Notes from Egypt

Dearest Alick,

The real summer heat—the Skems el-Kebeer (big sun) has fairly set in, and of course I am all the better. You would give my camel a good backsheesh if you saw how prodigiously fat I have grown on her milk; it beats codliver-oil hollow. You can drink a gallon without feeling it, it is so easy of digestion.

I have lent the dahabieh to Mustapha and to one or two more, to go to Keneh on business, and when she returns (which will be to-day) I shall make ready to depart too, and drop down stream. Omar wants me to go down to Damietta, to ‘amuse my mind and dilate my stomach’ a little; and I think of doing so.

Palgrave was here about a fortnight ago, on Mustapha’s and Mariette’s business. ‘By God! this English way is wonderful,’ said a witness, ‘that English Bey questioned me till my stomach came out.’ I loved Mustapha Bey, who was with him; such a nice, kind, gentle creature, and very intelligent and full of good sense. I rejoice to hear that he returns my liking, and has declared himself ‘one of my darweeshes.’ Talking of darweeshes reminds me of the Festival of Sheykh Gibrieel this year. I had forgotten the day, but in the evening some people came for me to go and eat some of the meat of the Sheykh, who is also a good patron of mine, they say; being a poor man’s saint, and of a humble spirit, it is said he favours me. There was plenty of meat and melocheea and bread; and then zikrs of different kinds, and a Gama el Fokara (assembly of the poor). Gama is the true word for Mosque—i.e., Meeting, which consists in a great circle of men seated thick on the ground, with two poets facing each other, who improvise religious verses. On this occasion the rule of the game was to end each stanza with a word having the sound of wahed (one), or el Had (the first). Thus one sung: ‘Let a man take heed how he walks,’ etc., etc.; and ‘pray to God not to let him fall,’ which sound like Had. And so they went on, each chanting a verse alternately. One gesticulated almost as much as an Italian and pronounced beautifully; the other was quiet, but had a nice voice, and altogether it was very pretty. At the end of each verse the people made a sort of chorus, which was sadly like the braying of asses. The zikr of the Edfoo men was very curious. Our people did it quietly, and the moonsheed sang very sweetly—indeed ‘the song of the moonsheed is the sugar in the sherbet to the Zikkeer,’ said a man who came up when it was over, streaming with perspiration and radiant with smiles. Some day I will write to you the whole ‘grund Idee’ of a zikr, which is, in fact, an attempt to make present ‘the communion of saints,’ dead or living. As I write arrives the Arooset er-rallee, and my crew furl her big sail quite ‘Bristol fashion.’ My men have come together again, some from Nubia and some from the Delta; and I shall go down with my old lot.

Omar and Achmet have implored me not to take another maid at all; they say they live like Pashas now they have only the lady to please; that it will be a pleasure to ‘lick my shoes clean,’ whereas the boots of the Cameriera were intolerable. The feeling of the Arab servants towards European colleagues is a little like that of ‘niggers’ about ‘mean whites’—mixed hatred, fear, and scorn. The two have done so well to make me comfortable that I have no possible reason for insisting on encumbering myself with ‘an old man of the sea,’ in the shape of a maid; and the difference in cost is immense. The one dish of my dinner is ample relish to their bread and beans, while the cooking for a maid, and her beer and wine, cost a great deal. Omar irons my clothes very tidily, and little Achmet cleans the house as nicely as possible. I own I am quite as much relieved by the absence of the ‘civilized element’ as my retainers are.

Did I describe the Coptic Good Friday? Imagine 450 Rekahs in church! I have seen many queer things, but nothing half so queer as the bobbing of the Copts.

I went the other day to the old church six or eight miles off, where they buried the poor old Bishop who died a week ago. Abu Khom, a Christian shaheed (martyr), is buried there. He appeared to Mustapha’s father when lost in the desert, and took him safe home. On that occasion he was well mounted, and robed all in white, with a litham in over his face. No one dares to steal anything near his tomb, not one ear of corn. He revealed himself long ago to one of the descendants of Abu-l-Hajjaj, and to this day every Copt who marries in Luxor gives a pair of fowls to the family of that Muslim in remembrance of Abu Khom.

I shall leave Luxor in five or six days—and write now to stop all letters in Cairo.

I don’t know what to do with my sick; they come from forty miles off, and sometimes twenty or thirty people sleep outside the house. I dined with the Maōhn last night—‘pot luck’—and was much pleased. The dear old lady was so vexed not to have a better dinner for me that she sent me a splendid tray of baklaweh this morning to make up for it.