Notes from Egypt

‘If in the street I led thee, dearest, Though the veil hid thy face divine, They who beheld thy graceful motion Would stagger as though drunk with wine. Nay, e’en the holy Sheykh, while praying For guidance in the narrow way, Must needs leave off, and on the traces Of thine enchanting footsteps stray. O ye who go down in the boats to Dumyat, Cross, I beseech ye, the stream to Budallah; Seek my beloved, and beg that she will not Forget me, I pray and implore her by Allah. ‘Fair as two moons is the face of my sweetheart, And as to her neck and her bosom—Mashallah. And unless to my love I am soon reunited Death is my portion—I swear it by Allah.’

Thus sings Ali Asleemee, the most debraillé of my crew, a hashshásh A smoker or eater of hasheeshs (hemp)., but a singer and a good fellow. The translation is not free, though the sentiments are. I merely rhymed Omar’s literal word-for-word interpretation. The songs are all in a similar strain, except one funny one abusing the ‘Sheykh el-Beled, may the fleas bite him.’ Horrid imprecation! as I know to my cost, for after visiting the Coptic monks at Girgeh I came home to the boat with myriads. Sally said she felt like Rameses the Great, so tremendous was the slaughter of the active enemy.

I had written the first page just as I got to Siout and was stopped by bad news of Janet; but now all is right again, and I am to meet her in Cairo, and she proposes a jaunt to Suez and to Damietta. I have got a superb illumination to-night, improvised by Omar in honour of the Prince of Wales’s marriage, and consequently am writing with flaring candles, my lantern being on duty at the masthead, and the men are singing an epithalamium and beating the tarabookeh as loud as they can.

You will have seen my letter to my mother, and heard how much better I am for the glorious air of Nubia and the high up-country. Already we are returning into misty weather. I dined and spent the day with Wassef and his Hareem, such an amiable, kindly household. I was charmed with their manner to each other, to the slaves and family. The slaves (all Muslims) told Omar what an excellent master they had. He had meant to make a dance-fantasia, but as I had not good news it was countermanded. Poor Wassef ate his boiled beans rather ruefully, while his wife and I had an excellent dinner, she being excused fasting on account of a coming baby. The Copt fast is no joke, neither butter, milk, eggs nor fish being allowed for fifty-five days. They made Sally dine with us, and Omar was admitted to wait and interpret. Wassef’s younger brother waited on him as in the Bible, and his clerk, a nice young fellow, assisted. Black slaves brought the dishes in, and capital the food was. There was plenty of joking between the lady and Omar about Ramadan, which he had broken, and the Nasranee fast, and also about the number of wives allowed, the young clerk intimating that he rather liked that point in Islam. I have promised to spend ten or twelve days at their house if ever I go up the Nile again. I have also promised to send Wassef all particulars as to the expense, etc. of educating his boy in England, and to look after him and have him to our house in the holidays. I can’t describe how anxiously kind these people were to me. One gets such a wonderful amount of sympathy and real hearty kindness here. A curious instance of the affinity of the British mind for prejudice is the way in which every Englishman I have seen scorns the Eastern Christians, and droll enough that sinners like Kinglake and I should be the only people to feel the tie of the ‘common faith’ (vide ‘Eothen’). A very pious Scotch gentleman wondered that I could think of entering a Copt’s house, adding that they were the publicans (tax-gatherers) of this country, which is partly true. I felt inclined to mention that better company than he or I had dined with publicans, and even sinners.

The Copts are evidently the ancient Egyptians. The slightly aquiline nose and long eye are the very same as the profiles of the tombs and temples, and also like the very earliest Byzantine pictures; du reste, the face is handsome, but generally sallow and rather inclined to puffiness, and the figure wants the grace of the Arabs. Nor has any Copt the thoroughbred, distingué look of the meanest man or woman of good Arab blood. Their feet are the long-toed, flattish foot of the Egyptian statue, while the Arab foot is classically perfect and you could put your hand under the instep. The beauty of the Ababdeh, black, naked, and shaggy-haired, is quite marvellous. I never saw such delicate limbs and features, or such eyes and teeth.

Cairo, March 19.

After leaving Siout I caught cold. The worst of going up the Nile is that one must come down again and find horrid fogs, and cold nights with sultry days. So I did not attempt Sakhara and the Pyramids, but came a day before my appointed time to Cairo. Up here in the town it is much warmer and dryer, and my cough is better already. I found all your letters in many volumes, and was so excited over reading them that I could not sleep one moment last night, so excuse dulness, but I thought you’d like to know I was safe in Briggs’ bank, and expecting Janet and Ross to-night.