Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (ebook reader android txt) 📖

And the crowds of people from all parts of the world, each dressed in his and her natural costume, every style of dress and every color under the sun. And the milds of bazars, little booths about ten feet square but all runnin’ over with the richest embroideries, silken fabrics, gold, silver, amber and everything else gorgeous. Then there is the new part of Cairo, the broad, long streets lined with magnificent buildin’s. The great Citadel of Cairo and the Alabaster Mosque up on a rocky height, six hundred feet above the city. The Citadel wuz built by Saladin in 1100, most a thousand years ago. Where is Mr. Saladin and his folks? and his dynasty? All forgot centuries ago, but the work he thought out is here still. The Mosque is the only building’ in the world built of alabaster; it wuz begun by Mehemet Ali, the great-grandfather of the Khedive. The alabaster looks like satin, amber and white color, mebby some of my readers have got a little alabaster box or figger that they set store by, it is so costly and fine. Then think of a hull buildin’ three hundred feet square built of it. The ruff is uplifted by alabaster columns; the alabaster galleries are a hundred feet above the floor. The gilded dome can be seen 266 twenty or thirty milds away. The view from the terrace in front is so beautiful that you don’t want to leave it. The city lies before you and a long view of the Nile, rich gardens, green fields, towering palms, the pyramids standin’ like ghosts out of the past, Memphis, oldest city of the world. Turn your head and there is the land of Goshen; how many times amidst the overwhelmin’ cares of a Jonesville kitchen have we mentioned “Land of Goshen,” but solemn now to look at and contemplate as the home of the patriarchs. Only two milds off down the Nile is the spot where Napoleon fought with the Mamelukes and won the Battle of the Pyramids. And jest under you as you look down, you see the ruff of the Egyptian Museum where the body of Ramesis lays, once rulin’ with a high hand he and his folks, as many as a dozen of ’em, over all the land our stranger eyes looked down on. But now they’re nothin’ but a side show, as you may say in a museum.

Josiah wuz dretful took with the sights of shops on either side of the narrow streets of old Cairo and all sorts of trades bein’ carried on there right out doors: goldsmiths and silversmiths makin’ their jewelry right there before you, and Josiah sez: “I lay out to have a shop rigged out doors to hum and make brooms and feather dusters; and why don’t you, Samantha; how uneek it would be for you to have your sewin’-machine or your quiltin’-frames in the corner of the fence between us and old Bobbett’s, and have a bedquilt or a crazy blanket draped behind you on the fence. You could have a kind of a turban if you wanted to; I would lend you one of my bandannas. I’m goin’ to wear ’em in my bazar when I rig one up, and my dressin’-gown, and I shall have Ury wear one and sandals. I can make some crackin’ good sandals for us all out of shingles, and lace ’em on with colored ribbins. How dressy they will make me look. I shall lace my sandals on with yeller and red baby ribbin, them colors are so becomin’ and make my complexion look fairer. We shall jest coin money out of my bazar, and I shall write 267 to Ury to put in a piece of broom corn, and mebby we shall make jewelry; we could make some good mournin’ jewelry out of coal and lam-black.”

Well, I didn’t argy with him, thinkin’ most probable that he’d forgit it, but Arvilly, who wuz with us, sez: “I guess it would be mournin’ jewelry in good earnest if you made it; I guess it would make anybody mourn to see it, let alone wearin’ it.”

“Wait till you see it,” sez he.

And she sez, “I am perfectly willin’ to wait.”

“But I shan’t set on the floor as they do here,” sez he, “I am sorry for some of them poor old men that can’t afford chairs, and I would be perfectly willin’ to make ’em some stools if they’d furnish the lumber.”

Sez I, “It’s their way, Josiah, they like it.”

“I don’t believe it,” sez he; “nobody loves to scrooch down flat with their legs under ’em numb as sticks.” But right whilst we were talkin’ we met a funeral procession. The head one had hard work to git through the crowd crying out:

“There is no deity but God! Mohammed is his apostle!” Then come some boys singin’ a funeral him; and then the bier, borne by friends of the corpse and covered by a handsome shawl. Then come the hired mourners––wimmen––for I spoze they think they’re used to mournin’ and can earn their money better. ’Tennyrate, these screeched and wailed and tore their hair and beat their breast-bone as if they meant to earn their money. Then come the relatives and friends. Of course, they no need to have wep’ a tear, havin’ hired it done. But they did seem to feel real bad, they couldn’t have wept and wailed any more if they had been hired to. Josiah sez:

“Samantha, when I’m took, if you hire anybody to mourn get some better lookin’ females than these. I had almost ruther die onlamented than to have such lookin’ creeters weepin’ over my remains; now some fair lookin’ females such 268 as sister Celestine Bobbett and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury–––”

But I interrupted him by telling him truly that no hired tears would fall on his beloved face if I outlived him, and no boughten groans would be hearn. Sez I, “The tears of true love and grief would bedew your forward.”

“Well,” sez he, “it would be my wishes.”

As we wended our way along we met several water-carriers with leather bottles, jest such a one as Hagar took with her and Ishmael out in the desert, and it wuz on this same desert whose sands wuz siftin’ in about us every chance it had that she lay the child down to die and angels come and fed him. And, also, it bein’ along towards night we met several shepherds; one wuz carryin’ a tired lamb in his arms. They wuz patriarkal in appearance and dressed jest like the Bible pictures. I felt as though I had met Abraham or Isaac onbeknown to them.

Another sight that impressed my pardner fearfully wuz the howlin’ dervishes––we’d hearn about ’em a sight, and so we thought we would go and hear ’em howl. By payin’ a little backsheesh (which is money) we got permission to attend one of their religious meetin’s. There wuz a chief or Sheik, which Josiah always called a “shack”––and I d’no but he wuz well named––and about twenty or thirty howlers in long white robes. They made a low bow to the Shack and then knelt round him in a circle; then they bowed agin a number of times clear to the floor and begun to sing or pray. I d’no what you would call it, but the axents wuz dretful and the music that accompanied it harrowin’ in the extreme. Then they got up and bowed agin to the Shack and begun to shake their heads and their arms and their feet rapid and voylent, all keepin’ time to the music, or what I spoze they called music, their hair hangin’ loose, their yellin’ fearful, and then they begun to whirl like a top spinnin’ round, faster and faster, whirlin’ and howlin’ and shriekin’ till they couldn’t howl or whirl any longer. Then the meetin’ 269 broke up as you may say, they formed a half circle agin round the Shack, bowed to the ground before him and fell down perfectly wore out on the floor. I should have thought they’d died. Why, I couldn’t have stood it and lived nor Josiah couldn’t; it wuz all we could stand to see it go on.

One day Miss Meechim and I visited an American Mission School for Arab and Egyptian children, and it wuz from one of these very schools that one of the Rajahs or native princes took his wife. She wuz a little donkey driver, and the teacher of the Mission, liking her and pitying her, got permission of her mother (a poor donkey driver of Cairo living in a mud hut) to take the child into her school. When she wuz about fourteen years old the Rajah, who had accepted the Christian religion, visited this school, and the little girl wuz teaching a class of barefooted Egyptian girls, sittin’ on the floor about her.

Who can tell the mysteries of love? Like lightning it strikes where it will and must. Why should this Prince, educated in England, a friend of Queen Victoria, who had seen beautiful women all his days onmoved, why should he fall in love with this little girl, late a donkey driver in the streets of Cairo?

I d’no, but so it wuz, and he told the lady in charge of the school that he wanted to make her his wife. She wuz greatly surprised, and not knowin’ he wuz what he said he wuz, asked him polite to go away and select some other bride. But the next day he come back, sent in his card and a autograph letter from Queen Victoria, and agin expressed his desire to marry the bright-eyed little Egyptian.

When the subject wuz broached to her she wep’ and pleaded not to be sold into slavery, spozin’ that wuz what it meant. But the Prince made her understand that he wanted her for his wife, and she consented to be educated in a fitting manner, and at last the weddin’ took place at the home of the teacher.

The Prince took his wife to London, where she wuz presented 270 at Court, and makes him a good wife, so fur as I know, and they say she’s dretful good to the poor; ’tennyrate the Prince must think a good deal of her, for he presented every year one thousand pounds to help on the school where he found his Princess. This story is true and is stranger than most lies.

I spoze that from that time on all the dark-eyed little Egyptian maids in that school wuz lookin’ out anxiously to see some prince comin’ in and claim ’em and make a royal princess of ’em. But one swallow don’t make a spring; I don’t spoze there has been or will be agin such a romance.

Josiah said that we must not leave Cairo without seein’ Pharo. Josiah said he felt real well acquainted with him, havin’ read about him so much. Sez he, “He wuz a mean creeter as ever trod shoe-leather and I’d love to tell him so.”

They keep him in the Museum of Cairo now, a purpose, I spoze, to scare folks from doin’ what he did, for a humblier lookin’ creeter I never see, and hard lookin’; I don’t wonder a mite at the bad things I’ve hearn tell on him; why, a man that looked like that wuz sure to be mean as pusley. He looked as if he wuz bein’ plagued now with every single plague that fell on him for his cruelty and I d’no but he is. I wonder that the Israelites got along with him so long as they did; Josiah wouldn’t have stood it a week, he’s that quick-tempered and despises the idee of bein’ bossed round, and how Pharo did drive them poor children of Israel round; ground ’em right down to his terms, wouldn’t let ’em say their soul wuz their own, worked ’em most to death, half starved ’em, wouldn’t give ’em any rights, not a single right. But as I sez to Josiah, he got his come-up-ance for his heartless cruelty, he got plagued enough and drownded in the bargain.

He’s a mummy now. Yes, as Josiah sez when he looked on him:

“You’ve got to be mum now, no givin’ orders to your poor overworked hired help in your brick-fields, not lettin’ 271 ’em have even a straw that they begged for to lighten their burden. The descendants of them folks you driv round can stand here and poke fun at you all day and you’ve got to keep your mouth shet. Yes,” sez he, “you’ve got to a place now where you can’t be yellin’ out your orders, you’ve got to be mum, for you’re a mummy.”

I didn’t love to have Josiah stand and sass Pharo right to his face, but it seemed so gratifyin’ to him I