Notes from Egypt

Dearest Alick,

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

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

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

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

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