or eight feet long and very fat, is delicious, and
I am told there are still better; the eels are delicate and good too. Maurice might hook an abyad, but how would he land him? The worst is that everything is just
double the price of last year, as, of course, no beef can be eaten at all, and the
draught oxen being dead makes labour dear as well. The high Nile was a small misfortune
compared to the murrain. There is a legend about it, of course. A certain Sheykh
el-Beled (burgomaster) of some place—not mentioned—lost his cattle, and being rich
defied God, said he did not care, and bought as many more; they died too, and he
continued impenitent and defiant, and bought on till he was ruined, and now he is
sinking into the earth bodily, though his friends dig and dig without ceasing night and
day. It is curious how like the German legends the Arab ones are. All those about
wasting bread wantonly are almost identical. If a bit is dirty, Omar carefully gives it to the dog; if clean, he keeps it in a
drawer for making breadcrumbs for cutlets; not a bit must fall on the floor. In other
things they are careless enough, but das liebe Brod is
sacred—vide
Grimm’s Deutsche
Sagen. I am constantly struck with resemblances to German customs. A
Fellah wedding is very like the German Bauern hochzeit firing of guns and display of household
goods, only on a camel instead of a cart. I have been trying to get a teacher of Arabic,
but it is very hard to find one who knows any European language, and the consular
dragoman asks four dollars a lesson. I must wait
till I get to Thebes, where I think a certain
young Said can teach me. Meanwhile I am beginning to
understand rather more and to speak a very little. Please direct to me to Briggs and Co. at Cairo; if I am gone, the letters will follow up the river.