Notes from Egypt

Dearest Mutter,

I have got all ready, and shall sail on Saturday. My men have baked the bread, and received their wages to go to Luxor and bring the boat back to let. It is turning cold, but I feel none the worse for it, though I shall be glad to go. I’ve had a dreary, worrying time here, and am tired of hearing of all the meannesses and wickedness which constitute the on dits here. Not that I hear much, but there is nothing else. I shall be best at Luxor now the winter has set in so early. You would laugh at such winter when one sits out all day under an awning in English summer clothes, and wants only two blankets at night; but all is comparative ici bas, and I call it cold, and Mabrook ceases to consider his clothes such a grievance as they were to him at first, and takes kindly to a rough capote for the night. I have just been interrupted by my Reis and one of my men, who came in to display the gorgeous printed calico they have bought; one for his Luxor wife and the other for his betrothed up near Assouan. (The latter is about eight years old, and Hosein has dressed her and paid her expenses these five years, as is the custom up in that district.) The Reis has bought a silk head-kerchief for nine shillings, but that was in the marriage contract. So I must see, admire and wish good luck to the finery, and to the girls who are to wear it. Then we had a little talk about the prospects of letting the boat, and, Inshallah, making some money for el gamma, i.e., ‘all our company,’ or ‘all of us together.’ The Reis hopes that the Howagat will not be too outrageous in their ways or given to use the stick, as the solution of every difficulty.

The young Shurafa of Abu-l-Hajjaj came from Gama’l Azhar to-day to bid me goodbye and bring their letters for Luxor. I asked them about the rumours that the Ulema are preaching against the Franks (which is always being said), but they had heard nothing of the sort, and said they had not heard of anything the Franks had done lately which would signify to the Muslims at all. It is not the Franks who press so many soldiers, or levy such heavy taxes three months in advance! I will soon write again. I feel rather like the wandering Jew and long for home and rest, without being dissatisfied with what I have and enjoy, God knows. If I could get better and come home next summer.