 Letter Fifty-Eight of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain To Mrs. Austin, Luxor, April 3, 1865 Dearest Mutter, I have just finished a letter to Alec to go buy a steamer today. You will see it, so I will go on with the stories about the riots. Here is a thing happening within a few weeks and within sixty miles, and already the events assume a legendary character. Ahmed Ataib is not dead, and where the bullets hit him he shows little marks like burns. The affair began thus. A certain cop had a Muslim slave girl who could read the Quran and who served him. He wanted her to be as harem and she refused, and went to Ahmed Ataib, who offered money for her to her master. He refused it and insisted on his rights, backed by the government, and thereupon Ahmed proclaimed a revolt, and the people, tired of taxes and oppressions, said we will go with thee. This is the only bit of religious legend connected with the business, but Ahmed Ataib still sits in the island, invisible to the Turkish soldiers who are still there. Now for a little fact. The man who told me fourteen hundred had been beheaded was Hasan Sheikh of the Ababda, who went to Gow to bring up the prisoners. The boat stopped a mile above Luxor, and my Mohammed, a most quiet, respectable man, and not at all a romancier, went up in her to El-Mantana. I rode with him along the island. When we came near the boat she went on as far as the point of the island, and I turned back after only looking at her from the bank, and smelling the smell of a slave ship. It never occurred to me, I owned, that the bay on board had fled before a solitary woman on a donkey, but so it was. He told the Ababda Sheikh on board not to speak to me, or to let me on board, and told the captain to go a mile or two further. He heard all this. He found on board one hundred prisoners, less two, ninety-eight. Among them the mudur of sahaj, a Turk, in chains and wooden handcuffs like the rest. Mohammed took him some coffee and was civil to him. He says the poor creatures are dreadfully ill-used by the Ababda and the Nubians, Barbary, who guard them. It is more curious than you can conceive to hear all the people say. It is just like going back four or five centuries at least, but with a heterogeneous element of steamers, electric telegraphs, and the bay's dread of the English lady's pen. At least Mohammed attributed his flight to fear of that weapon. It was quite clear that the European eyes were dreaded, as the boat stopped three miles above Luxor and its Dahabiyas, and had all its things carried at that distance. Yusuf and his uncle want to take me next year to Mecca. The good folks in Mecca would hardly look for heretical face under the green veil of Asharifata of Abul-Hajjaj. The Hajis, pilgrims, have just started from here to Qasir with camels and donkeys, but most are on foot. They are in great numbers this year. The women chanted and drummed all night on the riverbank, and it was fine to see fifty or sixty men in a line praying after their Imam with the red glow of the sunset behind them. The prayer in common is quite a drill and very stately to see. There are always quite as many women as men. Men wonders how they stand the march and the hardships. My little Akhmet grows more pressing with me to take him. I will take him to Alexandria, I think, and leave him in Janet's house to learn more house service. He is a dear little boy and very useful. I don't suppose his brother will object, and he has no parents. Akhmet Ibn Mustafa also coaxes me to take him with me to Alexandria and to try to persuade his father to send him to England to Mr. Fowler. I wished most heartily I could. He is an uncommon child in every way, full of ardor to learn and do something, and yet childish and winning and full of fun. His pretty brown face is quite a pleasure to me. His remarks on the New Testament teach me as many things as I can teach him. The boy is pious and not at all ill-taught. He is much pleased to find so little difference between the teachings of the Qur'an and the Angel. He wanted me, in case Omar did not go with me, to take him to serve me. Here there is no idea of its being derogatory for a gentleman's son to wait on one who teaches him. It is positively incumbent. He does all menial offices for his mother, hands coffee, waits at table, or helps Omar in anything if I have company. Nor will he eat or smoke before me, or sit till I tell him. It is like service in the Middle Ages. End of LETTER XVIII Read by Subella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter 59 Of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Mrs. Ross Luxor, April 3, 1865 Dearest Janet The weather has set in so horrid, as to dust, that I shall be glad to get away as soon as I can. If you have bought a Dahabia for me, of course I will await its arrival. If not, I will have two small boats from Kenna, whereby I shall avoid sticking in this very low water. Sheikh Hassan goes down in his boat in twenty days, and urges me to travel under his escort. As of course the poor devils who are out on their keeping after the gow business have no means of living left but robbery, and Sheikh Hassan's party is good for seven or eight guns. You will laugh at my listening to such a cowardly proposition, on my part, but my friends here are rather bent upon it, and Hassan is a capital fellow. If therefore the Dahabia is in room nature and can start at once, well and good. April 14 The Dahabia sounds an excellent bargain to me, and good for you also to get your people to ask one first. Many thanks for the arrangement. Your version of our massacre is quite curious to us here. I know very intimately the Sheikh el-Arab who helped catch the poor people, and also a young Turk who stood by while Fadi al-Pasha had the men laid down by ten at a time and chopped with pioneers' axes. My Turkish friend, a very good-humored young fellow, quite admired the affair and expressed a desire to do likewise to all the Felaheen in Egypt. I have seen with my own eyes a second boatload of prisoners. I wish to God the Pasha knew the deep exasperation which his subordinates are causing. I do not like to say all I hear. As to Ulima, Qadis, Muftis, etc., I know for many towns and villages, and all say we are Muslims but we should thank God to send Europeans to govern us. The feeling is against the government and the Turks up here, not against Christians. A Coptic friend of mine has lost all his uncle's family at Gow, all were shot down, copped and Christian alike. As to Haji Sultan, who lies and chains at Kenna and his family up at Kizna, a better man never lived, nor one more liberal to Christians. Cops ate of his bread as freely as Muslims. He lies there because he is distantly related by marriage to Akmet at Ta'ib. The real reason is because he is wealthy and some enemy covets his goods. Ask Mr. Mounier what he knows. Perhaps I know even more of the feelings as I am almost adopted by the Abul Haji Jiyah, and sit every evening with some party or another of decent men. I assure you I am in despair at all I see, and if the soldiers do come it will be worse than the cattle disease. Are not the Kawases bad enough? Do they not buy in the market at their own prices and beat the Sakhas in sole payment for the skins of water? Who denies it here? Cairo is like Paris. Things are kept sweet there, but up here—of course, Effandina, hears the smooth prophecies of the tyrants whom he sees up river. When I wrote before I knew nothing of a certain. But now I have eyewitnesses testimony, and I say that the Pasha deceives or is deceived. I hope the latter. An order from him did stop the slaughter of women and children, which Fadil Pasha was about to effect. To turn to less wretched matters, I will come right down Alexandria with the boat. I shall rejoice to see you again. Possibly the Ababda may come with me, and I hope shake Yusuf, my chaplain, as Arthur Taylor called him, we shall be quite a little fleet. CHAPTER VIII. Yesterday was the Buram. I rejoice to say, and I have lots of physics to make up, for all the stomachs damaged by Ramadan. I have persuaded Mr. Fowler, the engineer, who was with Lord Dudley, to take my dear little pupil Ahmed, son of Ibn Mustafa, to learn the business at Leeds, instead of idling in his father's house here. I will give the child a letter to you in case he should go to London. He has been reading the Gospels with me at his own desire. I refused till I had asked his father's consent, and shake Yusuf, who heard me, begged me, by all means, to make him read it carefully, so as to guard him against the heretical inventions he might be beset with among the English of the vulgar sword. What a poser for a missionary! I sent down the poor black lad with Arakil Bey. He took leave of me with his ugly face all blubbered like a sentimental hippopotamus. He said for himself he wished to stay with me, but then what would his boy, his little master, do? There was only a stepmother who would take all the money, and who else would work for the boy? Arakil Akmet was charmed to seek kair go, of whom he chose to be horribly jealous, and to be wroth at all he did for me. Now the sheikh el-ballad of Badia has carried off my watchman, and the Christian sheikh el-hara of our quarter of Luxor has taken the boy Yusuf for the canal. The former I successfully resisted, and got back Mansur, not indeed in Columas, for he had been handcuffed and bastionadoed to make me pay two hundred piastras. So he bore it like a man rather than asked me for the money, and was thereupon surrendered. But the copt will be a tougher business. He will want more money, and be more resolved to get it. Varimus. I must, I suppose, go to the Nazir at the canal, a Turk, and beg off my donkey-boy. I saw Hassan sheikh al-Ababda yesterday, who was loud in praise of your good looks and gracious manners. Masha'Allah, thy master is a sweet man, O lady. He was Miram, and lots of Harim came in their best clothes to wish me a happy year, and enjoyed themselves much with sweet cakes, coffee, and pipes. Kurshid's wife, whom I cured completely, looked very handsome. Kurshid is a Circassian, a fine young fellow, much shot and hacked about with the Crimean metal. He was Qawas here, and a great friend of mine. He says if I ever want a servant he will go with me anywhere and fight anybody, which I don't doubt in the least. He was a Turkish memeluk, and his condescension in wishing to serve a Christian woman is astounding. His fair face and clear blue eyes, and brisk, neat, soldier-like air contrast curiously with the brown fellow heen. He is like an Englishman, only fairer, and like them too fond of the corbache. What would you say if I appeared in Germany attended by a memeluk with pistols, sword, dagger, carbine, and corbache, and with a decided and imperious manner the very reverse of the Arab softness, and such a Muslim too, prays five times a day in extra fasts besides Ramadan. I beat my wife, said Kurshid, oh, I beat her well. She talks so, and I am like the English. I don't like too many words. He was quite surprised that I said I was glad my master didn't dislike talking so much. I was talking the other day with Yusuf about people trying to make converts, and I said that eternal betis, oh, they mean well. True, O Lady, perhaps they do mean well. But God says in the noble Quran that he who injures or torments those Christians whose conduct is not evil, merely on account of religion, shall never smell the fragrance of the garden, paradise. Now, when men begin to want to make others change their faith, it is extremely hard for them not to injure or torment them, and therefore I think it better to abstain altogether, and to wish rather to see a Christian a good Christian and a Muslim a good Muslim. No wonder a most pious old scotchman told me that the truth which undeniably existed in the Muslim faith was the work of Satan and the Ulima his ministers. My dear saint of Yusuf, a minister of Satan, I really think I have learnt some Muslim humility in that I endured the harangue and accepted a two-penny tract quite mildly and politely and didn't argue at all. As his friend Satan would have it, the Fikis were reading the Quran in the hall at Omar's expense, who gave a khatma that day, and Omar came in and politely offered him some sweet prepared for the occasion. I have been really amazed at several instances of English fanaticism this year. Why do people come to a Muslim country with such bitter hatred in their stomachs as I have seen three or four times? I feel quite hurt, often, at the way people here thank me for what the poor at home would turn up their noses at. I hardly think a dregoman has been up the river since Rashidi died, but has come to thank me as warmly as if I had done himself some great service, and many to give some little present. While the man was ill, members of the Felaheen brought eggs, pigeons, etc., etc., even a turkey, and food is worth money now, not as it used to be. I am quite weary, too, of hearing of all the frangy I never saw one like thee. Was no one at all ever humane before? For remember I give no money, only a little physique and civility. How the British cottagers would thank ye for nothing, and how I wish my neighbors here could afford to do the same. Very much wrangling Mustafa has got back my boy Yusuf, but the Christian, Sheikh El-Hara, has made his brother pay two pounds, whereet Muhammad looks very rueful. Two hundred men are gone out of our village to the works, and of course the poor harem have not bred to eat, as the men had to take all they had with them. I send you a very pretty story like Tanhauser. There was once a man who loved a woman that lived in the same quarter, but she was true to her husband, and his love was hopeless, and he suffered greatly. One day, as he lay on his carpet, sick with love, one came to him and said, O such a one, thy beloved has died even now, and they are carrying her out to the tomb. So the lover arose and followed the funeral, and hid himself near the tomb, and when all were gone he broke it open, and uncovered the face of his beloved, and looked upon her, and passion overcame him, and he took from the dead that which when living she had ever denied him. But he went back to the city and to his house, in great grief and anguish of mind, and his sin troubled him. So he went to a Qadi, very pious, and learned it in the noble Qur'an, and told him his case, and said, O my master the Qadi, can such a one as I obtain salvation and the forgiveness of God? I fear not. And the Qadi gave him a staff of polished wood which he held in his hand, and said, Who knoweth the mercy of God in his justice but God alone? Take then this staff and stick it in the sand beside the tomb, where thou didst sin and leave it the night, and go next morning and come and tell me what thou shalt find, and may the Lord pardon thee, for thy sin is great. And the man went and did as the Qadi had desired, and went again at sunrise, and behold the staff had sprouted and was covered with leaves and fruit, and he returned and told the Qadi what had happened, and the Qadi replied, Praise be to God, the merciful, the compassionate. CHAPTER XIX Since I wrote last I have received the box with the cheese quite fresh, and very good at taste, and the various things. Nothing called forth such a shout of joy for me is your photo of the village pot-house. How green and fresh and tidy. Many mashalas have been uttered over the bayid al-fellaheen, peasants' house of England. The railings especially are a great marvel. I have also heard from Janet that Ross has bought me a boat for two hundred pounds, which is to take four of his agents to Aswan, and then come back for me. So all my business is settled, and, in shella, I shall depart in another three or four weeks. The weather is quite cool and fresh again, but the winds very violent, and the dust pours over us like water from the dried-up land, as well as from the Guma Mountain. It is miserably uncomfortable, but my health is much better again, in spite of all. The haqqeen business goes on at a great rate. I think, on an average, I have four sick a day. Sometimes a dozen. A whole gypsy camp are great customers. The poor souls will bring all manner of gifts. It goes to my heart to eat, but they can't bear to be refused. They are astounded to hear that people of their blood live in England, and that I knew many of their customs, which are the same here. Khurshid Agha came to take final leave, being appointed to Kenna. He had been at Gao, and had seen Fadi al-Pasha sit and make the soldiers lay sixty men down on their backs, by ten at a time, and chop them to death with their prisoners' axes. He estimated the people killed—men, women, and children at sixteen hundred. But Mounier tells me it was over two thousand. Sheikh Hassan agreed exactly with Khurshid, only the Arab was full of horror and the Circassian full of exultation. His talk was exactly what we all once heard about pandies, and he looked and talked and laughed so like a fine young English soldier that I was ashamed to call him the kelb, dog, which rose to my tongue, and I bestowed it on Fadi al-Pasha instead. I must also say, on behalf of my own countrymen, that they had provocation, while here there was none. Poor Hagi Sultan lies in chains at Kenna, one of the best and kindness of men. I am to go and take secret messages to him, and money from certain men of religion to bribe the mutur with. The Sharafa, who have asked me to do this, are from another place, as well as a few of the Abul Haji Jiyah. A very great Sharif, indeed, from Lower Egypt, said to me the other day, Thou knowest, if I am a Muslim or no, well, I pray to the most merciful to send us Europeans to govern us, and to deliver us from these wicked men. We were all sitting after the funeral of one of the Sharifa, and I was sitting between the Sharif of Luxor and the Imam, and this was said before thirty or forty men, all Sharifa. No one said no, and many assented aloud. The Sharif asked me to lend him the New Testament. It was a pretty copy, and when he admired it I said, for me to thee, O my master the Sharif, write in it as we do in remembrance of a friend, the gift of a Nazreniya who loves the Muslimine. The old man kissed the book and said, I will write, moreover, to a Muslim who loves all such Christians, and after this the old shake of Abu Ali took me aside and asked me to go as messenger to Hagi Sultan, for if one of them took the money it would be taken from them, and the man get no good by it. Soldiers are now to be quartered in the Sa'eed, a new plague worse than all the rest. Do not the Kawasas already rob the poor enough? They fix their own price in the market and beat the Saka's as sole payment. What will the soldiers do? The taxes are being illegally levied on lands which are sharaji, i.e. totally unwoddered by the last Nile and therefore exempt by law and the people are driven to desperation. I feel sure there will be more troubles as soon as there arises any other demagogue like Ahmed Ataib to incite the people, and now every Arab sympathizes with him. Janet has written to me the Cairo version of the affair cooked for the European taste, and monstrous it is. The Pasha accuses some shake of the Arabs of having gone from Upper Egypt to India to stir up the mutiny against us. Poor Qua Pa, to conspire in Paris or London, it is too childish to talk of a poor Sa'eed Arab going to a country of whose language and whereabouts he is totally ignorant in order to conspire against people who never heard him. You may suppose how Yusuf and I talk by ourselves of all these things. He urged me to try hard to get my husband here as consul-general, assuming that he would feel as I do. I said my master is not young, and to adjust man the wrong of such a place would be a martyrdom. Truly, thou has said it, but it is a martyr we Arabs want, shall not the reward of him who suffers daily vexation for his brethren's sake be equal to that of him who dies in battle for the faith? If thou were to man, I would say to thee, Take the labour and sorrow upon thee, and thine own heart will repay thee. He too said, like the old shake, I only pray for Europeans to rule us. Now the Felaheen are really worse off than any slaves. I am sick of telling the daily oppressions and robberies. If a man has a sheep, the mud-air comes and eats it. If a tree it goes to the Nazir's kitchen. My poor Saka is beaten by the Kawases in sole payment of his skins of water, and then people wonder my poor friends tell lies and bury their money. I now know everybody in my village and the cunning women have set up the theory that my eye is lucky. So I am asked to go and look at young brides, visit houses that are building, inspect cattle, etc., as a bringer of good luck, which gives me many a curious sight. I went a few days ago to the wedding of handsome Sheikh Hassan the Ababda, who married the butcher's pretty little daughter. The group of women and girls, lighted by the lantern, which Ahmed carried up for me, was the most striking thing I have seen. The bride, a lovely girl of ten or eleven, all in scarlet, a tall dark slave of Hassan's, blazing with gold and silver necklaces and bracelets, with long, twisted locks of coal-black hair and such glittering eyes and teeth, the wonderful wrinkled old woman and the pretty, wondering yet fearless children were beyond description. The mother brought the bride up to me and unveiled her and asked me to let her kiss my hand and to look at her. I said all the usual Bismillah masalaz, and after a time went to the men who were eating, Alba Hassan who sat apart and begged me to sit by him and whispered anxious inquiries about his Arusha's looks. After a time he went to visit her and returned in half an hour very shy, and covering his face in hand and kissed the hands of the chief guests. Then we all departed and the girl was taken to look at the Nile, and then to her husband's house. Last night he gave me a dinner, a very good dinner indeed, in his house which is equal to a very poor cattle shed at home. We were only five. Sheikh Yusuf, Omar, an elderly merchant and I. Hassan wanted to serve us, but I made him sit. The merchant, a well-bred man of the world who has enjoyed life and married wives everywhere, had arrived that day and found a daughter of his dead here. He said he felt very miserable, and everyone told him not to mind and consoled him, oddly enough, to English ideas. Then people told stories. Omar's was a good version of the man and wife who would not shut the door and agreed that the first to speak should do it. Very funny indeed. Yusuf told a pretale of a sultan who married a bent El Arab daughter of the Bedouin, and how she would not live in his palace, and said she was no felaha to dwell in houses, and scorned his silk clothes and sheep killed for her daily, and made him live in the desert with her. A black slave told a prosy tale about thieves, and the rest were more long than pointed. Hassan's Arab feelings were hurt at the small quantity of meat set before me. They can't kill a sheep now for an honored guest. But I told him no greater honor could be paid to us English than to let us eat lentils and onions like one of the family, so that we might not feel as strangers among them, which delighted all the party. After a time the merchant told us his heart was somewhat dilated, as a man might say his toothache had evaded, and we said praise be to God all around. A short time ago my poor friend the Ma'un had a terrible tile fall on his head. His wife, two married daughters, and nine miscellaneous children arrived on a sudden, and the poor man is now tasting the pleasures which Abraham once endured between Sarah and Hagar. I visited the ladies, and found a very ancient Sarah and a daughter of wonderful beauty. A young man here, a Sharif, has asked me to open negotiations for a marriage for him with the Ma'un's granddaughter, a little girl of eight, so you see how completely I am one of the family. My boat has not yet made its appearance. I am very well indeed now, in spite or perhaps because of the gray heat. But there is a great deal of sickness, chiefly dysentery. I never get less than four new patients a day, and my practice has become quite a serious business. I spent all day on Friday in the Ababda quarters, where Sheikh Hassan and his slave Rama were both uncommonly ill. Both are all right now. Rama is the nicest negro I ever knew, and a very great friend of mine. He is a most excellent, honest, sincere man, and an offendee, i.e., rites and reads, which is more than his master can do. He has seen all the queer people in the interior of Africa. The shake of the Bishareen, eight days' journey from Aswan, has invited me and promises me all the milk and meat I can eat. They have nothing else. They live on a high mountain and are very fine, handsome people. If only I were strong I could go to very odd places where frangies are not. Read a very stupid novel as a story called Le secret du bonheur, it gives the truest impression of the manners of Arabs that I have read, by Ernest Fedeau. According to his book, I shoot, we are brothers. The carousant ways of Arabs are so well described. It is the same here, the people come and pat and stroke me with their hands, and one corner of my brown abaya is faded with much kissing. I am hailed as sit betana, our own lady, and now the people are really enthusiastic because I refuse the offer of some kawases as a guard which a bimbashi made me, as if I would have such fellows to help bully my friends. The said bimbashi, next in rank to a bay, a course man like an Arnut, stopped here a day and a night and played his little Turkish game, telling me to beware, for the Ulima hated all Franks and set the people against us, and telling the Arabs that Christian ha-keems were all given to poison Muslims. So at night I dropped in at the mouns with Sheikh Yusuf carrying my lantern, and was loudly hailed with Asalaam alayki from the old Sharif himself, who began praising the gospel I had given him, and me at the same time. Yusuf had a little reed in his hand, the kalim for writing, about two feet long in the size of a quill. I took it and showed it to the bimbashi and said, Behold the nebut, wherewith we are all to be murdered by this shake of the religion. The bimbashi's bristly moustache bristled savagely, for he felt that the Arab dogs and the Christian kanzira, feminine pig, were laughing at it together. Another steamboat-load of prisoners from Gao has just gone up. A little comfort is derived here from the news that, praise be to God, Musa Pasha, Governor of the Sudan, is dead and gone to hell. It must take no trifle to send him there, judging by the quiet way in which Fadil Pasha is mentioned. You will think me a complete rebel, but I may say to you what most people would think, like my nonsense, that one's pity becomes a perfect passion when one sits among the people, as I do, and sees it all. Least of all, can I forgive those among Europeans and Christians who can help to break these bruised reeds. However, in Cairo and Morsdill in Alexandria, all is quite different. There the same system which has been so successfully copied in France prevails. The capital is petted at the expense of the Felahine. Prices are regulated in Cairo for meat and bread as they are or were in Paris, and the dangerous classes enjoy all sorts of exemptions. Just like France, the Kyrines eat the bread and the Felahine the stick. The people here used to dislike Munier who arrived poor and grew rich and powerful, but they all bless him now and say at El Montana a man eats his own meat and not the corbache of the motor. And Munier has refused soldiers, as I refuse them on my small account, and please God he will never repent it. Yusuf says, what the Turkish government fears is not for your safety, but lest we should learn to love you too well. And it is true. Here there is but one voice, let the Franks come and let us have the laws of the Christians. In Cairo the Franks have dispelled this deuce illusion and done the Turks work as if they were paid for it. But here come only travelers who pay with money and not with stick, a degree of generosity not enough to be adored. I perceive that I am a boar, but you will forgive my indignant sympathy with the kind people who treat me so well. Yusuf asked me to let the English papers know about the Gau business. An alim ed din u islam would feign call for help to the times. Strange changes in signs of the times. These are they not so? I went to church on Good Friday with the cops. The scene was very striking. The priest dressed like the beautiful crusader in white robes with crimson crosses. One thing has my hearty admiration. The few children who are taken to church are allowed to play. Oh, my poor little Protestant fellow Christians, can you conceive a religion so delightful as that which permits peep-bow behind the curtains of the sanctuary? I saw little Brutus and Skendaria at it at church time, and the priest only patted their little heads as he carried the sacrament out to the harem. Fancy the parson kindly patting a noisy boy's head instead of the beetle whacking him. I am entirely reconciled to the Coptic rules. End of Letters sixty-one, read by Cibela Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letters sixty-two of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, Nile Boat, Urania, May, eighteen-sixty-five. Happy as I was in the prospect of seeing you all and miserable as poor Upper Egypt has become, I could not leave without a paying. Our Biram was not gay. There was horse-riding for Sheikh Gabriel, the cousin of Abul Haggag, and the scene was prettier than I ever saw. My old friend Eunice the Sharif insisted on showing me that at eighty-five he could still handle a horse and throw a garride for Sheikh Gabriel and the lady, as he said. Then arrived the Mufedish of Zinnia with his gay attendance and filled the little square in front of the Qadi's castellated house, where we were sitting. The young Sheikh of Salamiya rode beautifully, and there was some excellent Nabut play, sort of very severe quarter-staff peculiar to the Felaheen. Next day was the great dinner given by Muhammad and Mustafa outside of Muhammad's house opposite Sheikh Gabriel's tomb, two hundred men ate at his gate. I went to see it and was, of course, asked to eat. Can one like thee eat the melokia of the Felaheen? So I joined a party of five round a little wooden tray, tucked up my sleeve and ate, dipping the bread into the melokia, which is like very sloppy spinach but much nicer. Then came the master and his servants to deal the pieces of meat out of a great basket, sodden meat, and like Benjamin my piece was the largest, so I tore off a bit and handed it to each of my companions, who said, God take thee safe and happy to thy place and thy children, and bring thee back to us in safety to eat the meat of the festival together once more. The moon rose clear and bright behind the one tall palm tree that overhangs the tomb of Sheikh Gabriel. He is a saint of homely tastes, and will not have a dome over him or a cover for his tomb, which is only surrounded by a wall, breast tie, enclosing a small square bit of ground, with the rough tomb on one side. At each corner was set up a flag, and a few dim lanterns hung overhead. The two hundred men eating were quite noiseless, and as they rose, one by one washed their hands and went. The crowd melted away like a vision. But before all were gone came the Balook, or sub magistrate, a Turkish jack in office, with the manners of a zuvav turned parish beetle. He began to sneer at the melokia of the Felaheen, and swore he could not eat it if he sat before it one thousand years. Hereupon Omar began to chafe him. Eat, O Bulak Pasha, and if it swells thy belly the lady will give thee of the physic of the English to clean thy stomach upwards and downwards of all thou hast eaten of the food of the Felaheen. The Bulak is notorious for his exactions, his eating the people, so there was a great laugh. Poor Omar was very ill next day, and every one thought the Balook had given him the eye. Then came the Mufedish in state to pay his duvwars to the shake in the tomb. He came and talked to Mostafa and Yusuf and enumerated the people taken for the works, two hundred from Luxor, four hundred from Karnak, three hundred and ten from Xenia, three hundred and twenty from Biyadiyah, and three hundred and eighty from Salamiah, a good deal more than half the adult men to go for sixty days, leaving their fields uncultivated and their harem and children hungry, where they have to take all the food for themselves. I rose, sick at heart, from the Mufedish's harsh voice, and went down to listen to the moonsheeds chanting at the tomb, and the zik hears strange sobbing, Allah, Allah. I leaned on the mud wall, watching the slender figures swaying in the moonlight, when a tall, handsome Fela came up in his brown shirt, felt libda, skull-cap, with his blue-cotton Malaya tied up and full of dried bread on his back. The type of the Egyptian. He stood close by me and prayed for his wife and children. Ask our God to pity them, O Sheik, and to feed them while I'm away. Thou knowest how my wife worked all night to bake all the wheat for me, and that there is none left for her and the children. He then turned to me and took my hand and went on. Thou knowest this lady, O Sheik Gabriel, take her happy and well to her place and bring her back to us, El Fata Yabeshushish, when we set it together. I could have laid my head on Sheik Gabriel's wall and howled. I thanked him as well as I could for caring about one like me while his own troubles were so heavy. I shall never forget that tall, athletic figure and the gentle brown face with the eleven days' moon of Zalhega and the shadow of the palm tree. That was my farewell. The voice of the miserable is with thee. Shall God not hear it? Next day Omar had a sharp attack of fever and was delirious. It lasted only two days, but left him very weak, and the anxiety and trouble was great, for my helping hands were as awkward as they were willing. In a few days arrived the boat, Urania. She is very nice indeed. A small saloon, two good berths, bath and cabinet, and very large khazna, stern cabin. She is dirty, but will be extremely comfortable when cleaned and painted. On the fifteenth we sailed. Dick Youssef went with me to Kenna, Mustafa and Saeed going by land, and one of Haji Sultan's disciples and several Luxor men were deck passengers. The Sharif gave me the bread and jars of butter for his grandsons in Gamal Azhar and came to see me off. We sat on the deck outside as there was a crowd to say goodbye, and had a lot of harem in the cabin. The old Sharif made me sit down on the carpet close to him, and then said we sit here like two lovers. At eighty-five even an Arab and a Sharif may be in Gullyard. So I cried, O Sharif, what if Omar tells my master the secret thou hast let out? It is not well of thee. There was a great laugh which ended in the Sharif saying, No doubt thy master is of the best of the people. Let us say the fatah for him. And he called on all the people, El Fatah, for the master of the lady. I hope it has benefited you to be prayed for at Luxor. I had written so far and passed Minya when I fell ill with pleurisy. I have lots more to tell of my journey but am too weak after two weeks in bed, and unable to lie down from suffocation, but I am much better now. A man from the Azhar is reading the Quran from me outside, while another is gone with candles to Syed El Zainet, the fanatics. End of Letter sixty-two Read by Cebella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information please visit LibriVox.org. Letter sixty-three of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, Cairo, June 16th, 1865. Dearest Alec, I will go down to Alexandria in the boat, and Omar will work at her. She wants a great deal of repairing, I find, and his superintendents will save much money. Besides he will do one man's work as he is a much better carpenter than most here, having learned of the English workmen on the railroad. But the raiz says the boat must come out of the water as her bottom is unsound. She is a splendid sailor, I hear, and remarkably comfortable. The beds in the Khazna would do for Jacob Omnium. So when you honor our house you will be happy. The saloon is small, and the berths as usual. Although she is a very handsome shape, but she wants no end of repairs. So Omar is consoled at being left, because he will save our money a great deal by piecing sails, and cutting and contriving, and scraping and painting himself. Only he is afraid for me. However, Allah kareen. I have a very good raiz, I think. The usual tight little black fellow from near Aswan, very neat and active and good-tempered, the same cross-steersman that we had up to Bedrashayn, but he knows his work well. We had contrary gales the whole way. My men worked all they possibly could, and pulled the rope all day and rode all night, day after day, but we were twenty-eight days getting down. I can't ride any more. I am truly grieved to hear of your wrist and to see your riding look cramped. I arrived here on Thursday after a splendid passage and was very comfortable on board. I found Monsieur Eulannier waiting for me, and Omar, of course, and I am in Stade at Rosses till my boat gets done, which I am told will be in six days. She will be remarkably comfortable. Omar had caused a sort of divan with a roof and back to be constructed just outside the cabin door, where I always sat at every evening, which will be the most delightful little nest one can conceive. I shall sit like a pasha there. My cough is still very harassing, but my chest less tight and painful, and I feel less utterly knocked down. The weather is beautiful here just now, warm and not nearly so damp as usual. Lord Edward St. Marr was on board. He has much of his aunt's pleasantness. Also a very young Bombay merchant, a Muslim who uttered not one syllable to any one but to me. His talk was just like that of a well-bred and intelligent young Englishman. I am glad to say that his views of the State of India were very encouraging. He seemed convinced that the natives were gradually working their way up to more influence, and said, We shall have to thank you for a better form of government by far than any native one would have been. He added, We Muslims have this advantage over the Hindus that our religion is no barrier at all, socially or politically, between us and you, as theirs is. I mean it ought not to be when both faiths are cleared of superstition and fanaticism. He spoke very highly of Sir Bartle Freire, but said, I wish it were possible for more English gentlemen to come out to India. He had been two years in England on mercantile business, and was going back to his brother, Aladdin, much pleased with the English in England. It is one of the most comforting, air-shine-ungan I have seen coming from India. If that sort of good sense is pretty common among the very young men, they will certainly work their way up. I should like to see Bailey's article, though I am quite sick of my book. It is very ungracious of me, but I can't help it. End of Letter sixty-four, read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter sixty-five of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Mrs. Austin, Alexandria, November 2, 1865. Dearest Mother, the boat, like all other things, goes but slowly, however the weather here is unusually dry and fine. I have just been to see my poor friend Citi Zubdeya, widow of Hassanin Effendi, who died in England, and I am filled with admiration at her good sense and courage. She has determined to carry on her husband's business of letting boats herself, and to educate her children to the best of her power in habits of independence. I hope she will be successful, and receive the respect such rare conduct in a Turkish woman deserves from the English. I was much gratified to hear from her how kindly she had been treated in Glasgow. She said that nothing that could be done for her was left undone. She arrived this morning and I went to see her directly, and was really astonished at all she said about her plans for herself and her children. Poor thing! It is a sad blow, for she and Hassanin were as thoroughly united as any Europeans could be. I went afterwards to my boat, which I hope will be done in five or six days. I am extremely impatient to be off. She will be a most charming boat, both comfortable and pretty. The boom for the big sail is new, and I explained, Why, you have broken the new boom and mended it with leather. Omar had put on a sham splice to avert the evil eye from such a fine new piece of wood. Of course I dare not have the blemish removed, or gare the first puff of wind, besides it is too characteristic. There is some cholera about again, I hear, ten deaths yesterday, so Elanye tells me. I fancy the rush of Europeans back again, each bringing seven other devils worse than himself is the cause of it. I think I am beginning to improve a little. My cough has been terribly harassing, especially at night, but the weather is very good, cool, and not damp. End of Letter sixty-five, read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter sixty-six of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Mrs. Austin, Cairo, Monday, November twenty-seventh, eighteen sixty-five. Dearest Mutter. I arrived here last night and found a whole heap of letters, and yours I will answer first. I had no heart to write any more from Alexandria, where I was worried out of all courage and strength. At last, after endless delays and vexations, the Dahabia was tant bien, comal, ready. Talk of Arab Dwaddle. After what I went through, and now I have to wait here for fresh repairs, as we came up bailing all the way, and I fear cursing the Christian workmen who had bungled so shamefully. However, that is over, and I am much better as to my cough. Indeed it is all but gone. Omar was very ill, having had dysentery for two months, but he too is well again. He is very grateful for your kind mention of him, and says, Send to the great mother my best salam, and tell her her daughter's people are my people, and where she goes I will go to, and please God I will serve her rich or poor till he who separates us shall take me from her. The words of Ruth came after all these centuries quite fresh from the soft Egyptian lifts. The he who separated us I must explain to you. It is one of the attributes of God, the separator of religions, implies toleration and friendship by attributing the two religions alike to God, and is never used towards one whose religion is not to be respected. I have got a levy of former raeces, sailors, etc., some sick, but most come to talk. The climate changes quite suddenly as one leaves the delta, and here I sit at eight in the evening with open doors and windows. I am so glad to hear of the great success of my dear father's book, and to think of your courage in working at it still. I suppose I shall be here a week longer as I have several jobs to do to my boat, and I shall try to get towed up so as to then back the boat as soon as possible in order to let her. Ali will give eighty pounds a month for her if he gets a party of four to take up. I pay my raeces five Napoleon's a month while traveling and three while lying still. He is a good, active little fellow. We were nearly smashed under the railway bridge by an iron barge, and, voila, how the raeces of the bridge did whack the raeces of the barge. I thought it a sad loss of time, but raeces Ali and my peace, Mohammed, seemed to look on the stick as the most effective way of extricating my anger from the poshest rudder. My crew can't say uranium, so they sing, Go along, O darling bride, a rousset air-rally, as the little-sits best description, and a rousset air-rally will be the de Habia's exoteric name, as el-beshushia is my popular name. End of letter sixty-six, read by Cibela Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information please visit LibriVox.org. Letter sixty-seven of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Mrs. Austin, Cairo, December 5th, 1865. Dearest Mother, Alhamdulillah, now I am at rest. I have got all the boat in order. My captain, Rais Mohammed, is very satisfactory, and today we sail as soon as Omar comes back with the meat, etc., from the market. I received Meadow's review. I wish he had not said so much about me in it. Mohammed Ghazawi begs to give his best salam to Sheikh Stanley, whom he longs to see again. He says that all the people said he was not a Christian, for he was not proud ever towards them as Christians are, but a real shake, and that the Bedouins still talk of Sheikh Stanley and of his piety. The old, half-witted gesture of Luxor has found me out. He has wandered down here to see his eldest son who is serving in the army. He had brought a little boy with him, but is afraid for him here, I don't know why, and has begged me to take the child up to his mother. These licensed, Posenraisen, are like our fools in old times, but less witty than we fancy them to have been, thanks to Shakespeare, I suppose. Every district has one who attends all muleads and other gatherings of the people, and picks up a living. He tells me that the Turkish Nazir of Zania has begun some business against our Kedi, Sheikh Ibrahim, and Sheikh Yusuf, accusing them of something. He does not know what, perhaps of being friends with Haji Sultan or of stealing wood. If all the friends of Haji Sultan are to be prosecuted, that will include the whole Sa'id. Of course I am anxious about my friends. All Halim Pasha-Agedi's villages have been confiscated, those tributary to him for work. Sus pretext that he ill-used the people, and B. he alone paid them a bad example. Pharaoh is indeed laying intolerable burdens, not on the Israelites, but on the Elohim. Omar said of the great dinner today, I think all the food will taste of blood, it is the blood of the poor, and more haram than any pork or wine or blood of beasts. Of course such sentiments are not to be repeated, but they are general. The menagedits, who picked and made ten mattresses and fourteen cushions for me in half a day, were laughing and saying, for the Pasha's boat we work also, at so much a day, and we should have done it in four days. And for me if I paid by the day instead of by the peace, how long? One day instead of half, O lady, for fear thou shouldst say to us, you have finished in half a day, and half the wages is enough for you. That is the way in which all the work is done for Effendina. No wonder his steamers don't pay. I saw Ross yesterday. He tells me the Sharif of Mecca has sent him a horse. To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, Thebes, from December 25th, 1865, to January 3rd, 1866. I wish you all, may the year be good to thee, as we say here, and now for my history. We left Cairo on the 5th December. I was not well. No wind, as usual, and we were a week getting to Benesuif, where the Stamboli Greek lady, who was so kind to me last summer in my illness, came on board with a very well-bred Arab lady. I was in bed, and only stayed a few hours. On to Minia, another five or six days, walked about, and saw the preparations for the Pasha's arrival. Nothing so flat as these affairs here. Not a creature went near the landing-place, but his own servants, soldiers, and officials. I thought of the arrival of the smallest of German princes, which makes ten times the noise. Next on to Siut, ill again, and did not land or see any one. On to Girga, where we only stayed on long enough to deliver money and presents, which I had been begged to take for some old sailors of mine to their mothers and wives there. Between Siut and Girga, an Abyssinian slave-flad came and wanted me to steal him. He said his master was a copped, and ill used him, and the lady beat him. But Omar, sagesly observed, to the sailors, who were very anxious to take him, that a bad master did not give his slave such good clothes and even a pair of shoes, Kell looks, and that he made too much of his master being a copped. No doubt he was a lazy fellow, and perhaps he had run away with other property besides himself. Soon after I was sitting on the pointed prow of the boat with the Raïse, who was sounding with his painted pole, vita, antique sculptures and paintings, and the men towing, when suddenly something rose to the surface near us. The men cried out, Benny Adam, and the Raïse prayed for the dead. It was a woman, the silver bracelets glittered on the arms raised and stiffened in the agony of death. The knees up, and the beautiful Egyptian breast floated above the water. I shall never forget the horrid sight. God have mercy on her, prayed my men, and the Raïse added to me, let us also pray for her father, poor man. You see, no robber has done this, on account of the bracelets. We are in the Said now, and most likely she is blackened her father's face, and he has been forced to strangle her, poor man. I said, alas, and the Raïse continued, ah, yes, it is a heavy thing, but a man must whiten his face, poor man, poor man. God have mercy on him. Such is Saïdie point d'honneur. However it turned out she was drowned, bathing. Above Ghirga we stopped while at Dishne, a large village. I strolled up alone, les mains dans les poches, s'écoute-mios et smos, and was soon accosted with an invitation to coffee and pipes in the stranger's place, a sort of room open on one side with a column in the middle, like two arches of a cloister, in which, in all the villages, is close to the mosque. Two or three cloaks were pulled off and spread on the ground for me to sit on, and the milk, which I asked for, instead of the village coffee, brought. In a minute a dozen men came and sat round, and asked, as usual, whence comest thou and wither goest thou? And my gloves, watch, rings, etc., were handed round and examined. The gloves always call forth many machalas. I said, I come from the Frank country, and am going to my place near Abul-Hajjaj. Hereupon everyone touched my hand, and said, Praise be to God that we have seen thee. Don't go on, stay here, and take one hundred fendons of land and remain here. I laughed, and asked, Should I wear the Zabut, brown shirt, and the libda, and work in the field, seeing there is no man with me? There was much laughing, and then several stories of women who had farmed large properties well and successfully. Such undertakings on the part of women seem quite as common here as in Europe, and more common than in England. I took leave of my new friends who had given me the first welcome home to the Syed, and we went on to Kenna, which we reached early in the morning, and I found my well-known donkey boys putting my saddle on. The father of one and the two brothers of the other were gone to work on the railway for sixty days' forced labor, taking their own bread, and the poor little fellows were left alone to take care of the harem. As soon as we reached the town, a couple of tall young soldiers in the Nizam uniform rushed after me and greeted me in English. They were Luxor lads serving their time. Of course they attached themselves to us for the rest of the day. We then brought water-jars, the specialité of Kenna, gullas, and zeus, and I went on to the Cuddy's house to leave a little string of beads, just to show that I had not forgotten the worthy Cuddy's courtesy in bringing his little daughter to sit beside me at dinner when I went down the river last summer. I saw the Cuddy giving audience to several people, so I sent in the beads and my salam, but the jolly Cuddy sallied forth into the street and fell upon my neck with such ardor that my Frankish hat was sent rolling by contact with the turban of Islam. The Cuddy of Kenna is the real original Cuddy of our early days, sleek, robacund, polite, a Pusna judge and a dean rolled into one, combining the amenities of the law and the church, with an orthodox stomach and an orthodox turban, both round and stately. I was taken into the Harim, welcomed and regaled, and invited to the festival of Said Abed El-Rakim, the great saint of Kenna. I hesitated and said there were great crowds, and some might be offended at my presence, but the Cuddy declared, by him who separated us, that if any such ignorant persons were present it was high time they learnt better, and said it was by no means unlawful for virtuous Christians, and such as neither hated nor scorned the Muslim to profit by or share in their prayers, and that I should sit before the Shakespeare tomb with him and the Mufti, and that, due rest, they wished to give thanks for my safe arrival. Such a demonstration of tolerance was not to be resisted. So after going back to rest and dine in the boat, I returned at nightfall into the town and went to the burial place. The whole way was lighted up and thronged with the most motley crowd, and the usual mixture of holy and profane, which we know at the Catholic Fets also, but more prononce here. Dancing girls, glittering with gold brocade and coins, swaggered about among the brown-shirted Philahine, and the profane's singing of the Allatia mingled with the songs in honour of the Arab Prophet, chanted by the Munchiids, and the deep tones of the Allah, Allah of the Zikirs. Rockets whizzed about and made the women screech, and a merry-go-round was in full swing. And now fancy me clinging to the skirts of the Qadi-ul-Islam, who did not wear a Spencer as the Methodist parson threatened his congregation he would do at the Day of Judgment, and pushing into the tomb of the Sa'id-Abur-el-Rakim through such a throng. No one seemed offended or even surprised. I suppose my face is so well known at Kenna. When my party had set a fatah for me and another for my family, we retired to another kebab, where there was no tomb, and where we found the Mufti, and sat there all the evening over coffee and pipes and talk. I was questioned about English administration of justice, and made to describe the process of trial by jury. The Mufti is a very dignified, gentlemanly man, and extremely kind and civil. The Qadi pressed me to stay next day and dine with him in the Mufti, but I said I had a lantern for Luxor, and I wanted to arrive before the Muleed was over, and only three days remained. So the Qadi accompanied me back to the boat, looked at my maps, which pleased him very much, traced out the line of the railway as he had heard it, and had tea. Next morning we had the first good wind, and bowled up to Luxor in one day, arriving just after sunset. Instantly the boat was filled. Of course Omar and the raïs had once organized a procession to take me and my lantern to the tomb of Abul Hajjaj. It was the last night but one of his Muleed. The lantern was born on a pole between two of my sailors, and the rest, reinforced by men from a steamer which was there with oppression-prince, sung and thumped the tarabuka, and we all marched up after I had undergone every variety of salutation, from shake-yusuf's embrace to the little boy's kissing of hands. The first thing I heard was the hearty voice of the old Sharif, who praised God that our darling was safe back again, and then we all sat down for a talk. Then more fatas were said for me, and for you, and for the children, and I went back to bed in my own boat. I found the guard of the French house had been taken off to Kenneth to the works, after lying eight days in chains and wooden handcuffs for resisting, and claiming his rights as a French protégé. So we waited for his return and for the keys which he had taken with him in hopes that the Kenna authorities would not care to keep me out of the house. I wrote to the French consular agent at Kenna and to the consul at Alexandria and got him back the third day. What would you think in Europe to see me welcome with enthusiasm a servant just out of chains and handcuffs? At the very moment, too, that Mohammed and I were talking, a boat passed up the river with music and singing on board. It was a shake-el-beled of a place above Esna, who had lain in prison three years in Cairo, and whose friends were making all the fantasia they could to celebrate the end of his misfortune, of disgrace, il n'en est pas question, and why should it? So many honest men go to prison that it is no presumption at all against a man. The day after my arrival was the great and last day. The crowd was but little and not lively, times are too hard. But the riding was beautiful. Two men from Hegaz performed wonderful feats. I dined with Amon, whose wife cooked me the best dinner I ever ate in this country, or almost anywhere. Marie, who was invited, rejoiced the kind old lady's heart by her Belgian appreciation of the excellent cookery. Eat, my daughter, eat, and even I managed to give satisfaction. Such baklava I never tasted. We were moved to the house yesterday, and I have had company ever since. Then Sheikh Ali, a very agreeable man from beyond Khartoum, offered to take me up to Khartoum and back with a taq Tehran, camel litter, in company with Mustafa Agha, Sheikh Yusuf, and a troop of his own Ababda. It is a terrible temptation, but it would cost fifty pounds, so I refused. Sheikh Ali is so clever and well-bred that I should enjoy it very much, and the climate at this season is delightful. He has been in the Dinka country where the men are a cubit taller than Sheikh Hassan, whom you know, and who inquires tenderly after you. Now let me describe the state of things. From the mudiriyat of Kenna only, twenty-five thousand men are taken to work for sixty days without food or pay. Each man must take his own basket, and each third man a hoe, not a basket. If you want to pay a substitute for a beloved or delicate son, it costs one thousand piastras, six hundred at the lowest, and about three to four hundred for his food. From Luxor only, two hundred and twenty men are gone, of whom a third will very likely die of exposure to the cold and misery. The weather is unusually cold. That is to say that this little village, of at most two thousand souls, male and female, we don't usually count women from decorum, will pay in labor at least one thousand three hundred twenty pounds in sixty days. We have also already had eleven camels seized to go up to the Sudan. A camel is worth from eighteen pounds to forty pounds. Last year Mariette Bay made excavations at Gurna, forcing the people to work but promising payment at the rate of—well, when he was gone the four shakes of the village at Gurna came to Mustapha and begged him to advance the money due from the government, for the people were starving. Mustapha agrees and gives above three hundred purses about one thousand pounds in current piastras on the understanding that he is to get the money from government in tariff and to keep the difference as his profit. If he cannot get it at all, the fellow heen are to pay him back without interest. Of course at the rate at which money is here his profit would be but small interest on the money unless he could get the money directly and now he is waited six months in vain. Abdallah, the son of El Habeshi of Damankur, went up the river in chains to Fazoglo a fortnight ago, and Osman Bey did oh last week. El Bedro we is dead there, of course. Shall I tell you what became of the hundred prisoners who were sent away after the Gao business? As they marched through the desert the Greek memlook looked at his list each morning and said, Hossein, Ahmed, Fulan, like the Spanish Don Fulano, Mr. So-and-So, you are free take off his chains. Well, the three or four men dropped behind where some Argnats strangled him out of sight. This is banishment to Fazoglo. Do you remember Le Citoyen est l'élargé of the September massacre of Paris? Curious coincidence, is it not? Everyone is exasperated, the very harem talk of the government. It is in the air. I had not been five minutes in Kenna before I knew all this and much more. Of the end of Haji Sultan I will not speak till I have absolute certainty, but I believe the proceeding was, as I have described, set free in the desert and murdered, by the way. I wish you to publish these facts. It is no secret to any but those Europeans whose interests keep their eyes tightly shut, and they will soon have them opened. The blind rapacity of the present ruler will make him astonish the Franks some day, I think. Wheat is now four hundred piastres the Ardeb up here, the little loaf not quite so big as our penny roll costs a piastre, about three half-pence, and all in proportion. I need not say what the misery is. Remember that this is the second levy of two hundred and twenty men within six months, each for sixty days, as well as the second seizure of camels, besides the conscription which serves the same purpose as the soldier's work on the poshest works, but in Cairo they are paid and paid well. It is curious how news travels here. The Luxor people knew the day I left Alexandria and the day I left Cairo long before I came. They say here that Abu El-Hajjaj gave me his hand from Kenna because he would not finish his muleed without me. I am supposed to be specially protected by him, as is proved by my health being so far better here than anywhere else. By the by, Sheikh Ali Ababda told me that all the villages close on the Nile escaped the cholera almost completely, whilst those who were half or a quarter of a mile inland were ravaged. At Kenna two hundred and fifty a day died. At Luxor one child was supposed to have died of it, but I know he had a diseased liver for a year or more. In the desert the Bishareen and the Ababda suffered more than the people at Cairo, and you know how the desert is usually the place of perfect health. But fresh Nile water seems to be the antidote. Sheikh Yusuf laid the mortality at Kenna to the canal water, which the poor people drink there. I believe the fact is, as Sheikh Ali told me. Now I will say good-bye, for I am tired, and will write anon to the rest. Let mutter have this. I was very poorly till I got above Siut, and then gradually mended. Constant blood spitting and great weakness, and I am very thin, but by the protection of Abul Hajj I suppose I am already much better, and begin to eat again. I have not been out yet since the first day, having much to do in the house to get it to rights. I felt very dreary on Christmas Day away from you all, and Omar's plum pudding did not cheer me at all, as he hoped it would. He begs me to kiss your hand for him, and every one sends you salam, and all lament that you are not the new consul at Cairo. Kiss my chicks, and love to you all. Janet, I hope, is in Egypt ere this. End of Letters sixty-eight, read by Sebella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information please visit LibriVox.org. Letter sixty-nine of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Maurice Duff Gordon, Luxor, January third, eighteen sixty-six. My darling Maurice, I was delighted to get your note, which arrived on New Year's Day in the midst of the hubbub of the Great Festival in honor of the saint of Luxor. I wish you could have seen two young Arabs, real Arabs from the head-jaws in Arabia, ride and play with spears and lances. I never saw anything like it. A man who played the tomfool stood in the middle, and they galloped round and round him, with their spears crossed and the points resting on the ground, so in a small circle that his clothes whisked around with the wind of the horse's legs. Then they threw jareeds and caught them as they galloped. The beautiful thing was the perfect mastery of the horses. They were like water in their hands, as Sheik Hassan remarked. I perceived that I had never seen real horsemanship in my life before. I am now in the palace at Luxor with my Dahabia, Aruset-e-Ralee, the darling bride under my windows, quite like a pasha. In coming up we had an alarm of robbers. Under the mountain called Gebel Fuda we were entangled in shoals, owing to a change in the bed of the river and forced to stay all night, and at three in the morning the raiz sent in the boy to say he had seen a man creeping on all fours, would I fire my pistol? As my revolver had been stolen in Janet's house I was obliged to beg him to receive any possible troop of armed robbers very civilly and to let them take what they pleased. However Omar blazed away with your father's old cavalry pistols, which had no bullets, and whether the robbers were frightened, or the man was only a wolf, we heard no more of the affair. My crew were horribly frightened and kept awake till daybreak. The last night before reaching Kenna, the town forty miles north of Luxor, my men held a grand fantasia on the bank. There was no wind, and we found a lot of old maize-stops, so there was a bonfire, and no end of drumming, singing, and dancing. Even Omar relaxed his dignity so far as to dance the dance of the Alexandria young men, and very funny it all was. I laughed consumedly, especially at the modest heirs and graces of a great liberally fellow, one Hezayin, who acted the bride, in a representation of a Nubian wedding festivity. The new song of this year is very pretty, a declaration of love to a young Muhammad sung in a very pretty tune. There is another, rather like the air of the Provenza al-Marra in the Traviata with extremely pretty words, as in England every year has its new song, which all the boys sing about the streets. I hope, darling, you are sapping this year, and intend to make up a bit for lost time. I hear you have lost no time in growing tall at all events, ill weeds, et cetera. You know Omar desires all sorts of messages to you. End of LETTERS 69 Read by Cibela Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. LETTERS 70 Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, Monday, January 15, 1866. Dearest Alec, I hear that Mr. and Miss North are to be here in a day or two. I hope you may have sent my saddle by them, for I want it sadly. Mine is just possible for a donkey, but quite too broken for a horse. Two great shakes of bishareen and ababda came here and picked me up out walking alone. We went and sat in a field, and they begged me to communicate to the Queen of England that they would join her troops if she would invade Egypt. One laid my hand on his hand and said, Thou hast three thousand men in thy hand. The other rules ten thousand. They say there are thirty thousand Arabs, Bedouin, ready to join the English, for they fear that the viceroy will try to work and rob them like the Felaen, and if so they will fight to the last or else go off into Syria. I was rather frightened, for them I mean, and told them that our Queen could do nothing till six hundred shakes and four hundred amirs had talked in public, all whose talk was printed and read at Stambul and Cairo, and that they must not think of such a thing from our Queen, but if things became bad it would be better for them to go off into Syria. I urged great caution upon them, and I need not repeat that to you, as the lives of thousands may be endangered. It might be interesting to be known in high places and in profound secret as one of the indications of what is coming here. If the saddle comes, as I hope, I may very likely go up to Aswan and leave the boats and servants, and go into the desert for a few days to see the place of the Bishareen. They won't take anyone else, but you may be quite easy about me in the face of a sheikh el-Arab. Handsome sheikh Hassan whom you saw at Cairo will go with me, but if my saddle does not appear, I fear I should be too tired with riding a camel. The little district of Qus, including Luxor, has been molested of camels, food for them, and drivers, to the amount of six thousand purses last week, eighteen thousand pounds, fact. I cast up the account, and it tallied with what I got from a sub-employee, nor is the discontent any longer whispered. One talks aloud, and well they may. End of Letter Seventy, read by Sibyela Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter Seventy-one of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Mrs. Austin, Tuesday, Seven Ramadan. Dearest Mother, I have just received your letter of Christmas stay, and I'm glad to answer it with a really amended report of myself. I had a very slight return a week ago, but for the last five or six days the daily flushing and fever has also ceased. I sent for one of the Arab doctors of the Aziziyah steamer to see Omar and myself also, and he was very attentive and took a note of medicines to send me from Cairo by a confrere, and when I offered a fee he said, God forbid, it is only our duty to do anything in the world for you. Likewise a very nice Dr. Ingram saw some of my worst cases for me and gave me good advice and help, but I want better books. Kestivin is very useful as far as it goes, but I want something more asphirlic and scientific. Ramadan is a great trouble to me, though shake use of tells the people not to fast if I forbid it, but many are ill from having begun it, and one fine old man of about fifty-five died of apoplexy on the fourth night. My Christian patient is obstinate and fast in spite of me, and will, I think, seal his fate. He was so much better after the blistering and Dr. Ingram's mixture. I wish you could have seen a lad of eighteen or so, who came here today for medicine. I think I never saw such sweet, frank, engaging manners, or ever heard any one express himself better, quite une nature destingué, not the least handsome, but the most charming countenance in way of speaking. My good friend the Maon spent the evening with me and told me all the story of his marriage, though quite unfit to meet the virtuous eyes of British propriety, as I read the other day in some paper apropos of—forget what—it will give you an idea of the feelings of a Muslim on et alhme, which Salim is through and through. He knew his wife before he married her, she being twenty-five or twenty-six, and he a boy, she fell in love with him, and at seventeen he married her, and they have had ten children, all alive but two, and a splendid race they are. He told me how she courted him with glasses of sherbet and trays of sweet-meats, and how her mother proposed the marriage, and how she hesitated on account of the difference of age, but, of course, at last consented, all with the naivest vanity in his own youthful attractions, and great extolling of her personal charms and of her many virtues. When he was sent up here she would not or could not leave her children. On the sit's arrival his slave girl was arrogant, and refused to kiss her hand, and spoke sossily of her age, whereupon Salim gave her in marriage to a black man and pays for her support, as long as she likes to suckle the child he, Salim, had by her, which child will, in due time, return to his house. Curse, the fundamental idea in it all, in the mind of an upright man, is that if a man takes up with a woman at all he must make himself responsible for her before the world, and above all for the fate of any child he may have by her. You see, the prophet of the Arabs did not contemplate ladies qu'ils savant neige, so well in the troubled waters of life as we are now blessed with. I don't mean to say that many men are as scrupulous as my excellent friend Salim, either here or even in our own moral society. All this was told with the expressions quite incompatible with our manners, though not at all lest, and he expiated on his wife's personal charms in a very quaint way. The good lady is now hard upon sixty and looks at fully, but he evidently is as fond of her as ever. As a curious trait of primitive manners he told me of her piety and boundless hospitality, how when some friends came late one evening, unexpected, and there was only a bit of meat, she killed a sheep and cooked it for them with her own hands. And this is a quireen lady, and quite a lady, too, in manners and appearance. The day I dined there she was dressed in very ragged, old cotton clothes, but spotlessly clean, and she waited on me with a kind, motherly pleasure that quite took away the awkwardness I felt at sitting down while she stood. In a few days she and her husband are to dine with me, a thing which no Arab couple ever did before, I mean, dine out together, and the old lady was immensely amused at the idea. Omar will cook and all male visitors will be sent to the kitchen. Now that I understand all is said to me, and a great deal of the general conversation, it is much more amusing. Salim Effendi jokes me a great deal about my blunders, especially my lack of palaitika, the Greek word for what we shall call flumery, and my saying, lazim, you must, or rather ill-foe, instead of humble entreaties. I told him to teach me better, but he laughed heartily and said, No, no, when you say lazim it is lazim, and nobody wants the stick to force him to say hadir, ready, o sheikh el Arab, o Amirah. Fancy my surprise the other day, when just as I was dictating letters to Sheikh Yusuf, letters of introduction for Ross's inspecting agent, with three or four other people here, in-walked Miss North Pop, who I have not seen since she was a child. She and her father were going up the second cataract. She has done some sketches which, though rather unskillful, were absolutely true in color and effect, and are the very first I have seen that are so. I shall see something of them on their return. She seemed very pleasant. Mr. North looked rather horrified at the turban society in which he found himself. I suppose it did look odd to English eyes. We have had three days of the south wind, which the Saturday review says I am not to call Samoom, and I was poorly and kept in bed two days with a cold. At-propos I will give you the Luxor contribution towards the further confusion of the Samoom or Samoom controversy. I told Sheikh Yusuf that an English newspaper, written by particularly clever people, said that I was wrong to call the bad wind here Samoom. It was in an article on Paul Grape's book, I think. Sheikh Yusuf said, True, O Lady, no doubt those learned gentlemen, politely saluting them with his hand, thought one such as thou shouldest written classical Arabic, Arabic Fasiyy, and have called it al-Dabur. Nevertheless it is proper to write it Samoom, not as some do, Samoom, which is the plural of Sim, Poison. I shook my head and said, I did not recollect al-Dabur. Then my raiz sitting at the door offered his suggestion. Probably the English, who it is well known are a nation of sailors, used the name given to the land wind by el-Baria, the boatman, and called it el-Marisha. But, said I, the clever gentlemen say that I am wrong altogether, and never can have seen a real Samoom, for that would have killed me in ten minutes. Hereupon Sheikh Mohammed el-Ababda, who is not nearly so polished as his brother Hassan, burst into a regular bed-a-wee roar of laughter, and said, Ya, do the Ghana seal Europeans take thee for a rat, O Lady? Who ever heard of el-Beni Adam, the children of Adam, dying of the wind? Men die of thirst quicker when the Samoom blows, and they have no water. But no one ever died of the wind alone, except the rats. They do. I give you the opinion of three representative men, scholar, sailor, and bed-a-wee, if that helps you to a solution of the controversy. We have just had a scene, rather startling, to notions about fatalism, etc. Owing to the importation of a good deal of cattle from the Sudan, there is an expectation of the prevalence of smallpox, and the village barbers are busy vaccinating in all directions, to prevent the infection brought, either by the cattle or more likely by their drivers. Now, my maid had told me she had never been vaccinated, and I sent for Haji Mahmud to cut my hair and vaccinate her. To my utter amazement the girl, who had never shown any religious bigotry and does not fast, or make any demonstrations, refused peremptorily. It appears that the priests and sisters appointed by the enlightened administration of Prussia, instill into their pupils and penitents that vaccination is attempting of God. Oh, oui, she said, je sais bien que chez nous, mes parents, puivant, récouver un process verbal, mais ils vont mieux, cela que d'aller, contre la volonté de Dieu. Si Dieu le vu l'aurait la petite verrelée, et s'il ne veut pas, je ne l'aurai pas. I scolded her pretty sharply, and said it was not only stupid but selfish. But what can one do, as Haji Mahmud said, with a pitying shake of his head, these Christians are so ignorant. He blushed and apologized to me, and said, it is not their fault, all this want of sense is from the priests who talk folly to them for money, and to keep them afraid before themselves. Poor things, they don't know the word of God. Help thyself, O my servant, and I will help thee. This is the second contest I have had on this subject. Last year it was with a cop, who was an Allah Karim, and so on, about his baby, with his child of four dying of smallpox. Oh, man, said Shake Yousif, if the wall against which I am now sitting were to shake above my head, should I fold my feet under me and say Allah Karim, or should I use the legs God has given me to escape from it? I had a visit the other day from a lady who, as I was informed, had been a harlot in Siut. She has repented and married a converted cop. They are a droll pair of penitents, so very smart in their dress and manner. But no one, so scantily zay at their antecedents, neither is it proper to repent in sackcloth and ashes, or to confess sins except to God alone. You are not to indulge in telling them to others, it is an offence. Repent inwardly and be ashamed to show it before the people. Ask pardon of God only. A little of this would do no harm in Europe, me thinks. Here is a pretty story for you from Hadath and Nabi, sayings of the prophet. Two prophets were sitting together and discoursing of prayer and the difficulty of fixing the attention entirely on the act. One said to the other, not even for the duration of two Rekhahs, prayers ending with the prostration and Allah Akbar, can a man fix his mind on God alone. The other said, Nay, but I can do it. Say, then, two Rekhahs, replied the elder of the two, I will give thee my cloak. Now he wore two cloaks, a new, handsome red one, and an old, shabby blue one. The younger prophet rose, raised his hands to his head, and said, Allah Akbar, and bent to the ground for his first Rekhah. As he rose again, he thought, Will he give me the red cloak or the blue, I wonder? It is very stupid of me not to write down all the pretty stories I hear, but this one is a capital specimen of Arab wit. Someday I must bring over Omar with me, inshallah, to England, and he will tell you stories like Shahrazad herself. A Jolly Nubian, Aleem, told me the other night how in his village no man ever eats meat, except on Biram day, but one night a woman had a piece of meat given her by a traveler. She put it in the oven and went out. During her absence her husband came in and smelt it, and as it was just the time of the Echeh, first prayers one hour after sunset, he ran up to the hill outside the village, and began to chant forth the tech beer with all his might, Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar, etc., etc., till the people ran to see what was the matter. Why, today is Biram, says he, Where is thy witness, old man? The meat in the oven, the meat in the oven. End of Letter Seventy-One, read by Subella Denton. All Libra Vox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibraVox.org. Letter Seventy-Two of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibraVox.org into the public domain. To Mrs. Austin, Luxor, February 15, 1866. DEAREST MUTTER I have only time for a short letter to say that the cold weather is over and that I continue to improve, not very fast but still very sensibly. My young Frenchman turns out to be a Monsieur Brune, Grand Prix de Rome, an architect, and is a very nice fellow indeed and a thorough gentleman. His awkward manner proved to be more vexation at finding himself quartered, no long volant on a stranger and a woman, but we have made great friends and I have made him quite happy by telling him that he shall pay his share of the food. He was going to hurry off from shyness, though he had begun a work here by which I fancy he hopes to get kudos. I see he is poor and very properly proud. He goes out to the temple at sunrise and returns to dinner at dark and works well, and his drawings are very clever. In short, I am as much obliged to the French consul for sending me such an intelligent man as I was vexed at first. An homme sérieuse with an absorbing pursuit is always good company in the long run. Moreover, Monsieur Brune behaves like a perfect gentleman in every way. So, tut es pour le mieux. I am sorry to say that Marie has become so excessively bored, dissatisfied, and, she says ill, that I am going to send her back, rather than be worried so, and dameet atz ein and of European maids. Of course, an ignorant girl must be bored to death here. A land of no amusements and no flirtations is unbearable. I shall borrow a slave of a friend here, an old black woman who is quite able and more than willing to serve me, and when I go down to Cairo, I will get either a sea-de-van slave or an elderly Arab woman. Dr. Patterson strongly advised me to do so last year. He had one who has been thirteen years his housekeeper, an old bedouille, I believe, and as I am now no longer looked upon as a foreigner, I shall be able to get a respectable Arab woman, a widow or a divorced woman of a certain age who will be too happy to have a good home, as our maids say. I think I know one, a certain Fatouma, a widow with new children who does washing and needlework in Cairo. You need not be at all uneasy. I shall be taken good care of if I fall ill, much better than I should get from a European and a sulky frame of mind. Haji Ali has very kindly offered to take Marie down to Cairo and start her off to Alexandria, whence Ross's people can send her home. If she wants to stay in Alexandria and gets placed by the nuns who piously extorted her to extort ninety francs a month for me, so much the better for me. Ali refuses to take a penny from me for her journey, besides bringing me potatoes and all sorts of things, and if I remonstrate, he says, he and all his family and all they have is mine, inconsequence of my treatment of his brother. You will be amused and pleased to hear how Sheikh Yusuf was utterly puzzled and bewildered by the civilities he received from the travellers this year, till an American told Mustafa had written a book which had made him, the American, wish well to the poor people of this country and desire to behave more kindly to them than would have been the case before. Tomorrow is a smaller Biram, and I shall have all the harem here to visit me. Two such nice Englishmen called the other day and told me they lived in Hartford Street, opposite Lady D. G.'s, and saw Alexander go in and out and met Maurice in the gardens. It gave me a terrible twinge of haimwah, but I thought it so kind and pretty and her slick of them to come and tell me how Alexander and Maurice looked as they went along the street. I received your letter of the fourth instance yesterday. I am much distressed not to hear a better account of you. Why don't you go to Cairo for a time? Your experience of your German confirms me, if I needed it, in my resolution to have no more Europeans, unless I should find one more seasoned. The nuisance is too great. I shall borrow a neighbor's slave for my stay here and take some one in Cairo. My dress will do very well in native hands. I am at last getting really better again, I hope. We have had a cold winter, but not trying. There has not been much wind, and the weather has been very steady and clear. I wish I had Paul Graves' book. Haji Ali was to bring up my box, but it had not arrived when he sailed. I will send down the old saddle whenever I can find a safe opportunity and have received the other. Many thanks for all the various detachments of newspapers, which were a great solace. I wish you would give me your photo, large size, to hang up with Rainy and Maurice here and in the boat. Like the small one you gave me at Sodin, you said you had some copies big. My doctoring business has become quite formidable. I should like to sell my practice to any rising young surgeon. It brings in a very fair income of vegetables, eggs, turkeys, pigeons, etc. How is the Sharif of Mecca's horse? I ambition to ride that holy animal. End of Letter 73. Read by Cibela Denton. All Libravox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Libravox.org. Letter 74 of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for Libravox.org into the public domain. To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon. Luxor, February 22, 1866. Dearest Alec. The weather here is just beginning to get warm, and I, of course, get better. There has been a great deal of nervous headache here this Ramadan. I had to attend the Qadi and several more. My Turkish neighbor at Karnak has got a shaitan, devil, i.e. epileptic fits, and I was sent forth to exercise him, which I am endeavouring to do with nitrate of silver, etc., but I fear imagination will kill him, so I advise him to go to Cairo and leave the devil-haunted house. I have this minute killed the first snake of this year, a sign of summer. I was so pleased to see two Mr. Watsons, your opposite neighbours, who said they saw you every morning go down the street, ojala, that I did so too. I liked Mr. and Mrs. Webb of Newstead Abbey very much, nice, hearty, pleasant, truly English people. There have not been above twenty or thirty boats up this year, mostly Americans. There are some here now, very nice people, with four little children who create quite an excitement in the place, and are mush-ala, no end. Their little fair faces do look very pretty here, and excite immense admiration. Said has just come in to take my letter to the steamer, which is now going down, so adieu, dearest Alec. I am much better, but still weakish, and very treased at my long separation. End of Letter Seventy-Four. Read by Cebella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter Seventy-Five of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon. Tuesday, March 6, 1866. Dearest Alec. I write to be ready for the last down steamer, which will be here in a few days. Mr. and Miss North are here working hard at sketching, and Mr. Brune will take a place in their Dahabia, my old Zint el-Bairain, and leave me in six or seven days. I shall quite grieve to lose his company. If ever you or yours fall in with him, pray cultivate his acquaintance. He is very clever, very hardworking, and a thoroughbred gentleman, as Omar declares. We are quite low-spirited at parting after a month spent together at Thebes. I hear that Olenye has a big house in Old Cairo and will lodge me. The Norths go to-day, Thursday, and Mr. Brune does not go with them as he intended, but will stay on and finish a good stroke of work and take his chance of a conveyance. I spent yesterday out in Moustafa's tent among the bean-gatherers, and will go again. I think it does me good, and is not too long a ride. The weather has set in suddenly very hot, which rather tries everybody, but gloriously find clear air. I hope you will get this, as old fat Hassan will take it to the office in Cairo himself, for the post is very insecure indeed. I have written very often, if you don't get my letters I suppose they interest the court of Pharaoh. Thebes, March 17, 1866 Dearest Alec, the high winds have begun with a vengeance and a great bore they are. I went a few days ago out to Metternut and lunched in Moustafa's tent among his bean-harvest. I was immensely amused by the man who went with me on to Metternut, one Sharif, formerly an illustrious robber, now a watchman and a very honest man. He wrote a donkey about the size of Sterling's wee pony, and I laughed and said, The man should carry the ass. No sooner said than done, Sharif dismounted, or rather let his beast down from between his legs, shouldered the donkey, and ran on. His way of keeping awake is original, the nights are still cold, so he takes off all his clothes, rolls them up, and lays them under his head, and the cold keeps him quite lively. I never saw so powerful, active, and healthy an animal. He was full of stories how he had had one thousand stripes of the corbache on his feet, and five hundred on his loins at one go. Why, I asked. Why, I stuck a knife into a kawas who ordered me to carry watermelons. I said I was not his donkey, he called me worse. My blood got up, and so, and the pasha to whom the kawas belonged beat me. Oh, it was all right, and I did not say ah, once, did I? addressing another. He clearly bore no malice as he felt no shame. He has a grand romance about a city two days' journey from here in the desert which no one finds but by chance, after losing his way, and where the ground is strewed with valuable antiquities. I laughed and said, Your father would have seen gold and jewels. True said he, when I was young men spit on a statue or the like, when they turned it up digging, and now it is a fortune to find one. END OF LETTER SEVENTY SIX Read by Cibela Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. LETTER SEVENTY SEVEN OF LETTERS FROM EGYPT by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon. March thirty-first, eighteen-sixty-six. DEAREST ALIC. As for me I am much better again. The cough has subsided. I really think the Arab-specific camel's milk has done me great good. I have mended ever since I took it. It has the merit of being quite delicious. Yesterday I was much amused when I went for my afternoon's drink to find Sharif in a great taking at having been robbed by a woman under his very nose. He saw her gathering hummus from a field under his charge and went to order her off, whereupon she coolly dropped the end of her border which covered the head and shoulders, effectually preventing him from going near her, made up her bundle and walked off. His respect for the harem did not, however, induce him to refrain from strong language. Mr. Brun has made very pretty drawings of the mosque here, both outside and in. It is a very good specimen of modern Arab architecture, and he won't believe it could be built without ground plan, elevations, etc., which amuses the people here who build without any such inventions. The harvest here is splendid this year, such beans and wheat, and prices have fallen considerably in both, but meat, butter, etc., remained very dear. My fame as a hakimah has become far too great, and on market days I have to shut up shop. Yesterday a very handsome woman came for medicine to make her beautiful, as her husband had married another who teased her, and he rather neglected her. And a man offered me a camel-load of wheat if I would read something over him and his wife to make them have children. I don't try to explain to them how very irrational they are, but use the more intelligent argument that all such practices savor of the ebu-eruqa, equivalent to black art, and are haram to the greatest extent. Besides, I add, being all lies into the bargain. The applicants for child-making and charm-reading are cops or Muslims, quite in equal numbers, and appear alike indifferent as to what book. But all but one have been women, the men are generally perfectly rational about medicine and diet. I find there is a good deal of discontent among the cops with regard to their priests and many of their old customs. Several young men have let out to me at a great rate about the folly of their fasts, and the badness and ignorance of their priests. I believe many turn Muslim from a real conviction that it is a better religion than their own, and not, as I at first thought, merely from interest. Indeed they seldom gain much by it, and often suffer tremendous persecution from their families. Even they do not escape the rationalizing tendencies now abroad in Christendom. Then their early and indissoluble marriages are felt to be a hardship. A boy is married at eight years old, perhaps to his cousin aged seventeen, I know one here in that case, and when he grows up he wishes it had been let alone. A clever lad of seventeen propounded to me his dissatisfaction, and seemed to lean to Islam. I gave him an Arabic New Testament, and told him to read that first, and judge for himself whether he could not still conform to the Church of his own people, and inwardly believe and try to follow the Gospels. I told him it was what most Christians had to do, as every man could not make a sect for himself, while few could believe everything in any Church. I suppose I ought to have offered him the thirty-nine articles, and thus have made a Muslim out of him out of hand. He pushed me a little hard about several matters, which he says he does not find in the book, but on the whole he is well satisfied with my advice. Catholic Palm Sunday, April 1. We hear that Fadi al-Pasha received orders at Aswan to go up to Khartoum in Gyafer Pasha's place. It is a civil way of killing a fat old Turk if it is true. He was here a week or two ago. My informant is one of my old crew who was in Fadi al-Pasha's boat. I shall wait to get a woman's servant till I go to Cairo. The women here cannot iron or sew. So, meanwhile, the wife of Abdel El-Kedr does my washing, and o'mar irons, and we get along capitely. Little Akmet waits, etc., and I think I am more comfortable so than if I had a maid. It would be of no use to buy a slave, as the trouble of teaching her would be greater than the work she would do for me. My medical reputation has become far too great, and all my common drugs, epsom salts, sanna, aloes, rhubarb, quasiah, run especially do all the poor, tiresome, ugly old women ador me, and bore me with their aches and pains. They are always the doctor's greatest plague. The mark of confidence is that they now bring the sick children, which was never known before, I believe, in these parts. I am sure it would pay a European doctor to set up here. The people would pay him a little, and there would be good profit from the boats in the winter. I got turkeys when they were worth six or eight shillings apiece in the market, and they were forced upon me by the fellow heen. I must seal this up for fear the boat should come. It will only pick up Mr. Brune and go on. End of LETTERS 77 Read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. LETTERS 78 Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. To Mrs. Rost, Eid el-Kever, Wednesday, April, 1867. DEAREST JANET I had not heard a word of Henry's illness till Mr. Paul Grave arrived and told me, and also that he was better. Alhamdulillah. I only hope that you are not knocked up, my darling. I am not ill, but still feel unaccountably weak and listless. I don't cough much and have got fatter on my regime of camel's milk, so I hope I may get over the languor. The box has not made its appearance. What a clever fellow Mr. Paul Grave is. I never knew such a hand at languages. The folks here are in admiration at his Arabic. I hope you will see Mr. Brune. I am sure you would like him. He is a very accomplished and gentlemanly man. You have never told me your plans for this year or whether I shall find you when I go down. The last three days the great heat has begun and I am accordingly feeling better. I have just come home from the Biram early prayer out in the burial-place at which Paul Grave also assisted. He is unwell and tells me he leaves Luxor tomorrow morning. I shall stay on till I am too hot here, as evidently the summer suits me. Many thanks for Miss Berry and for the wine, which makes a very pleasant change from the rather bad clare I have got. Paul Grave's book I have read through hard as he wished to take it back for you. It is very amusing. If you come here next winter, Mustafa hopes she will bring a saddle and ride all his horses. I think I could get you a very good horse from a certain Sheikh Abdallah here. Well, I must say good-bye. Kalu Sana, anti-taib. Love to Henry. End of Letter seventy-eight. Read by Cibella Denton. All Librivox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Librivox.org. Letter seventy-nine of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for Librivox.org into the public domain. To Mrs. Austen, Biram, April 1866. Dearest Mutter. I write this to go down by Mr. Paul Grave, who leaves tomorrow. He has been with Mustafa Bey, conducting an inquiry into Mustafa Aga's business. Mariette Bey struck Mustafa, and I and some Americans took it ill and wrote a very strong complaint to our respective consuls. Mariette denied the blow and the words Liar and Son of a Dog, so the American and English consuls sent up Paul Grave as commissioner to inquire into the affair, and the Pasha sent Mustafa Bey with him. Paul Grave is very amusing, of course, and his knowledge of languages is wonderful. Sheikh Yusuf says few Ulima know as much of the literature and niceties of grammar and composition. Mustafa Bey is a darling. He knew several friends of mine, Hassan Effendi, Mustafa Bey's Supki, and others, so we were friends directly. I have not yet got a woman servant, but I don't miss it at all. Little Ahmed is very handy. Muhammad's slave girl washes, and Omar irons and cleans the house, and does housemaid. And I have kept on the meek cook, Abed El Kedr, whom I took while the Frenchman was here. I had not the heart to send him away. He is such a mesquine. He was a smart traveling waiter, but his brother died, leaving a termigent widow with four children, and poor Abed El Kedr felt at his duty to bend his neck to the yoke, married her, and has two more children. He is a most worthy, sickly, terrified creature. I have heard that a decent cop here wants to sell a black woman, owing to reverses of fortune, and that she might suit me. Sheikh Yusuf is to negotiate the affair and to see if the woman herself likes me for a mistress, and I am to have her on trial for a time, and if I like her and she me, Sheikh Yusuf will buy her with my money in his name. I own I have very little scruple about the matter, as I should consider her price as an advance of two or three years' wages, and tear the paper of sale as soon as she had worked her price out, which I think would be a fair bargain. But I must see first whether Feltas, the cop, really wants to sell her or only to get a larger price than is fair, in which case I will wait till I go to Cairo. Anything is better than importing a European who at once thinks one is at her mercy on account of the expense of the journey back. I went out this morning to the early prayer of Biram Day, held in the burial-place. Mahmud ibn Mustafa preached, but the boys and the Harim made such a noise behind us that I could not hear the sermon. The weather has set in hot these last days, and I am much the better. It seems strange that what makes others languid seems to strengthen me. I have been very weak and languid all the time, but the camel's milk has fattened me prodigiously, to Cherif's great delight, and the last hot days have begun to take away the miserable feeling of fatigue and languor. Paul Grave is not well at all, and his little black boy fears he will die, and several people in the steamer are ill, but in Luxor there is no sickness to speak of, only chronic old women, so old and ugly and achy, that I don't know what to do with them, except listen to their complaints, which begin, Ya ragle, ragle is man, so ragle is the old Germanic manin, and is the civil way of addressing a Saidi woman. To one old body I gave a powder wrapped up in a fragment of the Sunday review. She came back again and declared, Masha'Allah, the Hagarb charm was a powerful one, for though she had not been able to wash off all the fine writing from the paper, even that little had done her a deal of good. I regret that I am unable to inform you what the subject of the article in this Saturday that had so drastic an effect. Good-bye, dearest mother, I must go and take a sleep before the time of receiving the visits of today, the great festival. I was up before sunrise to see the prayer, so must have a siesta in a cool place. Tomorrow morning early this will go. I hope you got a letter I sent ten days or so ago. End of Letter seventy-nine. Read by Cibella Denton. All Librivox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit Librivox.org. Letter eighty of Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for Librivox.org into the public domain. To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon. Luxor, May tenth, eighteen sixty-six. First Alec. The real summer heat, the scams El Kabir, big sun, has fairly set in, and of course I am all the better. You would give my camel a good-back sheesh if you saw how prodigiously fat I have grown on her milk. It beats cod liver oil hollow. You can drink a gallon without feeling it. It is so easy of digestion. I have lent the Dahabia to Mostafa and to one or two more to go to Kenna 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. Paul Grave was here about a fortnight ago on Mostafa's and Mariette's business. By God this English way is wonderful, said a witness, that English bay questioned me till my stomach came out. I loved Mostafa bay, 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 darwishes. Talking of darwishes reminds me of the festival of Sheikh Gibriel 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 Sheikh, 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 malakia and bread, and then zikirs of different kinds, and a gamel el-fakara, assembly of the poor. Gamma 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 man sung, let a man take heed how he walks, 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 braing of acids. The zikir of the edfu men was very curious. Our people did it quietly, and the mon-chi-ed sang very sweetly. Indeed the song of the mon-chi-ed is the sugar in the sherbet to the zikir, said a man who came up when it was over, streaming with perspiration and radiant with smiles. Someday I will write to you the whole ground idea of a zikir, which is, in fact, an attempt to make present the communion of saints, living or dead. As I write, arrives the aruset ere-rali, 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 Akmet 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 Camararia 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 Akmet cleans the house as nicely as possible. I own I am quite as much relieved by the absence of the civilized elements as my retainers are. Did I describe the Coptic Good Friday? Imagine four hundred and fifty wreckas in church. I have seen many queer things, but nothing half so queer as the bobbing of the cops. 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. Abou Combe, a Christian Shahid, martyr, is buried there. He appeared to Moustafa'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 lithum 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 Abul Hashash, and to this day every Copt who marries in Luxor gives a pair of fowls to the family of that Muslim in remember of Abou Combe. I shall leave Luxor in five or six days, and right 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 them my own 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 baklava this morning to make up for it. END OF LETTER EIGHTY Read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. LETTER EIGHTY ONE OF LETTERS FROM EGYPT by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. TO MARIE'S DUFF GORDON, Cairo, June 22, 1866. MARIE'S, MY DARLING. I send you a Roman coin which a man gave me as a fee for medical attendance. I hope you will like it for your watch chain. I made our Coptic goldsmith bore a hole in it. Why don't you write to me, you young rascal? I am now living in my boat, and I often wish for you here to donkey-ride about with me. I can't write you a proper letter now, as Omar is waiting to take this up to Mr. Paul Grave with the drawings for your father. Omar desires his best salam to you and Rainy, and is very much disappointed that you are not coming out in the winter to go up to Luxor. We had a hurricane coming down the Nile and a boat behind us sank. We only lost an anchor and had to wait and have it fished up by the fishermen of a neighboring village. In places the water was so shallow that the men had to push the boat over by main force, and all went into the river. The captain and I shouted, Islam, el Islam, equivalent to, heave away, boys. There are splendid illuminations about to take place here, because the pasha has got leave to make his youngest boy his successor, and people are ordered to rejoice, which they do with much grumbling. It will cost something enormous. End of Letter Eighty-One, read by Subella Denton.