Letters From Egypt, 1863 - 1865

Lucie Duff Gordon

• Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9783849650216
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Egyptian Ancient History
• Index: History

From travellers whose course of wild adventure and whose manifold and uncommon gifts put a pressure upon the reader in following them, similar to that felt by them in exploring, it is very delightful to turn to so small and readable, but fresh and pleasant a volume, as Lady Duff Gordon's. The scenes she visits and describes are supposed to be well known, but assuredly she has the merit of investing them with all interest very new, arising, principally, from her watchfulness over all human ways, and her own interest in every aspect of human life. The letters are written in a singularly captivating and vigorous English style. They possess the rare virtue of enabling the reader to realize the position of the writer and the true aspect of the people.

LETTER XXIII.

Alexandria,

Monday, October 26, 1863.

I AM much the worse for the damp of this place. On Thursday I shall get off, as the boat will be clean. I have a funny little dahabeeyeh, barely big enough to hold us; but I am lucky to get that for twelve pounds.

I went to two hareems the other day, with a little boy of Mustafa Agha's, and was much pleased. A very pleasant Turkish lady pulled out all her magnificent bedding and dresses for me and was most amiable. At another, a superb Arab, dressed in white cotton, with most grande dame manners and unpainted face, received me statelily. Her house would drive you wild,—such enamelled tiles, covering the panels of the walls, all divided by carved wood, and such carved screens and galleries, all very old and rather dilapidated, but magnificent,— and the lady worthy of her house. A bold-eyed slave-girl with a baby, put herself forward for admiration, and was ordered to bring coffee, with cool though polite imperiousness. None of our great ladies can half crush a rival in comparison; they do it too coarsely. The quiet scorn of the beautiful pale-faced, black-haired Arab was beyond any English powers. Then it was fun to open the lattice and make me look out on the “place,” and to wonder what the neighbours would say at the sight of my face and European hat. She asked about my children, and blessed them repeatedly, and took my hand very kindly in doing so, for fear I should think her envious and fear her eye, as she is childless.

I shall go to ——'s house; it is very bad, but the hotel is worse, and I may find a better on the spot. I heard of a good house at Boolak for two pounds a month, but I don't think that place is healthy with the receding Nile. I am anxious to get up the river.

LETTER XXIV.

Kafr ez-Zeiyát,

Saturday, October 31, 1863.

WE left Alexandria on Thursday about noon, and sailed with a fair wind along the Mahmoodeeyeh canal. My little boat flies like a bird, and my men are a capital set of fellows, bold and careful sailors. I have only seven in all, but they work well, and at a pinch Omar leaves the pots and pans, and handles a rope or pole manfully. We sailed all night, and passed the locks at Fum el-Mahmoodeeyeh at four yesterday, and were greeted by old Nile tearing down like a torrent. The river is magnificent,—“seven men's height,” my Reyyis says, above its usual pitch; it has gone down five or six feet, and left a sad scene of havoc on either side. However, what the Nile takes, he repays with threefold interest, they say. The women are at work rebuilding their mud huts, and the men repairing the dykes. A Frenchman told me he was on board a Pasha's steamer, and they passed a flooded village where two hundred people stood on their roofs crying for help: would you, could you believe it? they passed on and left them to drown! Nothing but an eye-witness could have made me believe such frightful cruelty.

All to-day we sailed in heavenly weather,— a sky like nothing but its most beautiful self. At the bend of the river, just now, we had a grand struggle to get round, and got entangled with a big timber-boat. My crew became so vehement that I had to come out with an imperious request to every one to bless the Prophet. Next the boat nearly dragged the men into the stream, and they pulled, and hauled, and struggled, up to their waists in mud and water; and Omar brandished his pole, and shouted “Islám, el Islám!” which gave a fresh spirt to the poor fellows, and round we came with a dash and caught the breeze again. Now we have put up here for the night, and shall pass the railway bridge to-morrow. The railway is all under water from hence up to Tanta, eight miles, and in many places higher up.

LETTER XXV.

Cairo,

Saturday, November 14, 1863.

HERE I am at last in my old quarters at Mr. Thayer's house, after some trouble. The very morning I landed, I was seized with violent illness; however, I am now better. I arrived at Cairo on Wednesday night, the 4th of November, slept in the boat and went ashore next morning.

The passage under the railway bridge at Tanta (which is only opened once in two days) was most exciting and pretty. Such a scramble and dash of boats,—two or three hundred at least! Old Zeydán, the steersman, slid under the noses of the big boats with my little cangia, and through the gates before they were well open, and we saw the rush and confusion behind us at our ease, and headed the whole fleet for a few miles. Then we stuck, and Zeydàn raged, but we got off in an hour, and again overtook and passed all; and then we saw the spectacle of devastation,—whole villages gone, submerged and melted, mud to mud; and the people, with their beasts, encamped on spits of sand or on the dykes, in long rows of ragged makeshift tents, while we sailed over the places where they had lived; cotton rotting in all directions, and the dry tops crackling under the bows of the boat. When we stopped to buy milk, one poor woman exclaimed, “Milk! from where? Do you want it out of my breasts?” However, she took our saucepan and went to get some from another family. No one refuses it if they have a drop left, for they all believe the murrain to be a punishment for churlishness to strangers;—by whom committed, no one can say. Nor would they fix a price, or ask more than the old rate. But here everything has doubled in price: meat was 4 1/2 guroosh, now it is 8; eggs, etc., the same, and cotton 12 guroosh the pound. Yesterday I had to buy mattresses for Omar and Zeyneb, and loud were Omar's lamentations at the expense; he was quite minded to sleep on the stones rather than cost three napoleons for a bed; that included, however, the pillow and bedstead, made of palm sticks,—very light and comfortable.

Zeyneb has been very good ever since she has been with us. I think the little Nubian boy led her into idleness and mischief. She will soon be a complete “drago-woman,” for she is fast learning Arabic from Omar and English from us. At Alexandria she only heard a sort of lingua franca of Greek, Italian, Nubian, and English. She asked me, “How piccolo bint?” (how is the little girl?)—a fine specimen of Alexandrian.

On Thursday evening I rode up to the Abbáseeyeh, and met áll the schoolboys going home for their Friday. Such a pretty sight! The little Turks on grand horses with velvet housings, and two or three Sáises running by their side; and the Arab boys fetched, some by proud fathers on handsome donkeys, some by trusty servants on foot, some by poor mothers astride on shabby donkeys, and taking up their darlings before them, some two and three on one donkey, and crowds on foot,— such a number of lovely faces! They were all dressed in white European-cut clothes and red tarbooshes.

Last night, we had a wedding opposite. The bridegroom, a pretty little boy of thirteen or so, with a friend of his own size—dressed, like him, in a scarlet robe and turban,—on each side, surrounded by men carrying tapers and singing songs, and preceded by cressets flaring, stepped along like Agag, slowly and mincingly, and looked very shy and pretty.

My poor Hasan (donkey-driver) is ill. His father came with the donkey for me, and kept drawing his sleeve over his eyes, and sighing so heavily, “Ya Hasàn meskeen! ya Hasan Ibnee!” (O my son, my son!) and then in a resigned tone, “Allah kereem” (God is merciful)! I will go and see him this morning, and have a doctor to him, “by force,” as Omar says he is very bad. There is something heart-rending in the patient helpless suffering of these people.

Sunday.—Aboo Hasan reported his son so much better that I did not go after him, having several things to do, and Omar being deep in cooking a festin de Baltazar, as I have people to dinner. The weather is delicious, much like what we had at Bournemouth in the summer; but there is a great deal of sickness, and I fear will be more, from people burying dead cattle in their premises inside the town. It costs a hundred guroosh to bury an ox out of the town. All labour is rendered scarce too, as well as food dear, and the streets are not cleaned, and water is hard to get. My Sakka comes very irregularly, and makes quite a favour of supplying us with water. All this must tell heavily on the poor. Hekekian's wife had seventy-four head of cattle on her farm; now one wretched bullock is left; of the seven to water the house in Cairo, also one only is left, and that is expected to die.

I have just been leaning out of the window to see two Coptic weddings, very gay and pretty, with lots of tapers and mesh'als (cressets). The bride dressed in white, veiled, and blazing with diamonds, was led by two men, and preceded by very pretty music,—abyatees, with harp, sackbut, and dulcimer, singing before her; and attended by little girls, in scarlet habarahs, as bridesmaids. It is gayer and less stately than the Muslim wedding.

Monday, November 16.

I am much better since I have been in a dry house. I have bought such a pretty cupboard for my clothes for seven dollars (45 francs), all painted over like the old Arab ceilings, in the colours and patterns of an Indian shawl. They make chests of the same work for from four to six dollars,—very handsome and effective, and not ill put together.

Haggee Alee has just been here, and offers me his tents if I like to go up to Thebes, and not live in a boat, so that I may not be dependent on the houses there, in case of any hitch. I fancy I might be very comfortable among the tombs of the kings, or in the valley of Assaseef, with good tents. It is never cold at all among the hills at Thebes, quite the contrary; on the sunny side of the valley, you are broiled and stunned with heat in January, and in the shade it is heavenly. I shall rather like the change from a boat life to a Bedawee one, with my own sheep and chickens and horses about the tent, and a small following of ragged retainers, Moreover, it will be cheaper.

LETTER XXVI.

Cairo,

November 21, 1863.

I AM very comfortably installed here, and much better for the Cairo climate, after being damaged by staying a fortnight at Alexandria. There is terrible distress here, owing to the cattle-disease, which makes everything nearly double the usual price, and many things very hard to get at all. The weather is lovely, much like English summer, but finer; I shall stay on till it gets colder, and then go up the Nile, either in a steamer or a boat.

My poor donkey-driver, Hasan, is ill, and his old father takes his place; he gave me a fine illustration of Arab feeling towards women to-day. I asked if Abd-el-Kádir were coming here, as I had heard; he did not know, and asked me if he were not “Akhul-Benát” (a brother of girls)? I prosaically said, I did not know if he had sisters. “The Arabs, O Lady! call that man a ‘brother of girls,’ to whom God has given a clean heart to love all women as his sisters, and strength and courage to fight for their protection.” Omar suggested a “thorough gentleman” as the equivalent of Aboo Hasan's title. European galimatias about “the smiles of the fair,” etc., looks very mean beside “Akhul-Benát.” Moreover they do carry it somewhat into common life. Omar told me of some little family tribulations, showing that he is not a little henpecked.

Here is another story. A man married at Alexandria and took home the daily provisions for the first week; after that, he neglected it for two days, and came home with a lemon in his hand. He asked for some dinner, and his wife placed the stool and the tray and the washing-basin and napkin, and on the tray the lemon cut in half. “Well, and the dinner?” “Dinner!—you want dinner!—where from? What man are you to want women, when you don't keep them! I am going now to the Kádee, to be divorced from you;” and she did. The man must provide all necessaries for his hareem, and if she has money or earns any, she spends it in dress. If she makes him a skull-cap or a handkerchief, he must pay for her work. All is not roses for these Eastern tyrants,—not to speak of the unbridled license of tongue allowed to women and children. Zeyneb hectors Omar, and I can't persuade him to check her. “How I say anything to it, that one child?” Of course the children are insupportable,—and, I fancy, the women little better.

A poor neighbour of mine lost his little boy yesterday, ‘and came out into the street, as usual, for sympathy. He stood under my window, leaning his head against the wall, and sobbing and crying till literally his tears wetted the dust. He was too much grieved to tear off his turban or to lament in form, but clapped his hands and cried, “Oh, my boy! oh, my boy!” The bean-seller opposite shut his shop; the dyer took no notice, but smoked his pipe. Some people passed on, but many stopped and stood round the poor man, saying nothing, but looking concerned. Two were well-dressed Copts on handsome donkeys, who dismounted, and all waited till he went home, when about twenty men accompanied him with a respectful air. How strange it seems to us to go out into the street, and call on the passers-by to grieve with one!

I was at the house of Hekekian Bey the other day, when he received a parcel from Constantinople from his former slave, now the Sultan's chief eunuch. It contained a very fine photograph of Shureyk Bey (that is his name), whose face, though negro, is very intelligent and of a charming expression; a present of illustrated English books, and some printed music composed by the Sultan Abdel-Azeez himself. O tempora! O mores! one was a waltz! Shureyk Bey was dressed in European clothes too, all but the tarboosh.

The very ugliest and scrubbiest of street-dogs has adopted me, like the Irishman who wrote to Lord Lansdowne that he had selected him as his patron; and he guards the house, and follows me in the streets. He is rewarded with scraps; and S— cost me a new tin mug by letting the dog drink out of the old one, which is used to scoop the water from the jar; forgetting that Omar and Zeyneb could not drink after the poor beast.

Monday.—I went yesterday to the port of Cairo, Boolak, to see Hasaneyn Efendi about boats. He was gone up the Nile, and I sat with his wife,—a very nice Turkish lady, who speaks English to perfection,—and heard all sorts of curious things. The Turkish ladies. are taking to stays! and the fashions of Constantinople are changing with fearful rapidity. Like all Eastern women that I have seen, my hostess complained of indigestion, and said she knew she ought to go out more and to walk,—but custom! “E contro il nostro decoro.”

I have seen Deleo Bey, who advises me not to live in a tent; it is too hot by day, and too cold by night. So I will take a boat conditionally, with leave to keep it four months, or to discharge it at Thebes if I find a lodging. It is now a little fresh in the early morning, but like fine English summer weather. I ride on my donkey in a thin gown, and a thin white cloak; but about the middle of next month it will begin to get cold.

Tuesday evening.—Since I have been here, my cough is nearly gone, and I am the better for having good food again. Omar manages to get good mutton, and as he is an excellent cook, I have a good dinner every day, which I find ma...

Table of contents

• PREFACE.
• LETTER I.
• LETTER XIII.
• LETTER XX.
• LETTER XXIII.
• LETTER XL.
• LETTER LII.