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

you would love the Arab women in the country villages. I wandered off the other day alone, while the men were mending the rudder, and fell in with a troop of them carrying water-jars--such sweet, graceful beings, all smiles and grace. One beautiful woman pointed to the village and made signs of eating and took my hand to lead me. I went with her, admiring them as they walked. Omar came running after and wondered I was not afraid. I laughed, and said they were much too pretty and kindly-looking to frighten anyone, which amused them immensely when he told them so. They all wanted me to go and eat in their houses, and I had a great mind to it, but the wind was fair and the boat waiting, so I bid my beautiful friends farewell. They asked if we wanted anything--milk or eggs--for they would give it with pleasure, it was not their custom to sell things, they said, I offered a bit of money to a little naked child, but his mother would not let him take it. I shall never forget the sweet, engaging creatures at that little village, or the dignified politeness of an old weaver whose loom I walked in to look at, and who also wished to 'set a piece of bread before me.' It is the true poetical pastoral life of the Bible in the villages where the English have not been, and happily they don't land at the little places. Thebes has become an English watering-place. There are now nine boats lying here, and the great object is to _do the Nile_ as fast as possible. It is a race up to Wady Halfeh or Assouan. I have gained so much during this month that I hope the remaining three will do real good, as the weather will improve with the new year they tell me. All the English stay here and 'make Christmas,' as Omar calls it, but I shall go on and do my devotions with the Copts at Esneh or Edfou. I found that their seeming disinclination to let one attend their service arose from an idea that we English would not recognise them as Christians. I wrote a curious story of a miracle to my mother, I find that I was wrong about the saint being a Mussulman (and so is Murray); he is no less than Mar Girghis, our own St. George himself. Why he selected a Mussulman mason I suppose he best knows.

In a week I shall be in Nubia. Some year we must all make this voyage; you would revel in it. Kiss my darlings for me.


February 11, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

THEBES,
_February_ 11, 1863.

DEAREST ALICK,

On arriving here last night I found one letter from you, dated December 10, and have received nothing else. Pray write again forthwith to Cairo where I hope to stay some weeks. A clever old dragoman I met at Philae offers to lend me furniture for a lodging or a tent for the desert, and when I hesitated he said he was very well off and it was not his business to sell things, but only to be paid for his services by rich people, and that if I did not accept it as he meant it he should be quite hurt. This is what I have met with from everything Arab--nothing but kindness and politeness. I shall say farewell to Egypt with real feeling; among other things, it will be quite a pang to part with Omar who has been my shadow all this time and for whom I have quite an affection, he is so thoroughly good and amiable.

I am really much better I hope and believe, though only within the last week or two. We have had the coldest winter ever known in Nubia, such bitter north-east winds, but when the wind by great favour did not blow, the weather was heavenly. If the millennium really does come I shall take a good bit of mine on the Nile. At Assouan I had been strolling about in that most poetically melancholy spot, the granite quarry of old Egypt and burial-place of Muslim martyrs, and as I came homewards along the bank a party of slave merchants, who had just loaded their goods for Senaar from the boat on the camels, asked me to dinner, and, oh! how delicious it felt to sit on a mat among the camels and strange bales of goods and eat the hot tough bread, sour milk and dates, offered with such stately courtesy. We got quite intimate over our leather cup of sherbet (brown sugar and water), and the handsome jet-black men, with features as beautiful as those of the young Bacchus, described the distant lands in a way which would have charmed Herodotus. They proposed to me to join them, 'they had food enough,' and Omar and I were equally inclined to go. It is of no use to talk of the ruins; everybody has said, I suppose, all that can be said, but Philae surpassed my expectations. No wonder the Arab legends of Ans el Wogood are so romantic, and Abou Simbel and many more. The scribbling of names is quite infamous, beautiful paintings are defaced by Tomkins and Hobson, but worst of all Prince Puckler Muskau has engraved his and his _Ordenskreuz_ in huge letters on the naked breast of that august and pathetic giant who sits at Abou Simbel. I wish someone would kick him for his profanity.

I have eaten many odd things with odd people in queer places, dined in a respectable Nubian family (the castor-oil was trying), been to a Nubian wedding--such a dance I saw. Made friends with a man much looked up to in his place (Kalabshee--notorious for cutting throats), inasmuch as he had killed several intrusive tax-gatherers and recruiting officers. He was very gentlemanly and kind and carried me up a place so steep I could not have reached it. Just below the cataract--by-the-by going up is nothing but noise and shouting, but coming down is fine fun--_Fantasia khateer_ as my excellent little Nubian pilot said. My sailors all prayed away manfully and were horribly frightened. I confess my pulse quickened, but I don't think it was fear. Well, below the cataract I stopped for a religious fete, and went to a holy tomb with the darweesh, so extraordinarily handsome and graceful--the true _feingemacht_ noble Bedaween type. He took care of me through the crowd, who never had seen a Frank woman before and crowded fearfully, and pushed the true believers unmercifully to make way for me. He was particularly pleased at my not being afraid of Arabs; I laughed, and asked if he was afraid of us. 'Oh no! he would like to come to England; when there he would work to eat and drink, and then sit and sleep in the church.' I was positively ashamed to tell my religious friend that with us the 'house of God' is not the house of the poor stranger. I asked him to eat with me but he was holding a preliminary Ramadan (it begins next week), and could not; but he brought his handsome sister, who was richly dressed, and begged me to visit him and eat of his bread, cheese and milk. Such is the treatment one finds if one leaves the highroad and the backsheesh-hunting parasites. There are plenty of 'gentlemen' barefooted and clad in a shirt and cloak ready to pay attentions which you may return with a civil look and greeting, and if you offer a cup of coffee and a seat on the floor you give great pleasure, still more if you eat the dourah and dates, or bread and sour milk with an appetite.

At Koom Ombo we met a Rifaee darweesh with his basket of tame snakes. After a little talk he proposed to initiate me, and so we sat down and held hands like people marrying. Omar sat behind me and repeated the words as my 'Wakeel,' then the Rifaee twisted a cobra round our joined hands and requested me to spit on it, he did the same and I was pronounced safe and enveloped in snakes. My sailors groaned and Omar shuddered as the snakes put out their tongues--the darweesh and I smiled at each other like Roman augurs. I need not say the creatures were toothless.

It is worth going to Nubia to see the girls. Up to twelve or thirteen they are neatly dressed in a bead necklace and a leather fringe 4 inches wide round the loins, and anything so absolutely perfect as their shapes or so sweetly innocent as their look can't be conceived. My pilot's little girl came in the dress mentioned before carrying a present of cooked fish on her head and some fresh eggs; she was four years old and so _klug_. I gave her a captain's biscuit and some figs, and the little pet sat with her little legs tucked under her, and ate it so _manierlich_ and was so long over it, and wrapped up some more white biscuit to take home in a little rag of a veil so carefully. I longed to steal her, she was such a darling. Two beautiful young Nubian women visited me in my boat, with hair in little plaits finished off with lumps of yellow clay burnished like golden tags, soft, deep bronze skins, and lips and eyes fit for Isis and Hathor. Their very dress and ornaments were the same as those represented in the tombs, and I felt inclined to ask them how many thousand years old they were. In their house I sat on an ancient Egyptian couch with the semicircular head-rest, and drank out of crockery which looked antique, and they brought a present of dates in a basket such as you may see in the British Museum. They are dressed in drapery like Greek statues, and are as perfect, but have hard, bold faces, and, though far handsomer, lack the charm of the Arab women; and the men, except at Kalabshee and those from far up the country, are not such gentlemen as the Arabs.

Everyone is cursing the French here. Forty thousand men always at work at the Suez Canal at starvation-point, does not endear them to the Arabs. There is great excitement as to what the new Pasha will do. If he ceases to give forced labour, the Canal, I suppose, must be given up. Well, I must leave off and send my letter to Mustapha Aga to forward. I shall stay here ten days or so, and then return slowly to Cairo on March 10, the last day of Ramadan. I will stay a short time at Cairo, and then take a small boat and drop down to Alexandria and see Janet. How I did wish for my darling Rainie to play with Achmet in the boat and see the pretty Nubian boys and girls. I have seen and heard so much, that like M. de Conti _je voudrais etre leve pour l'aller dire_. I long to bore you with traveller's tales. Pray write soon.

Omar wanted to hear all that 'the gentleman' said about 'weled and bint' (boy and girl), and was quite delighted to hear of Maurice's good report at school, he thinks that the 'Abou el welad' (father of the children--you, to wit) will send a sheep