Letters from Egypt by Lucy Duff Gordon (classic literature books txt) 📖

corner even to write in. I am better, but still cough every morning. I am, however, much better, and have quite got over the nervous depression which made me feel unable and ashamed to write. My young carpenter--a Christian--half Syrian, half Copt, of the Greek rite, and altogether a Cairene--would have pleased you. He would not work on Sunday, but instead, came mounted on a splendid tall black donkey, and handsomely dressed, to pay me a visit, and go out with me for a ride. So he, I, and Omar went up to the Sittee (Lady) Zeyneb's mosque, to inquire for Mustapha Bey Soubky, the Hakeem Pasha, whom I had known at Luxor. I was told by the porter of the mosque to seek him at the shop of a certain grocer, his particular friend, where he sits every evening. On going there we found the shop with its lid shut down (a shop is like a box laid on its side with the lid pulled up when open and dropped when shut; as big as a cobbler's stall in Europe). The young grocer was being married, and Mustapha Bey was ill. So I went to his house in the quarter--such narrow streets!--and was shown up by a young eunuch into the hareem, and found my old friend very poorly, but spent a pleasant evening with him, his young wife--a Georgian slave whom he had married,--his daughter by a former wife--whom he had married when he was fourteen, and the female dwarf buffoon of the Valideh Pasha (Ismail's mother) whose heart I won by rising to her, because she was so old and deformed. The other women laughed, but the little old dwarf liked it. She was a Circassian, and seemed clever. You see how the 'Thousand and One Nights' are quite true and real; how great Beys sit with grocers, and carpenters have no hesitation in offering civility to _naas omra_ (noble people). This is what makes Arab society quite unintelligible and impossible to most Europeans.

My carpenter's boy was the son of a _moonsheed_ (singer in the Mosque), and at night he used to sit and warble to us, with his little baby-voice, and little round, innocent face, the most violent love-songs. He was about eight years old, and sang with wonderful finish and precision, but no expression, until I asked him for a sacred song, which begins, 'I cannot sleep for longing for thee, O Full Moon' (the Prophet), and then the little chap warmed to his work, and the feeling came out.

Palgrave has left in my charge a little black boy of his, now at Luxor, where he left him very ill, with Mustapha A'gha. The child told me he was a _nyan-nyan_ (cannibal), but he did not look ogreish. I have written to Mustapha to send him me by the first opportunity. Achmet has quite recovered his temper, and I do so much better without a maid that I shall remain so. The difference in expense is enormous, and the peace and quiet a still greater gain; no more grumbling and 'exigencies' and worry; Omar irons very fairly, and the sailor washes well enough, and I don't want toilette--anyhow, I would rather wear a sack than try the experiment again. An uneducated, coarse-minded European is too disturbing an element in the family life of Easterns; the sort of filial relation, at once familiar and reverential of servants to a master they like, is odious to English and still more to French servants. If I fall in with an Arab or Abyssinian woman to suit me I will take her; but of course it is rare; a raw slave can do nothing, nor can a fellaha, and a Cairo woman is bored to death up in the Saeed. As to care and attention, I want for nothing. Omar does everything well and with pride and pleasure, and is delighted at the saving of expense in wine, beer, meat, etc. etc. One feeds six or eight Arabs well with the money for one European.

While the carpenter, his boy, and two _meneggets_ were here, a very moderate dish of vegetables, stewed with a pound of meat, was put before me, followed by a chicken or a pigeon for me alone. The stew was then set on the ground to all the men, and two loaves of a piastre each, to every one, a jar of water, and, _Alhamdulillah_, four men and two boys had dined handsomely. At breakfast a water-melon and another loaf-a-piece, and a cup of coffee all round; and I pass for a true Arab in hospitality. Of course no European can live so, and they despise the Arabs for doing it, while the Arab servant is not flattered at seeing the European get all sorts of costly luxuries which he thinks unnecessary; besides he has to stand on the defensive, in order not to be made a drudge by his European fellow-servant, and despised for being one; and so he leaves undone all sorts of things which he does with alacrity when it is for 'the master' only. What Omar does now seems wonderful, but he says he feels like the Sultan now he has only me to please.

_July_ 15_th_.--Last night came the two _meneggets_ to pay a friendly visit, and sat and told stories; so I ordered coffee, and one took his sugar out of his pocket to put in his cup, which made me laugh inwardly. He told a fisherman, who stopped his boat alongside for a little conversation, the story of two fishermen, the one a Jew, the other a Muslim, who were partners in the time of the Arab Prophet (upon whom be blessing and peace!). The Jew, when he flung his nets called on the Prophet of the Jews, and hauled it up full of fish every time; then the Muslim called on our Master Mohammed etc., etc., and hauled up each time only stones, until the Jew said, 'Depart, O man, thou bringest us misfortune; shall I continue to take half thy stones, and give thee half my fish? Not so.' So the Muslim went to our Master Mohammed and said, 'Behold, I mention thy name when I cast my net, and I catch only stones and calamity. How is this?' But the blessed Prophet said to him, 'Because thy stomach is black inwardly, and thou thoughtest to sell thy fish at an unfair price, and to defraud thy partner and the people, while the Jew's heart was clean towards thee and the people, and therefore God listened to him rather than to thee.' I hope our fisherman was edified by this fine moral. I also had good stories from the chief diver of Cairo, who came to examine the bottom of my boat, and told me, in a whisper, a long tale of his grandfather's descent below the waters of the Nile, into the land of the people who lived there, and keep tame crocodiles to hunt fish for them. They gave him a sleeve-full of fishes' scales, and told him never to return, and not to tell about them: and when he got home the scales had turned to money. But most wonderful of all was Haggi Hannah's story of her own life, and the journey of Omar's mother carrying her old mother in a basket on her head from Damietta to Alexandria, and dragging Omar then a very little boy, by the hand. The energy of many women here is amazing.

The Nile is rising fast, and the _Bisheer_ is come (the messenger who precedes the Hajj, and brings letters). _Bisheer_ is 'good tidings,' to coin a word. Many hearts are lightened and many half-broken to-day. I shall go up to the Abassia to meet the Mahmal and see the Hajjees arrive.

Next Friday I must take my boat out of the water, or at least heel her over, to repair the bad places made at Alexandria. It seems I once cured a Reis of the Pasha's of dysentery at Minieh, and he has not forgotten it, though I had; so Reis Awad will give me a good place on the Pasha's bank, and lend ropes and levers which will save a deal of expense and trouble. I shall move out all the things and myself into a boat of Zubeydeh's for four or five days, and stay alongside to superintend my caulkers.

Miss Berry _is_ dull no doubt, but few books seem dull to me now, I can tell you, and I was much delighted with such a _piece de resistance_. Miss Eden I don't wish for--that sort of theatre burlesque view of the customs of a strange country is inexpressibly tedious to one who is familiar with one akin to it. There is plenty of _real_ fun to be had here, but that sort is only funny to cockneys. I want to read Baker's book very much. I am much pleased with Abd el-Kader's book which Dozon sent me, and want the original dreadfully for Sheykh Yussuf, to show him that he and I are supported by such an authority as the great Ameer in our notions about the real unity of the Faith. The book is a curious mixture of good sense and credulity--quite 'Arab of the Arabs.' I will write a paper on the popular beliefs of Egypt; it will be curious, I think. By the way, I see in the papers and reviews speculations as to some imaginary Mohammedan conspiracy, because of the very great number of pilgrims last year from all parts to Mecca. _C'est chercher midi a quatorze heures_. Last year the day of Abraham's sacrifice,--and therefore _the_ day of the pilgrimage--(the sermon on Mount Arafat) fell on a Friday, and when that happens there is always a rush, owing to the popular notion that the _Hajj el-Gumma_ (pilgrimage of the Friday) is seven times blessed, or even equivalent to making it seven times in ordinary years. As any beggar in the street could tell a man this, it may give you some notion of how absurdly people make theories out of nothing for want of a little commonsense.

The _Moolid en-Nebbee_ (Festival of the Prophet) has just begun. I am to have a place in the great Derweesh's tent to see the Doseh.

The Nile is rising fast; we shall kill the poor little Luxor black lamb on the day of the opening of the canal, and have a _fantasia_ at night; only I grieve for my little white pussy, who sleeps every night on Ablook's (the lamb's) woolly neck, and loves him dearly. Pussy ('Bish' is Arabic for puss) was the gift of a Coptic boy at Luxor, and is wondrous funny, and as much more active and lissom than a European cat as an Arab is than an Englishman. She and Achmet and Ablook have fine games of romps. Omar has set his heart on an English signet ring with an oval stone to engrave his name on, here you know they sign papers with a signet, not with a pen. It must be _solid_ to stand hard work.

Well, I must finish this endless letter. Here comes _such_ a bouquet from the Pasha's garden (somebody's sister's son is servant to the chief eunuch and brings it to me), a great round of scarlet, surrounded with white and green and with tall reeds, on which are threaded single tube-rose flowers, rising out of it so as to figure a huge flower with white pistils. Arab