Letters from Egypt by Lucy Duff Gordon (management books to read .txt) 📕

time) wants me to spend the summer up here and take sand baths, _i.e._ bury myself up to the chin in the hot sand, and to get a Dongola slave to rub me. A most fascinating derweesh from Esneh gave me the same advice; he wanted me to go and live near him at Esneh, and let him treat me. I wish you could see Sheykh Seleem, he is a sort of remnant of the Memlook Beys--a Circassian--who has inherited his master's property up at Esneh, and married his master's daughter. The master was one of the Beys, also a slave inheriting from his master. Well after being a terrible _Shaitan_ (devil) after drink, women, etc. Seleem has repented and become a man of pilgrimage and prayer and perpetual fasting; but he has retained the exquisite grace and charm of manner which must have made him irresistible in his _shaitan_ days, and also the beautifully delicate style of dress--a dove-coloured cloth _sibbeh_ over a pale blue silk _kuftan_, a turban like a snow-drift, under which flowed the silky fair hair and beard, and the dainty white hands under the long muslin shirt sleeve made a picture; and such a smile, and such ready graceful talk. Sheykh Yussuf brought him to me as a sort of doctor, and also to try and convert me on one point. Some Christians had made Yussuf quite miserable, by telling him of the doctrine that all unbaptized infants went to eternal fire; and as he knew that I had lost a child very young, it weighed on his mind that perhaps I fretted about this, and so he said he could not refrain from trying to convince me that God was not so cruel and unjust as the Nazarene priests represented Him, and that all infants whatsoever, as well as all ignorant persons, were to be saved. 'Would that I could take the cruel error out of the minds of all the hundreds and thousands of poor Christian mothers who must be tortured by it,' said he, 'and let them understand that their dead babies are with Him who sent and who took them.' I own I did not resent this interference with my orthodoxy, especially as it is the only one I ever knew Yussuf attempt.

Dr. Osman is a lecturer in the Cairo school of medicine, a Shereef, and eminently a gentleman. He came up in the passenger steamer and called on me and spent all his spare time with me. I liked him better than the bewitching derweesh Seleem; he is so like my old love Don Quixote. He was amazed and delighted at what he heard here about me. '_Ah Madame, on vous aime comme une soeur, et on vous respecte comme une reine; cela rejouit le coeur des honnetes gens de voir tous les prejuges oublies et detruits a ce point_.' We had no end of talk. Osman is the only Arab I know who has read a good deal of European literature and history and is able to draw comparisons. He said, '_Vous seule dans toute l'Egypte connaissez le peuple et comprenez ce qui se passe, tous les autres Europeens ne savent absolument rien que les dehors; il n'y a que vous qui ayez inspire la confiance qu'il faut pour connaitre la vente_.' Of course this is between ourselves, I tell you, but I don't want to boast of the kind thoughts people have of me, simply because I am decently civil to them.

In Egypt we are eaten up with taxes; there is not a penny left to anyone. The taxes for the whole year _eight months in advance_ have been levied, as far as they can be beaten out of the miserable people. I saw one of the poor dancing girls the other day, (there are three in Luxor) and she told me how cruel the new tax on them is. It is left to the discretion of the official who farms it to make each woman pay according to her presumed gains, _i.e._ her good looks, and thus the poor women are exposed to all the caprices and extortions of the police. This last new tax has excited more disgust than any. 'We now know the name of our ruler,' said a fellah who had just heard of it, 'he is _Mawas_ Pasha.' I won't translate--but it is a terrible epithet when uttered in a tone which gives it the true meaning, though in a general way the commonest word of abuse to a donkey, or a boy, or any other cattle. The wages of prostitution are unclean, and this tax renders all Government salaries unlawful according to strict law. The capitation tax too, which was remitted for three years on the pasha's accession to the people of Cairo, Alexandria, Damietta and Rascheed, is now called for. Omar will have to pay about 8 pounds back tax, which he had fondly imagined himself excused from. You may conceive the distress this must cause among artisans, etc., who have spent their money and forgotten it, and feel cheated out of the blessings they then bestowed on the Pasha--as to that they will take out the change in curses.

There was a meeting here the other day of the Kadee, Sheykh el-Beled, and other notables to fix the amount of tax each man was to pay towards the increased police tax; and the old Shereef at the end spoke up, and said he had heard that one man had asked me to lend him money, and that he hoped such a thing would not happen again. Everyone knew I had had heavy expenses this year, and most likely had not much money; that my heart was soft, and that as everyone was in distress it would be 'breaking my head,' and in short that he should think it unmanly if anyone tried to trouble a lone woman with his troubles. I did offer one man 2 pounds that he might not be forced to run away to the desert, but he refused it and said, 'I had better go at once and rob out there, and not turn rogue towards thee--never could I repay it.' The people are running away in all directions.

When the Moolid of the Sheykh came the whole family Abu-l-Hajjaj could only raise six hundred and twenty piastres among them to buy the buffalo cow, which by custom--strong as the laws of the Medes and Persians--must be killed for the strangers who come; and a buffalo cow is worth one thousand piastres. So the stout old Shereef (aged 87) took his staff and the six hundred and twenty piastres, and sallied forth to walk to Erment and see what God would send them; and a charitable woman in Erment did give a buffalo cow for the six hundred and twenty piastres, and he drove her home the twenty miles rejoicing.

There has been a burglary over at Gourneh, an unheard-of event. Some men broke into the house of the Coptic _gabit_ (tax-gatherer) and stole the money-box containing about sixty purses--over 150 pounds. The _gabit_ came to me sick with the fright which gave him jaundice, and about eight men are gone in chains to Keneh on suspicion. Hajjee Baba too, a Turkish cawass, is awfully bilious; he says he is 'sick from beating men, and it's no use, you can't coin money on their backs and feet when they haven't a para in the world.' Altogether everyone is gloomy, and many desperate. I never saw the aspect of a population so changed.

January 1, 1867. God bless you, dearest Alick, and grant you many good years more. I must finish this to go to-morrow by the steamer. I would give a great deal to see you again, but when will that be?


January 12, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_January_ 12, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

Only two days ago I received letters from you of the 17 September and the 19 November. I wonder how many get lost and where? Janet gives me hopes of a visit of a few days in March and promises me a little terrier dog, whereat Omar is in raptures. I have made no plans at all, never having felt well enough to hope to be able to travel. The weather has changed for the better, and it is not at all old now; we shall see what the warmth does for me. You make my bowels yearn with your account of Rainie. If only we had Prince Achmet's carpet, and you could all come here for a few months.

We were greatly excited here last week; a boy was shot out in the sugar-cane field: he was with four Copts, and at first it looked ugly for the Copts. But the Maohn tells me he is convinced they are innocent, and that they only prevaricated from fear--it was robbers shot the poor child. What struck and surprised me in the affair was the excessive horror and consternation it produced; the Maohn had not had a murder in his district at all in eight years. The market-place was thronged with wailing women, Omar was sick all day, and the Maohn pale and wretched. The horror of killing seems greater here than ever I saw it. Palgrave says the same of the Arabian Arabs in his book: it is not one's notion of Oriental feeling, but a murder in England is taken quite as a joke compared with the scene here. I fear there will be robberies, owing to the distress, and the numbers who are running away from the land unable to pay their taxes. Don't fear for me, for I have two watchmen in the house every night--the regular guard and an amateur, a man whose boy I took down to Cairo to study in Gama'l Azhar.

Palgrave has written to Ross wanting Mabrook back. I am very sorry, the more so as Mabrook is recalcitrant. 'I want to stay with thee, I don't want to go back to the Nazarene.' A boy who heard him said, 'but the Lady is a Nazarene too;' whereupon Mabrook slapped his face with great vigour. He will be troublesome if he does turn restive, and he is one who can only be managed by kindness. He is as good and quiet as possible with us, but the stubborn will is there and he is too ignorant to be reasoned with.

_January_ 14.--To-day the four Copts have again changed their story, and after swearing that the robbers were strangers, have accused a man who has shot birds for me all this winter: and the poor devil is gone to Keneh in chains. The weather seems to have set in steadily for fine. I hope soon to get out, but my donkey has grown old and shaky and I am too weak to walk, so I sit in the balcony.


January 14, 1867: Mrs. Austin

_To Mrs. Austin_.

LUXOR,
_January_ 14, 1867.

DEAREST MUTTER,

We have had a very cold winter and I have been constantly ailing, luckily the cough has transferred itself from the night to the day, and I get some good sleep. The last two days have been much warmer and I hope matters will mend. I am beginning to take cod-liver oil, as we can't find a milch camel anywhere.

My boat has been well let in Cairo and is expected here every day.