Notes from Egypt

Dearest Alick,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ESNEH, Saturday, April 30.

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

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

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

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