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

to dine with the Patriarch, and had borrowed my silver spoons, etc., etc., in that belief. But the representative of St. Mark is furious against the American missionaries who have converted some twenty Copts at Koos, and he could not bring himself to be decently civil to a Protestant. I found a coarse-looking man seated on a raised divan smoking his chibouk, on his right were some priests on a low divan; I went up and kissed his hand and was about to sit by the priests, but he roughly ordered a cawass to put a wooden chair _off the carpet_ to his left, at a distance from him, and told me to sit there. I looked round to see whether any of my neighbours were present, and I saw the consternation in their faces so, not wishing to annoy them, I did as if I did not perceive the affront, and sat down and talked for half an hour to the priests, and then took leave. I was informed that the Catholics were _naas mesakeen_ (poor inoffensive people), and that the Muslims at least were of an old religion, but that the Protestants ate meat all the year round, 'like dogs'--'or Muslims,' put in Omar, who stood behind my chair and did not relish the mention of dogs and the 'English religion' in one sentence. As I went the Patriarch called for dinner, it seems he had told Mikaeel he would not eat with me. It is evidently 'a judgment' of a most signal nature that I should be snubbed for the offences of missionaries, but it has caused some ill blood; the Kadee and Sheykh Yussuf and the rest, who all intended to do the civil to the Patriarch, now won't go near him on account of his rudeness to me. He has come up in a steamer, at the Pasha's expense, with a guard of cawasses, and, of course, is loud in praise of the Government, though he failed in getting the Moudir to send all the Protestants of Koos to the public works, or the army.

From what he said before me about the Abyssinians, and still more, from what he said to others about the English prisoners up there, I am convinced that the place to put the screw on is the _Batrarchane_ (Patriarch's palace) at Cairo, and that the priests are at the bottom of that affair. {350} He boasted immensely of the obedience and piety of _El Habbesh_ (the Abyssinians).

_Saturday_.--Yesterday I heard a little whispered grumbling about the money demanded by the 'Father.' One of my Copt neighbours was forced to sell me his whole provision of cooking butter to pay his quota. This a little damps the exultation caused by seeing him so honoured by the Effendina. One man who had heard that he had called the American missionaries 'beggars,' grumbled to me, 'Ah yes, beggars, beggars, they didn't beg of me for money.' I really do think that there must be something in this dread of the Protestant movement. Evidently the Pasha is backing up the Patriarch who keeps his church well apart from all other Christians, and well under the thumb of the Turks. It was pretty to hear the priests talk so politely of Islam, and curse the Protestants so bitterly. We were very nearly having a row about a woman, who formerly turned Moslimeh to get rid of an old blind Copt husband who had been forced upon her, and was permitted to recant, I suppose in order to get rid of the Muslim husband in his turn. However he said, 'I don't care, she is the mother of my two children, and whether she is Muslim or Christian she is my wife, and I won't divorce her, but I'll send her to church as much as she likes.' Thereupon the priests of course dropped the wrangle, much to the relief of Sheykh Yussuf, in whose house she had taken up her quarters after leaving the church, and who was afraid of being drawn into a dispute.

My new little Darfour boy is very funny and very intelligent. I hope he will turn out well, he seems well disposed, though rather lazy. Mabrook quarrelled with a boy belonging to the quarter close to us about a bird, and both boys ran away. The Arab boy is missing still I suppose, but Mabrook was brought back by force, swelling with passion, and with his clothes most scripturally 'rent.' He had regularly 'run amuck.' Sheykh Yussuf lectured him on his insolence to the people of the quarter, and I wound up by saying, 'Oh my son! whither dost thou wish to go? I cannot let thee wander about like a beggar, with torn clothes and no money, that the police may take thee and put thee in the army; but say where thou desirest to go, and we will talk about it with discretion.' It was at once borne in upon him that he did not want to go anywhere, and he said, 'I repent; I am but an ox, bring the courbash, beat me, and let me go to finish cooking the Sitt's dinner.' I remitted the beating, with a threat that if he bullied the neighbours again he would get it at the police, and not from Omar's very inefficient arm. In half an hour he was as merry as ever. It was a curious display of negro temper, and all about nothing at all. As he stood before me, he looked quite grandly tragic; and swore he only wanted to run outside and die; that was all.

I wish you could have heard (and understood) my _soirees, au clair de la lune_, with Sheykh Yussuf and Sheykh Abdurrachman. How Abdurrachman and I wrangled, and how Yussuf laughed, and egged us on. Abdurrachman was wroth at my want of faith in physic generally, as well as in particular, and said I talked like an infidel, for had not God said, 'I have made a medicine for every disease?' I said, 'Yes, but He does not say that He has told the doctors which it is; and meanwhile I say, _hekmet Allah_, (God will cure) which can't be called an infidel sentiment.' Then we got into alchemy, astrology, magic and the rest; and Yussuf vexed his friend by telling gravely stories palpably absurd. Abdurrachman intimated that he was laughing at _El-Ilm el-Muslimeen_ (the science of the Muslims), but Yussuf said, 'What is the _Ilm el-Muslimeen_? God has revealed religion through His prophets, and we can learn nothing new on that point; but all other learning He has left to the intelligence of men, and the Prophet Mohammed said, "All learning is from God, even the learning of idolaters." Why then should we Muslims shut out the light, and want to remain ever like children? The learning of the Franks is as lawful as any other.' Abdurrachman was too sensible a man to be able to dispute this, but it vexed him.

I am tired of telling all the _plackereien_ of our poor people, how three hundred and ten men were dragged off on Easter Monday with their bread and tools, how in four days they were all sent back from Keneh, because there were no orders about them, and made to _pay their boat hire_. Then in five days they were sent for again. Meanwhile the harvest was cut green, and the wheat is lying out unthreshed to be devoured by birds and rats, and the men's bread was wasted and spoiled with the hauling in and out of boats. I am obliged to send camels twenty miles for charcoal, because the Abab'deh won't bring it to market any more, the tax is too heavy. Butter too we have to buy secretly, none comes into the market. When I remember the lovely smiling landscape which I first beheld from my windows, swarming with beasts and men, and look at the dreary waste now, I feel the 'foot of the Turk' heavy indeed. Where there were fifty donkeys there is but one; camels, horses, all are gone; not only the horned cattle, even the dogs are more than decimated, and the hawks and vultures seem to me fewer; mankind has no food to spare for hangers-on. The donkeys are sold, the camels confiscated, and the dogs dead (the one sole advantage). Meat is cheap, as everyone must sell to pay taxes and no one has money to buy. I am implored to take sheep and poultry for what I will give.


May 23, 1867: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR,
_May_ 23, 1867.

DEAREST MUTTER,

I have only time for a few words by Giafar Pasha, who goes early to-morrow morning. My boat arrived all right and brought your tin box. The books and toys are very welcome. The latter threw little Darfour into ecstasies, and he got into disgrace for 'playing with the Sitt' instead of minding some business on hand. I fear I shall spoil him, he is so extremely engaging and such a baby. He is still changing his teeth, so cannot be more than eight; at first I did not like him, and feared he was sullen, but it was the usual _khoss_ (fear), the word that is always in one's ears, and now that is gone, he is always coming hopping in to play with me. He is extremely intelligent and has a pretty baby nigger face. The Darfour people are, as you know, an independent and brave people, and by no means 'savages.' I can't help thinking how pleased Rainie would be with the child. He asked me to give him the picture of the English Sultaneh out of the _Illustrated London News_, and has pasted it inside the lid of his box.

I am better as usual, since the hot weather has begun, the last six days. I shall leave this in a week, I think, and Mustapha and Yussuf will go with me to Cairo. Yussuf was quite enchanted with your note to him; his eyes glistened, and he took an envelope to keep it carefully. Omar said such a letter is like a _hegab_ (amulet) and Yussuf said, 'Truly it is, and I could never have one with more _baraka_ (blessing) or more like the virtue which went out of Jesus, if ever I wore one at all; I will never part with it.'

We had a very pretty festival for the Sheykh, whose tomb you have a photograph of, and I spent a very pleasant evening with Sheykh Abd el-Mootooal, who used to scowl at me, but now we are 'like brothers.' I found him very clever, and better informed than any Arab I have met, who is quite apart from all Franks. I was astonished to find that he _abondait dans man sens_ in my dispute with Sheykh Abdurrachman, and said that it was the duty of Muslims to learn what they could from us, and not to stick to the old routine.

On Sunday the Patriarch snubbed me, and would not eat with me, and on Monday a _Walee_ (saint) picked out tit-bits for me with his own fingers, and went with me inside the tomb. The Patriarch has made a blunder with his progress. He has come ostentatiously as the _protege_ and _pronem_ of the Pasha, and he has 'eaten' and beaten the fellaheen. The Copts of Luxor have had to pay fifty pounds for the honour of his presence, besides no end