Letters from Egypt Part 30

_URANIA_, BOULAK, _October_ 21, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

So many thanks for the boxes and their contents. My slaves are enchanted with all that the 'great master' has sent. Darfour hugged the horsecloth in ecstasy that he should never again be cold at night. The waistcoats of printed stuff, and the red flannel s.h.i.+rts are gone to be made up, so my boys will be like Pashas this winter, as they told the Reis. He is awfully perturbed about the evil eye. 'Thy boat, _Mashallah_, is such as to cause envy from all beholders; and now when they see a son with thee, _Bismillah_! _Mashallah_! like a flower, verily. I fear, I fear greatly from the eye of the people.' We have bought a tambourine and a tarabouka, and are on the look-out for a man who can sing well, so as to have fantasia on board.

_October_ 22.-I hear to-day that the Pasha sent a telegram _hochst eigenhandig_ to Koos, in consequence whereof one Stefanos, an old Copt of high character, many years in Government employ, was put in chains and hurried off within twenty minutes to Fazoghlou with two of his friends, for no other crime than having turned Presbyterian. This is quite a new idea in Egypt, and we all wonder why the Pasha is so anxious to 'brush the coat' of the Copt Patriarch. We also hear that the people up in the Saaed are running away by wholesale, utterly unable to pay the new taxes and to do the work exacted. Even here the beating is fearful. My Reis has had to send all his month's wages to save his aunt and his sister-in-law, both widows, from the courbash. He did not think so much of the blows, but of the 'shame'; 'those are women, lone women, from whence can they get the money?'

November 3, 1867: Mrs. Ross

_To Mrs. Ross_.

BOULAK, _November_ 3, 1867.

DEAREST JANET,

Maurice arrived on Friday week, and is as happy as can be, he says he never felt so well and never had such good snipe shooting. Little Darfour's amus.e.m.e.nt at Maurice is boundless; he grins at him all the time he waits at table, he marvels at his dirty boots, at his bathing, at his much walking out shooting, at his knowing no Arabic. The d.y.k.e burst the other day up at Bahr Yussuf, and we were nearly all swept away by the furious rush of water. My little boat was upset while three men in her were securing the anchor, and two of them were nearly drowned, though they swim like fish; all the dahabiehs were rattled and pounded awfully; and in the middle of the _fracas_, at noonday, a steamer ran into us quite deliberately. I was rather frightened when the steamer b.u.mped us, and carried away the iron supports of the awning; and they cursed our fathers into the bargain, which I thought needless. The English have fallen into such contempt here that one no longer gets decent civility from anything in the _Miri_ (Government).

Olagnier has lent us a lovely little skiff, and I have had her repaired and painted, so Maurice is set up for shooting and boating. Darfour calls him the 'son of a crocodile' because he loves the water, and generally delights in him hugely, and all my men are enchanted with him.

December 20, 1867: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR, _December_ 20, 1867.

DEAREST ALICK,

We arrived here all safe three days ago. I think of starting for Nubia directly after Christmas Day, which we must keep here. We have lovely weather. Maurice is going with a friend of my friends, a Bedawee, to shoot, I hope among the Abab'deh he will get some gazelle shooting. I shall stop at Syaleh to visit the Sheykh's mother, and with them Maurice could go for some days into the desert. As to crocodiles, Inshallah, we will eat their hearts, and not they ours. You may rely on it that Maurice is 'on the head and in the eye' of all my crew, and will not be allowed to bathe in 'unclean places.' Reis Mohammed stopped him at Gebel Abu'l Foda. You would be delighted to see how different he looks; all his clothes are too tight now. He says he is thoroughly happy, and that he was never more amused than when with me, which I think very flattering.

Half of the old house at Luxor fell down into the temple beneath six days before I arrived; so there is an end of the _Maison de France_, I suppose. It might be made very nice again at a small expense, but I suppose the Consul will not do it, and certainly I shall not unless I want it again. Nothing now remains solid but the three small front rooms and the big hall with two rooms off it. All the part I lived in is gone, and the steps, so one cannot get in. Luckily Yussuf had told Mohammed to move my little furniture to the part which is solid, having a misgiving of the rest. He has the most exquisite baby, an exact minature of himself. He is in a manner my G.o.dson, being named Noor ed-Deen Hishan Abu-l-Hajjaj, to be called _Noor_ like me.

January, 1868: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

ON BOARD THE _URANIA_, _January_, 1868.

DEAREST ALICK,

Your letter of the 10 December most luckily came on to Edfoo by the American Consul-General, who overtook us there in his steamer and gave me a lunch. Maurice was as usual up to his knees in a distant swamp trying to shoot wild geese. Now we are up close to a.s.souan, and there are no more marshes; but _en revanche_ there are quails and _kata_, the beautiful little sand grouse. I eat all that Maurice shoots, which I find very good for me; and as for Maurice he has got back his old round boyish face; he eats like an ogre, walks all day, sleeps like a top, bathes in the morning and has laid on flesh so that his clothes won't b.u.t.ton. At Esneh we fell in with handsome Ha.s.san, who is now Sheykh of the Abab'deh, as his elder brother died. He gave us a letter to his brother at Syaleh, up in Nubia; ordering him to get up a gazelle hunt for Maurice, and I am to visit his wife. I think it will be pleasant, as the Bedaween women don't veil or shut up, and to judge by the men ought to be very handsome. Both Ha.s.san and Abu Goord, who was with him, preached the same sermon as my learned friend Abdurrachman had done at Luxor. 'Why, in G.o.d's name, I left my son without a wife?' They are sincerely shocked at such indifference to a son's happiness.

a.s.sOUAN, 10 _Ramadan_.

I have no almanach, but you will be able to know the date by your own red pocketbook, which determined the beginning of Ramadan at Luxor this year.

They received a telegram fixing it for Thursday, but Sheykh Yussuf said that he was sure the astronomers in London knew best, and made it Friday.

To-morrow we shall make our bargain, and next day go up the Cataract-Inshallah, in safety. The water is very good, as Jesus the black pilot tells me. He goes to the second Cataract and back, as I intend to stay nearly two months in Nubia. The weather here is perfect now, we have been lucky in having a lovely mild winter hitherto. We are very comfortable with a capital crew, who are all devoted to Maurice.

The Sheykh of the Abab'deh has promised to join us if he can, when he has convoyed some 400 Bas.h.i.+bazouks up to Wady Halfa, who are being sent up because the English are in Abyssinia.

April, 1868: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR, _April_, 1868.

DEAREST ALICK,

I have been too weak to write, but the heat set in three days ago and took away my cough, and I feel much better. Maurice also flourishes in the broil, and protests against moving yet. He speaks a good deal of Arabic and is friends with everyone. It is _Salaam aleykoum ya maris_ on all sides. A Belgian has died here, and his two slaves, a very nice black boy and an Abyssinian girl, got my little varlet, Darfour, to coax me to take them under my protection, which I have done, as there appeared a strong probability that they would be 'annexed' by a rascally Copt who is a Consular agent at Keneh. I believe the Belgian has left money for them, which of course they would never get without someone to look after it, and so I have Ramadan, the boy, with me, and shall take the girl when I go, and carry them both to Cairo, settle their little business, and let them present a sealed-up book which they have to their Consul there, according to their master's desire, and then marry the girl to some decent man. I have left her in Mustapha's hareem till I go.

I enjoyed Nubia immensely, and long to go and live with the descendants of a great _Ras_ (head, chief,) who entertained me at Ibreem, and who said, like Ravenswood, 'Thou art come to a fallen house, and there is none to serve thee left save me.' It was a paradise of a place, and the Nubian had the grand manners of a very old, proud n.o.bleman. I had a letter to him from Sheykh Yussuf.

Since I wrote the above it has turned quite chilly again, so we agreed to stay till the heat really begins. Maurice is so charmed with Luxor that he does not want to go, and we mean to let the boat and live here next winter. I think another week will see us start down stream. Janet talks of coming up the Nile with me next year, which would be pleasant. I am a little better than I have been the last two months. I was best in Nubia but I got a cold at Esneh, second hand from Maurice, which made me very seedy. I cannot go about at all for want of breath. Could you send me a chair such as people are carried in by two men? A common chair is awkward for the men when the banks are steep, and I am nervous, so I never go out. I wish you could see your son bare-legged and footed, in a s.h.i.+rt and a pair of white Arab drawers, rus.h.i.+ng about with the fellaheen.

He is everybody's 'brother' or 'son.'

May, 1868: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

MINIEH, _May_, 1868.

DEAREST ALICK,

We are just arriving at Minieh whence the railway will take letters quickly. We dined at Keneh and at Siout with some friends, and had fantasia at Keneh. Omar desires his dutiful salaams to you and hopes you will be satisfied with the care he has taken of 'the child.' How you would have been amused to hear the girl who came to dance for us at Esneh lecture Maurice about evil ways, but she was an old friend of mine, and gave good and sound advice.

Everyone is delighted about Abyssinia. 'Thank G.o.d our Pasha will fear the English more than before, and the Sultan also,' and when I lamented the expense, they all exclaimed, 'Never mind the expense, it is worth more than ten millions to you; your faces are whitened and your power enlarged before all the world; but why don't you take us on your way back.'

I saw a very interesting man at Keneh, one Faam, a Copt, who has turned Presbyterian, and has induced a hundred others at Koos to do likewise: an American missionary is their minister. Faam was sent off to the Soudan by the Patriarch, but brought back. He is a splendid old fellow, and I felt I looked on the face of a Christian martyr, a curious sight in the nineteenth century: the calm, fearless, rapt expression was like what you see in n.o.ble old Italian pictures, and he had the perfect absence of 'doing pious' which shows the undoubting faith. He and the Mufti, also a n.o.ble fellow, sparred about religion in a jocose and friendly tone which would be quite unintelligible in Exeter Hall. When he was gone the Mufti said, 'Ah! we thank them, for though they know not the truth of Islam, they are good men, and walk straight, and would die for their religion: their example is excellent; praise be to G.o.d for them.'

June 14, 1868: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.