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Lady Duff Gordon's Letters from Egypt
Revised Edition with Memoir by Her Daughter Janet Ross
New Introduction by George Meredith
_SECOND IMPRESSION_
LONDON: R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON
1902
[Photograph of Lady Duff Gordon from sketch by G. F. Watts, R.A., about
1848: ill1.jpg]
INTRODUCTION
The letters of Lady Duff Gordon are an introduction to her in person. She
wrote as she talked, and that is not always the note of private
correspondence, the pen being such an official instrument. Readers
growing familiar with her voice will soon have assurance that, addressing
the public, she would not have blotted a passage or affected a tone for
the applause of all Europe. Yet she could own to a liking for flattery,
and say of the consequent vanity, that an insensibility to it is inhuman.
Her humour was a mouthpiece of nature. She inherited from her father the
judicial mind, and her fine conscience brought it to bear on herself as
well as on the world, so that she would ask, 'Are we so much better?'
when someone supremely erratic was dangled before the popular eye. She
had not studied her Goethe to no purpose. Nor did the very ridiculous
creature who is commonly the outcast of all compassion miss having the
tolerant word from her, however much she might be of necessity in the
laugh, for Moliere also was of her repertory. Hers was the charity which
is perceptive and embracing: we may feel certain that she was never a
dupe of the poor souls, Christian and Muslim, whose tales of simple
misery or injustice moved her to friendly service. Egyptians, _consule
Junio_, would have met the human interpreter in her, for a picture to set
beside that of the vexed Satirist. She saw clearly into the later Nile
products, though her view of them was affectionate; but had they been
exponents of original sin, her charitableness would have found the
philosophical word on their behalf, for the reason that they were not in
the place of vantage. The service she did to them was a greater service
done to her country, by giving these quivering creatures of the baked
land proof that a Christian Englishwoman could be companionable, tender,
beneficently motherly with them, despite the reputed insurmountable
barriers of alien race and religion. Sympathy was quick in her breast
for all the diverse victims of mischance; a shade of it, that was not
indulgence, but knowledge of the roots of evil, for malefactors and for
the fool. Against the cruelty of despotic rulers and the harshness of
society she was openly at war, at a time when championship of the lowly
or the fallen was not common. Still, in this, as in everything
controversial, it was the [Greek text] with her. That singular union of
the balanced intellect with the lively heart arrested even in advocacy
the floods pressing for pathos. Her aim was at practical measures of
help; she doubted the uses of sentimentality in moving tyrants or
multitudes to do the thing needed. Moreover, she distrusted eloquence,
Parliamentary, forensic, literary; thinking that the plain facts are the
persuasive speakers in a good cause, and that rhetoric is to be suspected
as the flourish over a weak one. Does it soften the obdurate, kindle the
tardily inflammable? Only for a day, and only in cases of extreme
urgency, is an appeal to emotion of value for the gain of a day. Thus it
was that she never forced her voice, though her feelings might be at heat
and she possessed the literary art.
She writes from her home on the Upper Nile: 'In this country one gets to
see how much more beautiful a perfectly natural expression is than any
degree of the mystical expression of the best painters.' It is by her
banishing of literary colouring matter that she brings the Arab and Copt
home to us as none other has done, by her unlaboured pleading that she
touches to the heart. She was not one to 'spread gold-leaf over her
acquaintances and make them shine,' as Horace Walpole says of Madame de
Sevigne; they would have been set shining from within, perhaps with a
mild lustre; sensibly to the observant, more credibly of the golden sort.
Her dislike of superlatives, when the marked effect had to be produced,
and it was not the literary performance she could relish as well as any
of us, renders hard the task of portraying a woman whose character calls
them forth. To him knowing her, they would not fit; her individuality
passes between epithets. The reading of a sentence of panegyric
(commonly a thing of extension) deadened her countenance, if it failed to
quicken the corners of her lips; the distended truth in it exhibited the
comic shadow on the wall behind. That haunting demon of human eulogy is
quashed by the manner she adopted, from instinct and training. Of her it
was known to all intimate with her that she could not speak falsely in
praise, nor unkindly in depreciation, however much the constant play of
her humour might tempt her to exalt or diminish beyond the bounds. But
when, for the dispersion of nonsense about men or things, and daintiness
held up the veil against rational eyesight, the _gros mot_ was demanded,
she could utter it, as from the Bench, with a like authority and
composure.
In her youth she was radiantly beautiful, with dark brows on a brilliant
complexion, the head of a Roman man, and features of Grecian line, save
for the classic Greek wall of the nose off the forehead. Women, not
enthusiasts, inclined rather to criticize, and to criticize so
independent a member of their sex particularly, have said that her entry
into a ballroom took the breath. Poetical comparisons run under heavy
weights in prose; but it would seem in truth, from the reports of her,
that wherever she appeared she could be likened to a Selene breaking
through cloud; and, further, the splendid vessel was richly freighted.
Trained by a scholar, much in the society of scholarly men, having an
innate bent to exactitude, and with a ready tongue docile to the curb,
she stepped into the world armed to be a match for it. She cut her way
through the accustomed troops of adorers, like what you will that is
buoyant and swims gallantly. Her quality of the philosophical humour
carried her easily over the shoals or the deeps in the way of a woman
claiming her right to an independent judgement upon the minor rules of
conduct, as well as upon matters of the mind. An illustrious foreigner,
_en tete-a-tete_ with her over some abstract theme, drops abruptly on a
knee to protest, overpowered; and in that posture he is patted on the
head, while the subject of conversation is continued by the benevolent
lady, until the form of ointment she administers for his beseeching
expression and his pain compels him to rise and resume his allotted part
with a mouth of acknowledging laughter. Humour, as a beautiful woman's
defensive weapon, is probably the best that can be called in aid for the
bringing of suppliant men to their senses. And so manageable are they
when the idea of comedy and the chord of chivalry are made to vibrate,
that they (supposing them of the impressionable race which is overpowered
by Aphrodite's favourites) will be withdrawn from their great aims, and
transformed into happy crust-munching devotees--in other words, fast
friends. Lady Duff Gordon had many, and the truest, and of all lands.
She had, on the other hand, her number of detractors, whom she excused.
What woman is without them, if she offends the conventions, is a step in
advance of her day, and, in this instance, never hesitates upon the
needed occasion to dub things with their right names? She could
appreciate their disapproval of her in giving herself the airs of a man,
pronouncing verdicts on affairs in the style of a man, preferring
association with men. So it was; and, besides, she smoked. Her
physician had hinted at the soothing for an irritated throat that might
come of some whiffs of tobacco. She tried a cigar, and liked it, and
smoked from that day, in her library chair and on horseback. Where she
saw no harm in an act, opinion had no greater effect on her than summer
flies to one with a fan. The country people, sorely tried by the
spectacle at first, remembered the gentle deeds and homely chat of an
eccentric lady, and pardoned her, who was often to be seen discoursing
familiarly with the tramp on the road, incapable of denying her house-
door to the lost dog attached by some instinct to her heels. In the
circles named 'upper' there was mention of women unsexing themselves. She
preferred the society of men, on the plain ground that they discuss
matters of weight, and are--the pick of them--of open speech, more
liberal, more genial, better comrades. Was it wonderful to hear them,
knowing her as they did, unite in calling her _coeur d'or_? And women
could say it of her, for the reasons known to women. Her intimate
friendships were with women as with men. The closest friend of this most
manfully-minded of women was one of her sex, little resembling her,
except in downright truthfulness, lovingness, and heroic fortitude.
The hospitable house at Esher gave its welcome not merely to men and
women of distinction; the humble undistinguished were made joyous guests
there, whether commonplace or counting among the hopeful. Their hostess
knew how to shelter the sensitively silent at table, if they were unable
to take encouragement and join the flow. Their faces at least responded
to her bright look on one or the other of them when something worthy of
memory sparkled flying. She had the laugh that rocks the frame, but it
was usually with a triumphant smile that she greeted things good to the
ear; and her own manner of telling was concise, on the lines of the
running subject, to carry it along, not to produce an effect--which is
like the horrid gap in air after a blast of powder. Quotation came when
it sprang to the lips and was native. She was shrewd and cogent,
invariably calm in argument, sitting over it, not making it a duel, as
the argumentative are prone to do; and a strong point scored against her
received the honours due to a noble enemy. No pose as mistress of a
salon shuffling the guests marked her treatment of them; she was their
comrade, one of the pack. This can be the case only when a governing
lady is at all points their equal, more than a player of trump cards. In
England, in her day, while health was with her, there was one house where
men and women conversed. When that house perforce was closed, a light
had gone out in our country.
The fatal brilliancy of skin indicated the fell disease which ultimately
drove her into exile, to die in exile. Lucie Duff Gordon was of the
order of women of whom a man of many years may say that their like is to
be met but once or twice in a lifetime.
MEMOIR
Lucie Duff Gordon, born on June 24, 1821, was the only child of John and
Sarah Austin and inherited the beauty and the intellect of her parents.
The wisdom, learning, and vehement eloquence of John Austin, author of
the 'Province of Jurisprudence Determined,' were celebrated, and Lord
Brougham used to say: 'If John Austin had had health, neither Lyndhurst
nor I should have been Chancellor.' He entered the army, and was in
Sicily under Lord William Bentinck; but soon quitted an uncongenial
service, and was called to the Bar. In 1819 he married Sarah, the
youngest daughter of John Taylor of Norwich, {1} when they took a house
in Queen Square, Westminster, close to James Mill, the historian of
British India, and next door to Jeremy Bentham, whose pupil Mr. Austin
was. Here, it may be said, the Utilitarian philosophy of the nineteenth
century was born. Jeremy Bentham's garden became the playground of the
young Mills and of Lucie Austin; his coach-house was converted into a
gymnasium, and his flower-beds were intersected by tapes and threads to
represent the passages of a panopticon prison. The girl grew in vigour
and in sense, with a strong tinge of originality and independence and an
extreme love of animals. About 1826 the Austins went to Germany, Mr.
Austin having been nominated Professor of Civil Law in the new London
University, and wishing to study Roman Law under Niebuhr and Schlegel at
Bonn. 'Our dear child,' writes Mrs. Austin to Mrs. Grote, 'is a great
joy to us. She grows wonderfully, and is the happiest thing in the
world. Her German is very pretty; she interprets for her father with
great joy and naivete. God forbid that I should bring up a daughter
here! But at her present age I am most glad to have her here, and to
send her to a school where she learns--_well_, writing, arithmetic,
geography, and, as a matter of course, German.' Lucie returned to
England transformed into a little German maiden, with long braids of hair
down her back, speaking German like her own language, and well grounded
in Latin. Her mother, writing to Mrs. Reeve, her sister, says: 'John
Mill is ever my dearest child and friend, and he really dotes on Lucie,
and can do anything with her. She is too wild, undisciplined, and
independent, and though she knows a great deal, it is in a strange, wild
way. She reads everything, composes German verses, has imagined and put
together a fairy world, dress, language, music, everything, and talks to
them in the garden; but she is sadly negligent of her own appearance, and
is, as Sterling calls her, Miss Orson. . . . Lucie now goes to a Dr.
Biber, who has five other pupils (boys) and his own little child. She
seems to take to Greek, with which her father is very anxious to have her
thoroughly imbued. As this scheme, even if we stay in England, cannot
last many years, I am quite willing to forego all the feminine parts of
her education for the present. The main thing is to secure her
independence, both with relation to her own mind and outward
circumstances. She is handsome, striking, and full of vigour and
animation.'
From the very first Lucie Austin possessed a correct and vigorous style,
and a nice sense of language, which were hereditary rather than
implanted, and to these qualities was added a delightful strain of
humour, shedding a current of original thought all through her writings.
That her unusual gifts should have been so early developed is hardly
surprising with one of her sympathetic temperament when we remember the
throng of remarkable men and women who frequented the Austins' house. The
Mills, the Grotes, the Bullers, the Carlyles, the Sterlings, Sydney
Smith, Luttrell, Rogers, Jeremy Bentham, and Lord Jeffrey, were among the
most intimate friends of her parents, and 'Toodie,' as they called her,
was a universal favourite with them. Once, staying at a friend's house,
and hearing their little girl rebuked for asking questions, she said:
'_My_ mamma never says "I don't know" or "Don't ask questions."'
In 1834 Mr. Austin's health, always delicate, broke down, and with his
wife and daughter he went to Boulogne. Mrs. Austin made many friends
among the fishermen and their wives, but 'la belle Anglaise,' as they
called her, became quite a heroine on the occasion of the wreck of the
_Amphitrite_, a ship carrying female convicts to Botany Bay. She stood
the whole night on the beach in the howling storm, saved the lives of
three sailors who were washed up by the breakers, and dashed into the sea
and pulled one woman to shore. Lucie was with her mother, and showed the
same cool courage that distinguished her in after life. It was during
their stay at Boulogne that she first met Heinrich Heine; he sat next her
at the _table d'hote_, and, soon finding out that she spoke German
perfectly, told her when she returned to England she could tell her
friends she had met Heinrich Heine. He was much amused when she said:
'And who is Heinrich Heine?' The poet and the child used to lounge on
the pier together; she sang him old English ballads, and he told her
stories in which fish, mermaids, water-sprites, and a very funny old
French fiddler with a poodle, who was diligently taking three sea-baths a
day, were mixed up in a fanciful manner, sometimes humorous, often very
pathetic, especially when the water-sprites brought him greetings from
the North Sea. He afterwards told her that one of his most charming
poems,
'Wenn ich am deinem Hause
Des Morgens voruber geh',
So freut's mich, du liebe Kleine,
Wenn ich dich am Fenster seh',' etc.,
was meant for her whose magnificent eyes he never forgot.
Two years later Mr. Austin was appointed Royal Commissioner to inquire
into the grievances of the Maltese. His wife accompanied him, but so hot
a climate was not considered good for a young girl, and Lucie was sent to
a school at Bromley. She must have been as great a novelty to the school
as the school-life was to her, for with a great deal of desultory
knowledge she was singularly deficient in many rudiments of ordinary
knowledge. She wrote well already at fifteen, and corresponded often
with Mrs. Grote and other friends of her parents. {4} At sixteen she
determined to be baptized and confirmed as a member of the Church of
England (her parents and relations were Unitarians). Lord Monteagle was
her sponsor and it was chiefly owing, I believe, to the influence of
himself and his family, with whom she was very intimate in spite of her
Radical ideas, that she took this step.
[Lucie Austin, aged fifteen, from a sketch by a school friend: ill4.jpg]
When the Austins returned from Malta in 1838, Lucie began to appear in
the world; all the old friends flocked round them, and many new friends
were made, among them Sir Alexander Duff Gordon whom she first met at
Lansdowne House. Left much alone, as her mother was always hard at work
translating, writing for various periodicals and nursing her husband, the
two young people were thrown much together, and often walked out alone.
One day Sir Alexander said to her: 'Miss Austin, do you know people say
we are going to be married?' Annoyed at being talked of, and hurt at his
brusque way of mentioning it, she was just going to give a sharp answer,
when he added: 'Shall we make it true?' With characteristic
straightforwardness she replied by the monosyllable, 'Yes,' and so they
were engaged. Before her marriage she translated Niebuhr's 'Greek
Legends,' which were published under her mother's name.
On the 16th May, 1840, Lucie Austin and Sir Alexander Duff Gordon were
married in Kensington Old Church, and the few eye-witnesses left still
speak with enthusiasm of the beauty of bridegroom and bride. They took a
house in Queen Square, Westminster, (No 8, with a statue of Queen Anne at
one corner), and the talent, beauty, and originality, joined with a
complete absence of affectation of Lady Duff Gordon, soon attracted a
remarkable circle of friends. Lord Lansdowne, Lord Monteagle, Mrs.
Norton, Thackeray, Dickens, Elliot Warburton, Tennyson, Tom Taylor,
Kinglake, Henry Taylor, and many more, were habitues, and every foreigner
of distinction sought an introduction to the Duff Gordons. I remember as
a little child seeing Leopold Ranke walking up and down the drawing-room,
and talking vehemently in an _olla-podrida_ of English, French, German,
Italian, and Spanish, with now and then a Latin quotation in between; I
thought he was a madman. When M. Guizot escaped from France on the
outbreak of the Revolution, his first welcome and dinner was in Queen
Square.
The first child was born in 1842, and soon afterwards Lady Duff Gordon
began her translation of 'The Amber Witch'; the 'French in Algiers' by
Lamping, and Feuerbach's 'Remarkable Criminal Trials,' followed in quick
succession; and together my father and mother translated Ranke's 'Memoirs
of the House of Brandenburg' and 'Sketches of German Life.' A remarkable
novel by Leon de Wailly, 'Stella and Vanessa,' had remained absolutely
unnoticed in France until my mother's English version appeared, when it
suddenly had a great success which he always declared he owed entirely to
Lady Duff Gordon.
In a letter written to Mrs. Austin from Lord Lansdowne's beautiful villa
at Richmond, which he lent to the Duff Gordons after a severe illness of
my father's, my mother mentions Hassan el Bakkeet (a black boy): 'He is
an inch taller for our grandeur; _peu s'en faut_, he thinks me a great
lady and himself a great butler.' Hassan was a personage in the
establishment. One night, on returning from a theatrical party at
Dickens', my mother found the little boy crouching on the doorstep. His
master had turned him out of doors because he was threatened with
blindness, and having come now and then with messages to Queen Square, he
found his way, as he explained, 'to die on the threshold of the beautiful
pale lady.' His eyes were cured, and he became my mother's devoted slave
and my playmate, to the horror of Mr. Hilliard, the American author. I
perfectly recollect how angry I was when he asked how Lady Duff Gordon
could let a negro touch her child, whereupon she called us to her, and
kissed me first and Hassan afterwards. Some years ago I asked our dear
friend Kinglake about my mother and Hassan, and received the following
letter: 'Can I, my dear Janet, how can I trust myself to speak of your
dear mother's beauty in the phase it had reached when first I saw her?
The classic form of her features, the noble poise of her head and neck,
her stately height, her uncoloured yet pure complexion, caused some of
the beholders at first to call her beauty statuesque, and others to call
it majestic, some pronouncing it to be even imperious; but she was so
intellectual, so keen, so autocratic, sometimes even so impassioned in
speech, that nobody feeling her powers could go on feebly comparing her
to a statue or a mere Queen or Empress. All this touches only the
beauteous surface; the stories (which were told me by your dear mother
herself) are incidentally illustrative of her kindness to
fellow-creatures in trouble or suffering. Hassan, it is supposed, was a
Nubian, and originally, as his name implies, a Mahometan, he came into
the possession of English missionaries (who had probably delivered him
from slavery), and it resulted that he not only spoke English well and
without foreign accent, but was always ready with phrases in use amongst
pious Christians, and liked, when he could, to apply them as means of
giving honour and glory to his beloved master and mistress; so that if,
for example, it happened that, when they were not at home, a visitor
called on a Sunday, he was sure to be told by Hassan that Sir Alexander
and Lady Duff Gordon were at church, or even--for his diction was equal
to this--that they were "attending Divine service." Your mother had
valour enough to practise true Christian kindness under conditions from
which the bulk of "good people" might too often shrink; when on hearing
that a "Mary" once known to the household had brought herself into
trouble by omitting the precaution of marriage, my lady determined to
secure the girl a good refuge by taking her as a servant. Before taking
this step, however, she assembled the household, declared her resolve to
the servants, and ordered that, on pain of instant dismissal, no one of
them should ever dare say a single unkind word to Mary. Poor Hassan,
small, black as jet, but possessed with an idea of the dignity of his
sex, conceived it his duty to become the spokesman of the household, and
accordingly, advancing a little in front of the neat-aproned, tall,
wholesome maid-servants, he promised in his and their name a full and
careful obedience to the mistress's order, but then, wringing his hands
and raising them over his head, he added these words: "What a lesson to
us all, my lady."' On the birth of a little son Hassan triumphantly
announced to all callers: 'We have got a boy.' Another of his delightful
speeches was made one evening when Prince Louis Napoleon (the late
Emperor of the French) dropt in unexpectedly to dinner. 'Please, my
lady,' said he, on announcing that dinner was ready, 'I ran out and
bought two pen'orth of sprats for the honour of the house.'
Though I was only six I distinctly remember the Chartist riots in 1848.
William Bridges Adams, the engineer, an old friend of my great-uncle,
Philip Taylor, had a workshop at Bow, and my mother helped to start a
library for the men, and sometimes attended meetings and discussed
politics with them. They adored her, and when people talked of possible
danger she would smile and say: 'My men will look after me.' On the
evening of April 9 a large party of stalwart men in fustian jackets
arrived at our house and had supper; Tom Taylor made speeches and
proposed toasts which were cheered to the echo, and at last my mother
made a speech too, and wound up by calling the men her 'Gordon
volunteers.' The 'Hip, hip, hurrah!' with which it was greeted startled
the neighbours, who for a moment thought the Chartists had invaded the
quiet precincts of the square.
To Mrs. Austin, who was then in Paris, her daughter wrote, on April 10:
Dearest Mutter,
'I had only time to write once yesterday, as all hands were full of
bustle in entertaining our guests. I never wish to see forty better
gentlemen than we had here last night. As all was quiet, we had
supper--cold beef, bread and beer--with songs, sentiments and toasts,
such as "Success to the roof we are under," "Liberty, brotherhood and
order." Then they bivouacked in the different houses till five this
morning, when they started home. Among the party was a stray
policeman, who looked rather wonder-struck. Tom Taylor was capital,
made short speeches, told stories, and kept all in high good-humour;
and Alick came home from patrolling as a special constable, and was
received with great glee and affection. All agreed that the fright,
to us at least, was well made up by the kindly and pleasant evening.
As no one would take a penny, we shall send books to the library, or a
contribution to the school, all our neighbours being quite anxious to
pay, though not willing to fraternise. I shall send cravats as a
badge to the "Gordon volunteers."
'I enclose a letter from Eothen [Kinglake] about Paris, which will
interest you. My friends of yesterday unanimously decided that Louis
Blanc would "just suit the 'lazy set.'"
'We had one row, which, however, ceased on the appearance of our
stalwart troop; indeed, I think one Birmingham smith, a handsome
fellow six feet high, whose vehement disinterestedness would neither
allow to eat, drink, or sleep in the house, would have scattered
them.'
Mr. and Mrs. Austin established themselves at Weybridge in a low,
rambling cottage, and we spent some summers with them. The house was
cold and damp, and our dear Hassan died in 1850 from congestion of the
lungs. I always attributed my mother's bad health to the incessant colds
she caught there. I can see before me now her beautiful pale face
bending over poor Hassan as she applied leeches to his chest, which a new
maid refused to do, saying, with a toss of her head, 'Lor! my lady, I
couldn't touch either of 'em!' The flash of scorn with which she
regarded the girl softened into deep affection and pity when she looked
down on her faithful Nubian servant.
In 1851 my father took a house at Esher, which was known as 'The Gordon
Arms,' and much frequented by our friends. In a letter, written about
that time to C. J. Bayley, then secretary to the Governor of the
Mauritius, Lady Duff Gordon gives the first note of alarm as to her
health: 'I fear you would think me very much altered since my illness; I
look thin, ill, and old, and my hair is growing gray. This I consider
hard upon a woman just over her thirtieth birthday. I continue to like
Esher very much; I don't think we could have placed ourselves better.
Kinglake has given Alick a great handsome chestnut mare, so he is well
mounted, and we ride merrily. I expressed such exultation at the idea of
your return that my friends, all but Alick, refused to sympathize.
Philips, Millais, and Dicky Doyle talked of jealousy, and Tom Taylor
muttered something about a "hated rival." Meanwhile, all send friendly
greetings to you.'
One summer Macaulay was often at Esher, his brother-in-law having taken a
house near ours. He shared my mother's admiration for Miss Austen's
novels, and they used to talk of her personages as though they were
living friends. If, perchance, my grandfather Austin was there, the talk
grew indeed fast and furious, as all three were vehement, eloquent, and
enthusiastic talkers.
When my mother went to Paris in the summer of 1857 she saw Heine again.
As she entered the room he exclaimed 'Oh! Lucie has still the great
brown eyes!' He remembered every little incident and all the people who
had been in the inn at Boulogne. 'I, for my part, could hardly speak to
him,' my mother wrote to Lord Houghton, who asked her to give him some
recollections of the poet for his 'Monographs,' 'so shocked was I by his
appearance. He lay on a pile of mattresses, his body wasted so that it
seemed no bigger than a child's under the sheet that covered him, the
eyes closed and the face altogether like the most painful and wasted
_Ecce Homo_ ever painted by some old German painter. His voice was very
weak, and I was astonished at the animation with which he talked;
evidently his mind had wholly survived his body.' He wished to give my
mother the copyright of all his works, made out lists how to arrange
them, and gave her _carte-blanche_ to cut out what she pleased, and was
especially eager that she should do a prose translation of his songs
against her opinion of its practicability. To please him she translated
'Almanzor' and several short poems into verse--the best translations I
know.
After trying Ventnor for two winters, my mother went out to the Cape of
Good Hope in a sailing vessel, but on her return was unfortunately
persuaded to go to Eaux Bonnes in the autumn of 1862, which did her great
harm. Thence she went to Egypt, where the dry hot climate seemed to
arrest the malady for a short time. The following memoir written by Mrs.
Norton in the _Times_ gives a better picture of her than could any words
of mine, the two talented and beautiful women were intimate friends, and
few mourned more deeply for Lucie Duff Gordon than Caroline Norton:
'"In Memoriam." The brief phrase whose solemnity prefaced millions of
common place epitaphs before Tennyson taught grief to speak, lamenting
his dead friend in every phase and variety of regret. With such
gradation and difference of sorrow will the recent death of a very
remarkable woman, Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon, be mourned for by all who knew
her, and with such a sense of blank loss will they long continue to
lament one whose public success as an author was only commensurate with
the charm of her private companionship. Inheriting from both parents the
intellectual faculties which she so nobly exercised, her work has been
ended in the very noontide of life by premature failure of health; and
the long exile she endured for the sake of a better climate has failed to
arrest, though it delayed, the doom foretold by her physicians. To that
exile we owe the most popular, perhaps, of her contributions to the
literature of her country, "Letters from the Cape," and "Letters from
Egypt," the latter more especially interesting from the vivid, life-like
descriptions of the people among whom she dwelt, her aspirations for
their better destiny, and the complete amalgamation of her own pursuits
and interests with theirs. She was a settler, not a traveller among
them. Unlike Lady Hester Stanhope, whose fantastic and half-insane
notions of rulership and superiority have been so often recorded for our
amazement, Lady Duff Gordon kept the simple frankness of heart and desire
to be of service to her fellow-creatures without a thought of self or a
taint of vanity in her intercourse with them. Not for lack of flattery
or of real enthusiastic gratitude on their part. It is known that when
at Thebes, on more than one of her journeys, the women raised the "cry of
joy" as she passed along, and the people flung branches and raiment on
her path, as in the old Biblical descriptions of Eastern life. The
source of her popularity was in the liberal kindliness of spirit with
which she acted on all occasions, more especially towards those she
considered the victims of bad government and oppressive laws. She says
of herself: "one's pity becomes a perfect passion when one sits among the
people as I do, and sees all they endure. Least of all can I forgive
those among Europeans and Christians who can help to break these bruised
reeds." And again: "Would that I could excite the interest of my country
in their suffering! Some conception of the value of public opinion in
England has penetrated even here." Sympathizing, helping, doctoring
their sick, teaching their children, learning the language, Lady Duff
Gordon lived in Egypt, and in Egypt she has died, leaving a memory of her
greatness and goodness such as no other European woman ever acquired in
that country. It is touching to trace her lingering hopes of life and
amended health in her letters to her husband and her mother, and to see
how, as they faded out, there rose over those hopes the grander light of
fortitude and submission to the will of God.
'Gradually--how gradually the limits of this notice forbid us to
follow--hope departs, and she begins bravely to face the inevitable
destiny. And then comes the end of all, the strong yet tender
announcement of her own conviction that there would be no more meetings,
but a grave opened to receive her in a foreign land.
'"Dearest Alick,
'"Do not think of coming here, as you dread the climate. Indeed, it
would be almost too painful to me to part from you again; and as it
is, I can wait patiently for the end, among people who are kind and
loving enough to be comfortable without too much feeling of the pain
of parting. The leaving Luxor was rather a distressing scene, as they
did not think to see me again. The kindness of all the people was
really touching, from the Cadi, who made ready my tomb among his own
family, to the poorest fellaheen."
'Such are the tranquil and kindly words with which she prefaces her
death. Those who remember her in her youth and beauty, before disease
rather than time had altered the pale heroic face, and bowed the slight,
stately figure, may well perceive some strange analogy between soul and
body in the Spartan firmness which enabled her to pen that last farewell
so quietly.
'But to the last her thought was for others, and for the services she
could render. In this very letter, written, as it were, on the verge of
the tomb, she speaks with gratitude and gladness of the advancement of
her favourite attendant, Omar. This Omar had been recommended to her by
the janissary of the American Consul-General, and so far back as 1862,
when in Alexandria, she mentions having engaged him, and his hopeful
prophecy of the good her Nile life is to do her. "My cough is bad; but
Omar says I shall lose it and 'eat plenty' as soon as I see a crocodile."
'Omar "could not leave her," and he had his reward. One of the last
events in the life of this gifted and liberal-minded Englishwoman was the
visit to her dahabeeyeh, or Nile boat, of the Prince and Princess of
Wales. Then poor Omar's simple and faithful service to his dying
mistress was rewarded in a way he could scarcely have dreamt; and Lady
Duff Gordon thus relates the incident: "Omar sends you his heartfelt
thanks, and begs the boat may remain registered at the Consulate in your
name, as a protection, for his use and benefit. The Prince has appointed
him his dragoman, but he is sad enough, poor fellow! all his prosperity
does not console him for the loss of "the mother he found in the world."
Mahomed at Luxor wept bitterly, and said: "Poor I--poor my children--poor
all the people!" and kissed my hand passionately; and the people at Esneh
asked leave to touch me "for a blessing," and everyone sent delicate
bread and their best butter and vegetables and lambs. They are kinder
than ever now that I can no longer be of any use to them. If I live till
September I will go up to Esneh, where the air is softest and I cough
less; I would rather die among my own people on the Saeed than here. Can
you thank the Prince for Omar, or shall I write? He was most pleasant
and kind, and the Princess too; she is the most perfectly simple-mannered
girl I ever saw; she does not even try to be civil like other great
people, but asks blunt questions and looks at one so heartily with her
clear, honest eyes, that she must win all hearts. They were more
considerate than any people I have seen, and the Prince, instead of being
gracious, was, if I may say so, quite respectful in manner: he is very
well bred and pleasant, and has, too, the honest eyes that make one sure
he has a kind heart. My sailors were so proud at having the honour of
rowing him in _our own boat_ and of singing to him. I had a very good
singer in the boat."
'Long will her presence be remembered and wept for among the
half-civilized friends of her exile, the poor, the sick, the needy and
the oppressed. She makes the gentle, half-playful boast in one of her
letters from the Nile that she is "very popular," and has made many cures
as a Hakeem, or doctor, and that a Circassian had sat up with a dying
Englishman because she had nursed his wife.
'The picture of the Circassian sitting up with the dying Englishman
because an English lady had nursed his wife is infinitely touching, and
had its parallel in the speech of an old Scottish landlady known to the
writer of this notice, whose son had died in the West Indies among
strangers. "And they were so good to him," said she, "that I vowed if
ever I had a lodger sick I would do my best for that stranger in
remembrance." In remembrance! Who shall say what seeds of kindly
intercommunion that dying Englishwoman of whom and of whose works we have
been speaking may have planted in the arid Eastern soil? Or what "bread
she may have cast" on those Nile waters, "which shall be found again
after many days"? "Out of evil cometh good," and certainly out of her
sickness and suffering good came to all within her influence.
'Lady Duff Gordon's printed works were many. She was an excellent German
scholar, and had the advantage in her translations from that difficult
language of her labours being shared by her husband. Ranke, Niebuhr,
Feuerbach, Moltke, and others, owe their introduction to our
English-reading public to the industry and talent of her pen. She was
also a classic scholar of no mean pretensions. Perhaps no woman of our
own time, except Mrs. Somerville and Mrs. Browning in their very
different styles, combined so much erudition with so much natural
ability. She was the daughter of Mr. Austin, the well-known professor of
jurisprudence, and his gifted wife, Sarah Austin, whose name is familiar
to thousands of readers, and whose social brilliancy is yet remembered
with extreme admiration and regret by the generation immediately
preceding our own.
'That Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon, inherited the best of the intellect and
qualities of both these parents will, we think, hardly be disputed, and
she had besides, of her own, a certain generosity of spirit, a widespread
sympathy for humanity in general, without narrowness or sectarianism,
which might well prove her faith modelled on the sentence which appeals
too often in vain from the last page of the printed Bible to resenting
and dissenting religionists, "Multae terricolis linguae, coelestibus
una."'
* * * * *
The last two years of my mother's life were one long struggle against
deadly disease. The last winter was cheered by the presence of my
brother, but at her express desire he came home in early summer to
continue his studies, and my father and I were going out to see her, when
the news came of her death at Cairo on July 14, 1869. Her desire had
been to be among her 'own people' at Thebes, but when she felt she would
never see Luxor again, she gave orders to be buried as quietly as
possible in the cemetery at Cairo. The memory of her talent, simplicity,
stately beauty, and extraordinary eloquence, and her almost passionate
pity for any oppressed creature, will not easily fade. She bore great
pain, and what was almost a greater trial, absence from her husband, her
little daughter Urania, and her many friends, uncomplainingly, gleaning
what consolation she could by helping her poor Arab neighbours, who
adored her, and have not, I am told, forgotten the 'Great Lady' who was
so good to them.
* * * * *
The first volume of Lady Duff Gordon's 'Letters from Egypt' was published
by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. in May, 1865, with a preface by her mother,
Mrs. Austin, who edited them, and was obliged to omit much that might
have given offence and made my mother's life uncomfortable--to say the
least--in Egypt. Before the end of the year the book went through three
editions.
In 1875 a volume containing the 'Last Letters from Egypt,' to which were
added 'Letters from the Cape,' reprinted from 'Vacation Tourists' (1864),
with a Memoir of my mother by myself, was published by Messrs. Macmillan
and Co. A second edition appeared in 1876.
I have now copied my mother's letters as they were written, omitting only
the purely family matter which is of no interest to the public. Edward
Lear's drawing of Luxor was printed in 'Three Generations of
Englishwomen,' edited by Mrs. Ross, but the other illustrations are now
reproduced for the first time.
The names of villages alluded to in the 'Letters' have been spelt as in
the Atlas published by the Egyptian Exploration Fund.
JANET ROSS.
LETTERS FROM EGYPT
November 11, 1862: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
GRAND CAIRO,
_Tuesday_, _November_ 11, 1862.
Dearest Mutter,
I write to you out of the real Arabian Nights. Well may the Prophet
(whose name be exalted) smile when he looks on Cairo. It is a golden
existence, all sunshine and poetry, and, _I_ must add, kindness and
civility. I came up last Thursday by railway with the American Consul-
General, a charming person, and had to stay at this horrid Shepheard's
Hotel. But I do little but sleep here. Hekekian Bey, a learned old
Armenian, takes care of me every day, and the Amerian Vice-Consul is my
sacrifice. I went on Sunday to his child's christening, and heard Sakna,
the 'Restorer of Hearts.' She is wonderfully like Rachel, and her
singing is _hinreisend_ from expression and passion. Mr. Wilkinson (the
Consul) is a Levantine, and his wife Armenian, so they had a grand
fantasia; people feasted all over the house and in the street. Arab
music _schmetterte_, women yelled the _zaghareet_, black servants served
sweetmeats, pipes, and coffee, and behaved as if they belonged to the
company, and I was strongly under the impression that I was at
Nurreddin's wedding with the Vizier's daughter. Yesterday I went to
Heliopolis with Hekekian Bey and his wife, and visited an Armenian
country lady close by.
My servant Omar turns out a jewel. He has _deterre_ an excellent boat
for the Nile voyage, and I am to be mistress of a captain, a mate, eight
men and a cabin boy for 25 pounds a month. I went to Boulak, the port of
Cairo, and saw various boats, and admired the way in which the English
travellers pay for their insolence and caprices. Similar boats cost
people with dragomans 50 to 65 pounds. But, then, 'I shall lick the
fellows,' etc., is what I hear all round. The dragoman, I conclude,
pockets the difference. The owner of the boat, Sid Achmet el-Berberi,
asked 30 pounds, whereupon I touched my breast, mouth and eyes, and
stated through Omar that I was not, like other Ingeleez, made of money,
but would give 20 pounds. He then showed another boat at 20 pounds, very
much worse, and I departed (with fresh civilities) and looked at others,
and saw two more for 20 pounds; but neither was clean, and neither had a
little boat for landing. Meanwhile Sid Achmet came after me and
explained that, if I was not like other Ingeleez in money, I likewise
differed in politeness, and had refrained from abuse, etc., etc., and I
should have the boat for 25 pounds. It was so very excellent in all
fittings, and so much larger, that I thought it would make a great
difference in health, so I said if he would go before the American Vice-
Consul (who is looked on as a sharp hand) and would promise all he said
to me before him, it should be well.
Mr. Thayer, the American Consul-General, gives me letters to every
consular agent depending on him; and two Coptic merchants whom I met at
the fantasia have already begged me to 'honour their houses.' I rather
think the poor agents, who are all Armenians and Copts, will think I am
the republic in person. The weather has been all this time like a
splendid English August, and I hope I shall get rid of my cough in time,
but it has been very bad. There is no cold at night here as at the Cape,
but it is nothing like so clear and bright.
Omar took Sally sightseeing all day while I was away, into several
mosques; in one he begged her to wait a minute while he said a prayer.
They compare notes about their respective countries and are great
friends; but he is put out at my not having provided her with a husband
long ago, as is one's duty towards a 'female servant,' which almost
always here means a slave.
Of all the falsehoods I have heard about the East, that about women being
old hags at thirty is the biggest. Among the poor fellah women it may be
true enough, but not nearly as much as in Germany; and I have now seen a
considerable number of Levantine ladies looking very handsome, or at
least comely, till fifty. Sakna, the Arab Grisi, is fifty-five--an ugly
face, I am told (she was veiled and one only saw the eyes and glimpses of
her mouth when she drank water), but the figure of a leopard, all grace
and beauty, and a splendid voice of its kind, harsh but thrilling like
Malibran's. I guessed her about thirty, or perhaps thirty-five. When
she improvised, the finesse and grace of her whole _Wesen_ were
ravishing. I was on the point of shouting out 'Wallah!' as heartily as
the natives. The eight younger Halmeh (_i.e_., learned women, which the
English call Almeh and think is an improper word) were ugly and
screeched. Sakna was treated with great consideration and quite as a
friend by the Armenian ladies with whom she talked between her songs. She
is a Muslimeh and very rich and charitable; she gets 50 pounds for a
night's singing at least.
It would be very easy to learn colloquial Arabic, as they all speak with
such perfect distinctness that one can follow the sentences and catch the
words one knows as they are repeated. I think I know forty or fifty
words already, besides my 'salaam aleikum' and 'backsheesh.'
The reverse of the brilliant side of the medal is sad enough: deserted
palaces, and crowded hovels scarce good enough for pigstyes. 'One day
man see his dinner, and one other day none at all,' as Omar observes; and
the children are shocking from bad food, dirt and overwork, but the
little pot-bellied, blear-eyed wretches grow up into noble young men and
women under all their difficulties. The faces are all sad and rather
what the Scotch call 'dour,' not _mechant_ at all, but harsh, like their
voices. All the melody is in walk and gesture; they are as graceful as
cats, and the women have exactly the 'breasts like pomegranates' of their
poetry. A tall Bedaween woman came up to us in the field yesterday to
shake hands and look at us. She wore a white sackcloth shift and veil,
_und weiter nichts_, and asked Mrs. Hekekian a good many questions about
me, looked at my face and hands, but took no notice of my rather smart
gown which the village women admired so much, shook hands again with the
air of a princess, wished me health and happiness, and strode off across
the graveyard like a stately ghost. She was on a journey all alone, and
somehow it looked very solemn and affecting to see her walking away
towards the desert in the setting sun like Hagar. All is so Scriptural
in the country here. Sally called out in the railroad, 'There is Boaz,
sitting in the cornfield'; and so it was, and there he has sat for how
many thousand years,--and Sakna sang just like Miriam in one war-song.
_Wednesday_.--My contract was drawn up and signed by the American Vice-
Consul to-day, and my Reis kissed my hand in due form, after which I went
to the bazaar to buy the needful pots and pans. The transaction lasted
an hour. The copper is so much per oka, the workmanship so much; every
article is weighed by a sworn weigher and a ticket sent with it. More
Arabian Nights. The shopkeeper compares notes with me about numerals,
and is as much amused as I. He treats me to coffee and a pipe from a
neighbouring shop while Omar eloquently depreciates the goods and offers
half the value. A water-seller offers a brass cup of water; I drink, and
give the huge sum of twopence, and he distributes the contents of his
skin to the crowd (there always is a crowd) in my honour. It seems I
have done a pious action. Finally a boy is called to carry the _batterie
de cuisine_, while Omar brandishes a gigantic kettle which he has picked
up a little bruised for four shillings. The boy has a donkey which I
mount astride _a l'Arabe_, while the boy carries all the copper things on
his head. We are rather a grand procession, and quite enjoy the fury of
the dragomans and other leeches who hang on the English at such
independent proceedings, and Omar gets reviled for spoiling the trade by
being cook, dragoman, and all in one.
I went this morning with Hekekian Bey to the two earliest mosques. The
Touloun is exquisite--noble, simple, and what ornament there is is the
most delicate lacework and embossing in stone and wood. This Arab
architecture is even more lovely than our Gothic. The Touloun is now a
vast poorhouse, a nest of paupers. I went into three of their lodgings.
Several Turkish families were in a large square room neatly divided into
little partitions with old mats hung on ropes. In each were as many bits
of carpet, mat and patchwork as the poor owner could collect, and a small
chest and a little brick cooking-place in one corner of the room with
three earthern pipkins for I don't know how many people;--that was
all--they possess no sort of furniture, but all was scrupulously clean
and no bad smell whatever. A little boy seized my hand and showed where
he slept, ate and cooked with the most expressive pantomime. As there
were women, Hekekian could not come in, but when I came out an old man
told us they received three loaves (cakes as big as a sailor's biscuit),
four piastres a month--_i.e_., eightpence per adult--a suit of clothes a
year, and on festive occasions lentil soup. Such is the almshouse here.
A little crowd belonging to the house had collected, and I gave sixpence
to an old man, who transferred it to the first old man to be _divided_
among them all, ten or twelve people at least, mostly blind or lame. The
poverty wrings my heart. We took leave with salaams and politeness like
the best society, and then turned into an Arab hut stuck against the
lovely arches. I stooped low under the door, and several women crowded
in. This was still poorer, for there were no mats or rags of carpet, a
still worse cooking-place, a sort of dog-kennel piled up of loose stones
to sleep in, which contained a small chest and the print of human forms
on the stone floor. It was, however, quite free from dust, and perfectly
sweet. I gave the young woman who had led me in sixpence, and here the
difference between Turk and Arab appeared. The division of this created
a perfect storm of noise, and we left the five or six Arab women
out-shrieking a whole rookery. I ought to say that no one begged at all.
_Friday_.--I went to-day on a donkey to a mosque in the bazaar, of what
we call Arabesque style, like the Alhambra, very handsome. The Kibleh
was very beautiful, and as I was admiring it Omar pulled a lemon out of
his breast and smeared it on the porphyry pillar on one side of the arch,
and then entreated me to lick it. It cures all diseases. The old man
who showed the mosque pulled eagerly at my arm to make me perform this
absurd ceremony, and I thought I should have been forced to do it. The
base of the pillar was clogged with lemon-juice. I then went to the
tombs of the Khalifah; one of the great ones had such arches and such
wondrous cupolas but all in ruins. There are scores of these noble
buildings, any one of which is a treasure, falling to decay. The next,
strange to say, was in perfect repair. I got off the donkey, and Omar
fidgeted and hesitated a little and consulted with a woman who had the
key. As there were no overshoes I pulled my boots off, and was rewarded
by seeing the footprints of Mohammed on two black stones, and a lovely
little mosque, a sort of _Sainte Chapelle_. Omar prayed with ardent
fervour and went out backwards, saluting the Prophet aloud. To my
surprise the woman was highly pleased with sixpence, and did not ask for
more. When I remarked this, Omar said that no Frank had ever been inside
to his knowledge. A mosque-keeper of the sterner sex would not have let
me in. I returned home through endless streets and squares of Moslem
tombs, those of the Memlooks among them. It was very striking; and it
was getting so dark that I thought of Nurreddin Bey, and wondered if a
Jinn would take me anywhere if I took up my night's lodging in one of the
comfortable little cupola-covered buildings.
My Coptic friend has just called in to say that his brother expects me at
Kenneh. I find nothing but civility and a desire to please. My boat is
the _Zint el Bachreyn_, and I carry the English flag and a small American
distinguishing pennant as a signal to my consular agents. We sail next
Wednesday. Good-bye for the present, dearest Mutter.
November 21, 1862: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
BOAT OFF EMBABEH,
_November_ 21, 1862.
Dearest Alick,
We embarked yesterday, and after the fashion of Eastern caravans are
abiding to-day at a village opposite Cairo; it is Friday, and therefore
would be improper and unlucky to set out on our journey. The scenes on
the river are wonderfully diverting and curious, so much life and
movement. But the boatmen are sophisticated; my crew have all sported
new white drawers in honour of the Sitti Ingleezee's supposed modesty--of
course compensation will be expected. Poor fellows! they are very well
mannered and quiet in their rags and misery, and their queer little
humming song is rather pretty, 'Eyah Mohammad, eyah Mohammad,' _ad
infinitum_, except when an energetic man cries 'Yallah!'--_i.e_., 'O
God!'--which means 'go it' in everyday life. Omar is gone to fetch one
or two more 'unconsidered trifles,' and I have been explaining the
defects to be remedied in the cabin door, broken window, etc., to my Reis
with the help of six words of Arabic and dumb show, which they understand
and answer with wonderful quickness.
The air on the river is certainly quite celestial--totally unlike the
damp, chilly feeling of the hotel and Frank quarter of Cairo. The
Isbekeeyeh, or public garden, where all the Franks live, was a lake, I
believe, and is still very damp.
I shall go up to the second Cataract as fast as possible, and return back
at leisure. Hekekian Bey came to take leave yesterday, and lent me
several books; pray tell Senior what a kindness his introduction was. It
would have been rather dismal in Cairo--if one could be dismal
there--without a soul to speak to. I was sorry to know no Turks or
Arabs, and have no opportunity of seeing any but the tradesman of whom I
bought my stores but that was very amusing. The young man of whom I
bought my _finjaans_ was so handsome, elegant and melancholy that I know
he was the lover of the Sultan's favourite slave. How I wish you were
here to enjoy all this, so new, so beautiful, and yet so familiar,
life--and you would like the people, poor things! they are complete
children, but amiable children.
I went into the village here, where I was a curiosity, and some women
took me into their houses and showed me their sleeping-place, cookery,
poultry, etc.; and a man followed me to keep off the children, but no
backsheesh was asked for, which showed that Europeans were rare there.
The utter destitution is terrible to see, though in this climate of
course it matters less, but the much-talked-of dirt is simply utter
poverty. The poor souls are as clean as Nile mud and water will make
their bodies, and they have not a second shirt, or any bed but dried mud.
Give my love to my darlings, and don't be uneasy if you don't get
letters. My cough has been better now for five days without a bad return
of it, so I hope it is really better; it is the first reprieve for so
long. The sun is so hot, a regular broil, November 21, and all doors and
windows open in the cabin--a delicious breeze.
November 30, 1862: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
FESHN,
_Monday_, _November_ 30, 1862.
Dearest Mutter,
I have now been enjoying this most delightful way of life for ten days,
and am certainly much better. I begin to eat and sleep again, and cough
less. My crew are a great amusement to me. They are mostly men from
near the first Cataract above Assouan, sleek-skinned, gentle, patient,
merry black fellows. The little black Reis is the very picture of good-
nature and full of fun, 'chaffing' the girls as we pass the villages, and
always smiling. The steersman is of lighter complexion, also very
cheery, but decidedly pious. He prays five times a day and utters
ejaculations to the apostle Rusool continually. He hurt his ankle on one
leg and his instep on the other with a rusty nail, and they festered. I
dressed them with poultices, and then with lint and strapping, with
perfect success, to the great admiration of all hands, and he announced
how much better he felt, 'Alhamdulillah, kieth-el-hairack khateer ya
Sitti' (Praise be to God and thanks without end O Lady), and everyone
echoed, 'kieth-el-hairack khateer.' The most important person is the
'weled'--boy--Achmet. The most merry, clever, omnipresent little rascal,
with an ugly little pug face, a shape like an antique Cupid, liberally
displayed, and a skin of dark brown velvet. His voice, shrill and clear,
is always heard foremost; he cooks for the crew, he jumps overboard with
the rope and gives advice on all occasions, grinds the coffee with the
end of a stick in a mortar, which he holds between his feet, and uses the
same large stick to walk proudly before me, brandishing it if I go ashore
for a minute, and ordering everybody out of the way. 'Ya Achmet!'
resounds all day whenever anybody wants anything, and the 'weled' is
always ready and able. My favourite is Osman, a tall, long-limbed black
who seems to have stepped out of a hieroglyphical drawing, shirt, skull-
cap and all. He has only those two garments, and how anyone contrives to
look so inconceivably 'neat and respectable' (as Sally truly remarked) in
that costume is a mystery. He is always at work, always cheerful, but
rather silent--in short, the able seaman and steady, respectable 'hand'
_par excellence_. Then we have El Zankalonee from near Cairo, an old
fellow of white complexion and a valuable person, an inexhaustible teller
of stories at night and always _en train_, full of jokes and remarkable
for a dry humour much relished by the crew. I wish I understood the
stories, which sound delightful, all about Sultans and Efreets, with
effective 'points,' at which all hands exclaim 'Mashallah!' or 'Ah!' (as
long as you can drawl it). The jokes, perhaps, I may as well be ignorant
of. There is a certain Shereef who does nothing but laugh and work and
be obliging; helps Omar with one hand and Sally with the other, and looks
like a great innocent black child. The rest of the dozen are of various
colours, sizes and ages, some quite old, but all very quiet and
well-behaved.
We have had either dead calm or contrary wind all the time and the men
have worked very hard at the tow-rope. On Friday I proclaimed a halt in
the afternoon at a village at prayer-time for the pious Muslims to go to
the mosque; this gave great satisfaction, though only five went, Reis,
steersman, Zankalonee and two old men. The up-river men never pray at
all, and Osman occupied himself by buying salt out of another boat and
stowing it away to take up to his family, as it is terribly dear high up
the river. At Benisouef we halted to buy meat and bread, it is _comme
qui dirait_ an assize town, there is one butcher who kills one sheep a
day. I walked about the streets escorted by Omar in front and two
sailors with huge staves behind, and created a sensation accordingly. It
is a dull little country town with a wretched palace of Said Pasha. On
Sunday we halted at Bibbeh, where I caught sight of a large Coptic church
and sallied forth to see whether they would let me in. The road lay past
the house of the headman of the village, and there 'in the gate' sat a
patriarch, surrounded by his servants and his cattle. Over the gateway
were crosses and queer constellations of dots, more like Mithraic symbols
than anything Christian, but Girgis was a Copt, though the chosen head of
the Muslim village. He rose as I came up, stepped out and salaamed, then
took my hand and said I must go into his house before I saw the church
and enter the hareem. His old mother, who looked a hundred, and his
pretty wife, were very friendly; but, as I had to leave Omar at the door,
our talk soon came to an end, and Girgis took me out into the divan,
without the sacred precincts of the hareem. Of course we had pipes and
coffee, and he pressed me to stay some days, to eat with him every day
and to accept all his house contained. I took the milk he offered, and
asked him to visit me in the boat, saying I must return before sunset
when it gets cold, as I was ill. The house was a curious specimen of a
wealthy man's house--I could not describe it if I tried, but I felt I was
acting a passage of the Old Testament. We went to the church, which
outside looked like nine beehives in a box. Inside, the nine domes
resting on square pillars were very handsome. Girgis was putting it into
thorough repair at his own expense, and it will cost a good deal, I
think, to repair and renew the fine old wood panelling of such minute and
intricate workmanship. The church is divided by three screens; one in
front of the eastern three domes is impervious and conceals the holy of
holies. He opened the horseshoe door for me to look in, but explained
that no Hareem might cross the threshold. All was in confusion owing to
the repairs which were actively going on without the slightest regard to
Sunday; but he took up a large bundle, kissed it, and showed it me. What
it contained I cannot guess, and I scrupled to inquire through a Muslim
interpreter. To the right of this sanctum is the tomb of a Muslim saint!
enclosed under the adjoining dome. Here we went in and Girgis kissed the
tomb on one side while Omar salaamed it on the other--a pleasant sight.
They were much more particular about our shoes than in the mosques. Omar
wanted to tie handkerchiefs over my boots like at Cairo, but the priest
objected and made me take them off and march about in the brick and
mortar rubbish in my stockings. I wished to hear the service, but it was
not till sunset, and, as far as I could make out, not different on Sunday
to other days. The Hareems are behind the screen furthest removed from
the holy screen, behind a third screen where also was the font, locked up
and shaped like a Muslim tomb in little. (Hareem is used here just like
the German _Frauenzimmer_, to mean a respectable woman. Girgis spoke of
me to Omar as 'Hareem.') The Copts have but one wife, but they shut her
up much closer than the Arabs. The children were sweetly pretty, so
unlike the Arab brats, and the men very good-looking. They did not seem
to acknowledge me at all as a _co-religionnaire_, and asked whether we of
the English religion did not marry our brothers and sisters.
The priest then asked me to drink coffee at his house close by, and there
I 'sat in the gate'--_i.e_., in a large sort of den raised 2 feet from
the ground and matted, to the left of the gate. A crowd of Copts
collected and squatted about, and we were joined by the mason who was
repairing the church, a fine, burly, rough-bearded old Mussulman, who
told how the Sheykh buried in the church of Bibbeh had appeared to him
three nights running at Cairo and ordered him to leave his work and go to
Bibbeh and mend his church, and how he came and offered to do so without
pay if the Copts would find the materials. He spoke with evident pride,
as one who had received a Divine command, and the Copts all confirmed the
story and everyone was highly gratified by the miracle. I asked Omar if
he thought it was all true, and he had no doubt of it. The mason he knew
to be a respectable man in full work, and Girgis added that he had tried
to get a man to come for years for the purpose without success. It is
not often that a dead saint contrives to be equally agreeable to
Christians and Mussulmans, and here was the staunch old 'true believer'
working away in the sanctuary which they would not allow an English
fellow-Christian to enter.
Whilst we sat hearing all these wonders, the sheep and cattle pushed in
between us, coming home at eve. The venerable old priest looked so like
Father Abraham, and the whole scene was _so_ pastoral and Biblical that I
felt quite as if my wish was fulfilled to live a little a few thousands
of years ago. They wanted me to stay many days, and then Girgis said I
must stop at Feshn where he had a fine house and garden, and he would go
on horseback and meet me there, and would give me a whole troop of
Fellaheen to pull the boat up quick. Omar's eyes twinkled with fun as he
translated this, and said he knew the Sitt would cry out, as she always
did about the Fellaheen, as if she were hurt herself. He told Girgis
that the English customs did not allow people to work without pay, which
evidently seemed very absurd to the whole party.
GEBEL SHEYK EMBARAK,
_Thursday_.
I stopped last night at Feshn, but finding this morning that my Coptic
friends were not expected till the afternoon, I would not spend the whole
day, and came on still against wind and stream. If I could speak Arabic
I should have enjoyed a few days with Girgis and his family immensely, to
learn their _Ansichten_ a little; but Omar's English is too imperfect to
get beyond elementary subjects. The thing that strikes me most is the
tolerant spirit that I see everywhere. They say 'Ah! it is your custom,'
and express no sort of condemnation, and Muslims and Christians appear
perfectly good friends, as my story of Bibbeh goes to prove. I have yet
to see the much-talked-of fanaticism, at present I have not met with a
symptom of it. There were thirteen Copt families at Bibbeh and a
considerable Muslim population, who had elected Girgis their headman and
kissed his hand very heartily as our procession moved through the
streets. Omar said he was a very good man and much liked.
The villages look like slight elevations in the mud banks cut into square
shapes. The best houses have neither paint, whitewash, plaster, bricks
nor windows, nor any visible roofs. They don't give one the notion of
human dwellings at all at first, but soon the eye gets used to the
absence of all that constitutes a house in Europe, the impression of
wretchedness wears off, and one sees how picturesque they are, with palm-
trees and tall pigeon-houses, and here and there the dome over a saint's
tomb. The men at work on the river-banks are exactly the same colour as
the Nile mud, with just the warmer hue of the blood circulating beneath
the skin. Prometheus has just formed them out of the universal material
at hand, and the sun breathed life into them. Poor fellows--even the
boatmen, ragged crew as they are--say 'Ah, Fellaheen!' with a
contemptuous pity when they see me watch the villagers at work.
The other day four huge barges passed us towed by a steamer and crammed
with hundreds of the poor souls torn from their homes to work at the
Isthmus of Suez, or some palace of the Pasha's, for a nominal piastre a
day, and find their own bread and water and cloak. One of my crew,
Andrasool, a black savage whose function is always to jump overboard
whenever the rope gets entangled or anything is wanted, recognised some
relations of his from a village close to Assouan. There was much
shouting and poor Andrasool looked very mournful all day. It may be his
turn next. Some of the crew disloyally remarked that they were sure the
men there wished they were working for a Sitti Ingleez, as Andrasool told
them he was. Think too what splendid pay it must be that the boat-owner
can give out of 25 pounds a month to twelve men, after taking his own
profits, the interest of money being enormous.
When I call my crew black, don't think of negroes. They are elegantly-
shaped Arabs and all gentlemen in manners, and the black is transparent,
with amber _reflets_ under it in the sunshine; a negro looks _blue_
beside them. I have learned a great deal that is curious from Omar's
confidences, who tells me his family affairs and talks about the women of
his family, which he would not to a man. He refused to speak to his
brother, a very grand dragoman, who was with the Prince of Wales, and who
came up to us in the hotel at Cairo and addressed Omar, who turned his
back on him. I asked the reason, and Omar told me how his brother had a
wife, 'An old wife, been with him long time, very good wife.' She had
had three children--all dead. All at once the dragoman, who is much
older than Omar, declared he would divorce her and marry a young woman.
Omar said, 'No, don't do that; keep her in your house as head of your
home, and take one of your two black slave girls as your Hareem.' But
the other insisted, and married a young Turkish wife; whereupon Omar took
his poor old sister-in-law to live with him and his own young wife, and
cut his grand brother dead. See how characteristic!--the urging his
brother to take the young slave girl 'as his Hareem,' like a respectable
man--that would have been all right; but what he did was 'not good.' I'll
trouble you (as Mrs. Grote used to say) to settle these questions to
everyone's satisfaction. I own Omar seemed to me to take a view against
which I had nothing to say. His account of his other brother, a
confectioner's household with two wives, was very curious. He and they,
with his wife and sister-in-law, all live together, and one of the
brother's wives has six children--three sleep with their own mother and
three with their _other_ mother--and all is quite harmonious.
SIOUT,
_December_ 10.
I could not send a letter from Minieh, where we stopped, and I visited a
sugar manufactory and a gentlemanly Turk, who superintended the district,
the Moudir. I heard a boy singing a _Zikr_ (the ninety-nine attributes
of God) to a set of dervishes in a mosque, and I think I never heard
anything more beautiful and affecting. Ordinary Arab singing is harsh
and nasal, but it can be wonderfully moving. Since we left Minieh we
have suffered dreadfully from the cold; the chickens died of it, and the
Arabs look blue and pinched. Of course it is _my weather_ and there
never was such cold and such incessant contrary winds known. To-day was
better, and Wassef, a Copt here, lent me his superb donkey to go up to
the tomb in the mountain. The tomb is a mere cavern, so defaced, but the
view of beautiful Siout standing in the midst of a loop of the Nile was
ravishing. A green deeper and brighter than England, graceful minarets
in crowds, a picturesque bridge, gardens, palm-trees, then the river
beyond it, the barren yellow cliffs as a frame all around that. At our
feet a woman was being carried to the grave, and the boys' voices rang
out the Koran full and clear as the long procession--first white turbans
and then black veils and robes--wound along. It is all a dream to me.
You can't think what an odd effect it is to take up an English book and
read it and then look up and hear the men cry, 'Yah Mohammad.' 'Bless
thee, Bottom, how art thou translated;' it is the reverse of all one's
former life when one sat in England and read of the East. '_Und nun sitz
ich mitten drein_' in the real, true Arabian Nights, and don't know
whether 'I be I as I suppose I be' or not.
Tell Alick the news, for I have not written to any but you. I do so long
for my Rainie. The little Copt girls are like her, only pale; but they
don't let you admire them for fear of the evil-eye.
December 20, 1862: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
THEBES,
_December_ 20, 1862.
Dear Alick,
I have had a long, dawdling voyage up here, but enjoyed it much, and have
seen and heard many curious things. I only stop here for letters and
shall go on at once to Wady Halfeh, as the weather is very cold still,
and I shall be better able to enjoy the ruins when I return about a month
hence, and shall certainly prefer the tropics now. I can't describe the
kindness of the Copts. The men I met at a party in Cairo wrote to all
their friends and relations to be civil to me. Wassef's attentions
consisted first in lending me his superb donkey and accompanying me about
all day. Next morning arrived a procession headed by his clerk, a
gentlemanly young Copt, and consisting of five black memlooks carrying a
live sheep, a huge basket of the most delicious bread, a pile of cricket-
balls of creamy butter, a large copper caldron of milk and a cage of
poultry. I was confounded, and tried to give a good baksheesh to the
clerk, but he utterly declined. At Girgeh one Mishrehgi was waiting for
me, and was in despair because he had only time to get a few hundred
eggs, two turkeys, a heap of butter and a can of milk. At Keneh one Issa
(Jesus) also lent a donkey, and sent me three boxes of delicious Mecca
dates, which Omar thought stingy. Such attentions are agreeable here
where good food is not to be had except as a gift. They all made me
promise to see them again on my return and dine at their houses, and
Wassef wanted to make a fantasia and have dancing girls. How 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 to the 'fikee' who teaches him.
I have learned a new code of propriety altogether--_cela a du bon et du
mauvais_, like ours. When I said 'my husband' Omar blushed and gently
corrected me; when my donkey fell in the streets he cried with vexation,
and on my mentioning the fall to Hekekian Bey he was quite indignant.
'Why you say it, ma'am? that shame'--a _faux pas_ in fact. On the other
hand they mention all that belongs to the production of children with
perfect satisfaction and pleasure. A very pleasing, modest and handsome
Nubian young woman, wishing to give me the best present she could think
of, brought me a mat of her own making, and which had been her marriage-
bed. It was a gift both friendly and honourable, and I treasure it
accordingly. Omar gave me a description of his own marriage, appealing
to my sympathy about the distress of absence from his wife. I intimated
that English people were not accustomed to some words and might be
shocked, on which he said, 'Of course I not speak of my Hareem to English
gentleman, but to good Lady can speak it.'
Good-bye, dear Alick, no, that is improper: I must say 'O my Lord' or
'Abou Maurice.'
March 7, 1863: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
A FEW MILES BELOW GIRGEH,
_March_ 7, 1863.
Dearest Mutter,
I was so glad to find from your letter (which Janet sent me to Thebes by
a steamer) that mine from Siout had reached you safely. First and
foremost I am wonderfully better. In Cairo the winter has been terribly
cold and damp, as the Coptic priest told me yesterday at Girgeh. So I
don't repent the expense of the boat for _j'en ai pour mon argent_--I am
_all_ the money better and really think of getting well. Now that I know
the ways of this country a little, which Herodotus truly says is like no
other, I see that I might have gone and lived at Thebes or at Keneh or
Assouan on next to nothing, but then how could I know it? The English
have raised a mirage of false wants and extravagance which the servants
of the country of course, some from interest and others from mere
ignorance, do their best to keep up. As soon as I had succeeded in
really persuading Omar that I was not as rich as a Pasha and had no wish
to be thought so, he immediately turned over a new leaf as to what must
be had and said 'Oh, if I could have thought an English lady would have
eaten and lived and done the least like Arab people, I might have hired a
house at Keneh for you, and we might have gone up in a clean passenger
boat, but I thought no English could bear it.' At Cairo, where we shall
be, Inshallaha, on the 19th, Omar will get a lodging and borrow a few
mattresses and a table and chair and, as he says, 'keep the money in our
pockets instead of giving it to the hotel.' I hope Alick got my letter
from Thebes, and that he told you that I had dined with 'the blameless
Ethiopians.' I have seen all the temples in Nubia and down as far as I
have come, and nine of the tombs at Thebes. Some are wonderfully
beautiful--Abou Simbel, Kalabshee, Room Ombo--a little temple at El Kab,
lovely--three tombs at Thebes and most of all Abydos; Edfou and Dendera
are the most perfect, Edfou quite perfect, but far less beautiful. But
the most lovely object my eyes ever saw is the island of Philae. It
gives one quite the supernatural feeling of Claude's best landscapes,
only not the least like them--_ganz anders_. The Arabs say that Ans el
Wogood, the most beautiful of men, built it for his most beautiful
beloved, and there they lived in perfect beauty and happiness all alone.
If the weather had not been so cold while I was there I should have lived
in the temple, in a chamber sculptured with the mystery of Osiris' burial
and resurrection. Omar cleaned it out and meant to move my things there
for a few days, but it was too cold to sleep in a room without a door.
The winds have been extraordinarily cold this year, and are so still. We
have had very little of the fine warm weather, and really been pinched
with cold most of the time. On the shore away from the river would be
much better for invalids.
Mustapha Aga, the consular agent at Thebes, has offered me a house of
his, up among the tombs in the finest air, if ever I want it. He was
very kind and hospitable indeed to all the English there. I went into
his hareem, and liked his wife's manners very much. It was charming to
see that she henpecked her handsome old husband completely. They had
fine children and his boy, about thirteen or so, rode and played Jereed
one day when Abdallah Pasha had ordered the people of the neighbourhood
to do it for General Parker. I never saw so beautiful a performance. The
old General and I were quite excited, and he tried it to the great
amusement of the Sheykh el Beled. Some young Englishmen were rather
grand about it, but declined mounting the horses and trying a throw. The
Sheykh and young Hassan and then old Mustapha wheeled round and round
like beautiful hawks, and caught the palm-sticks thrown at them as they
dashed round. It was superb, and the horses were good, though the
saddles and bridles were rags and ends of rope, and the men mere
tatterdemalions. A little below Thebes I stopped, and walked inland to
Koos to see a noble old mosque falling to ruin. No English had ever been
there and we were surrounded by a crowd in the bazaar. Instantly five or
six tall fellows with long sticks improvised themselves our body-guard
and kept the people off, who _du reste_ were perfectly civil and only
curious to see such strange 'Hareem,' and after seeing us well out of the
town evaporated as quietly as they came without a word. I gave about ten-
pence to buy oil, as it is Ramadan and the mosque ought to be lighted,
and the old servant of the mosque kindly promised me full justice at the
Day of Judgment, as I was one of those Nasranee of whom the Lord Mohammed
said that they are not proud and wish well to the Muslimeen. The Pasha
had confiscated all the lands belonging to the mosque, and allowed 300
piastres--not 2 pounds a month--for all expenses; of course the noble old
building with its beautiful carving and arabesque mouldings must fall
down. There was a smaller one beside it, where he declared that
anciently forty girls lived unmarried and recited the Koran--Muslim nuns,
in fact. I intend to ask the Alim, for whom I have a letter from
Mustapha, about such an anomaly.
Some way above Bellianeh Omar asked eagerly leave to stop the boat as a
great Sheyk had called to us, and we should inevitably have some disaster
if we disobeyed. So we stopped and Omar said, 'come and see the Sheyk,
ma'am.' I walked off and presently found about thirty people, including
all my own men, sitting on the ground round St. Simon Stylites--without
the column. A hideous old man like Polyphemus, utterly naked, with the
skin of a rhinoceros all cracked with the weather, sat there, and had sat
day and night, summer and winter, motionless for twenty years. He never
prays, he never washes, he does not keep Ramadan, and yet he is a saint.
Of course I expected a good hearty curse from such a man, but he was
delighted with my visit, asked me to sit down, ordered his servant to
bring me sugar-cane, asked my name and tried to repeat it over and over
again, and was quite talkative and full of jokes and compliments, and
took no notice of anyone else. Omar and my crew smiled and nodded, and
all congratulated me heartily. Such a distinction proves my own
excellence (as the Sheyk knows all people's thoughts), and is sure to be
followed by good fortune. Finally Omar proposed to say the Fathah in
which all joined except the Sheykh, who looked rather bored by the
interruption, and desired us not to go so soon, unless I were in a hurry.
A party of Bedaween came up on camels with presents for the holy man, but
he took no notice of them, and went on questioning Omar about me, and
answering my questions. What struck me was the total absence of any
sanctimonious air about the old fellow, he was quite worldly and jocose;
I suppose he knew that his position was secure, and thought his dirt and
nakedness proved his holiness enough. Omar then recited the Fathah
again, and we rose and gave the servants a few foddahs--the saint takes
no notice of this part of the proceeding--but he asked me to send him
twice my hand full of rice for his dinner, an honour so great that there
was a murmur of congratulation through the whole assembly. I asked Omar
how a man could be a saint who neglected all the duties of a Muslim, and
I found that he fully believed that Sheykh Seleem could be in two places
at once, that while he sits there on the shore he is also at Mecca,
performing every sacred function and dressed all in green. 'Many people
have seen him there, ma'am, quite true.'
From Bellianeh we rode on pack-donkeys without bridles to Abydos, six
miles through the most beautiful crops ever seen. The absence of weeds
and blight is wonderful, and the green of Egypt, where it is green, would
make English green look black. Beautiful cattle, sheep and camels were
eating the delicious clover, while their owners camped there in reed huts
during the time the crops are growing. Such a lovely scene, all
sweetness and plenty. We ate our bread and dates in Osiris' temple, and
a woman offered us buffalo milk on our way home, which we drank warm out
of the huge earthen pan it had been milked in. At Girgeh I found my
former friend Mishregi absent, but his servants told some of his friends
of my arrival, and about seven or eight big black turbans soon gathered
in the boat. A darling little Coptic boy came with his father and wanted
a '_kitaab_' (book) to write in, so I made one with paper and the cover
of my old pocket-book, and gave him a pencil. I also bethought me of
showing him 'pickys' in a book, which was so glorious a novelty that he
wanted to go with me to my town, 'Beled Ingleez,' where more such books
were to be found.
SIOUT,
_March_ 9.
I found here letters from Alick, telling me of dear Lord Lansdowne's
death. Of course I know that his time was come, but the thought that I
shall never see his face again, that all that kindness and affection is
gone out of my life, is a great blow. No friend could leave such a blank
to me as that old and faithful one, though the death of younger ones
might be more tragic; but so many things seem gone with him into the
grave. Many indeed will mourn that kind, wise, steadfast man--_Antiqua
fides_. No one nowadays will be so noble with such unconsciousness and
simplicity. I have bought two Coptic turbans to make a black dress out
of. I thought I should like to wear it for him--here, where 'compliment'
is out of the question.
I also found a letter from Janet, who has been very ill; the account was
so bad that I have telegraphed to hear how she is, and shall go at once
to Alexandria if she is not better. If she is I shall hold to my plan
and see Beni Hassan and the Pyramids on my way to Cairo. I found my kind
friend the Copt Wassef kinder than ever. He went off to telegraph to
Alexandria for me, and showed so much feeling and real kindness that I
was quite touched.
I was grieved to hear that you had been ill again, dearest Mutter. The
best is that I feel so much better that I think I may come home again
without fear; I still have an irritable cough, but it has begun to have
lucid intervals, and is far less frequent. I can walk four or five miles
and my appetite is good. All this in spite of really cold weather in a
boat where nothing shuts within two fingers' breadths. I long to be
again with my own people.
Please send this to Alick, to whom I will write again from Cairo.
March 10, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
_March_ 10, 1863.
'If in the street I led thee, dearest,
Though the veil hid thy face divine,
They who beheld thy graceful motion
Would stagger as though drunk with wine.
Nay, e'en the holy Sheykh, while praying
For guidance in the narrow way,
Must needs leave off, and on the traces
Of thine enchanting footsteps stray.
O ye who go down in the boats to Dumyat,
Cross, I beseech ye, the stream to Budallah;
Seek my beloved, and beg that she will not
Forget me, I pray and implore her by Allah.
'Fair as two moons is the face of my sweetheart,
And as to her neck and her bosom--Mashallah.
And unless to my love I am soon reunited
Death is my portion--I swear it by Allah.'
Thus sings Ali Asleemee, the most _debraille_ of my crew, a _hashshash_,
{48} but a singer and a good fellow. The translation is not free, though
the sentiments are. I merely rhymed Omar's literal word-for-word
interpretation. The songs are all in a similar strain, except one funny
one abusing the 'Sheykh el-Beled, may the fleas bite him.' Horrid
imprecation! as I know to my cost, for after visiting the Coptic monks at
Girgeh I came home to the boat with myriads. Sally said she felt like
Rameses the Great, so tremendous was the slaughter of the active enemy.
I had written the first page just as I got to Siout and was stopped by
bad news of Janet; but now all is right again, and I am to meet her in
Cairo, and she proposes a jaunt to Suez and to Damietta. I have got a
superb illumination to-night, improvised by Omar in honour of the Prince
of Wales's marriage, and consequently am writing with flaring candles, my
lantern being on duty at the masthead, and the men are singing an
epithalamium and beating the tarabookeh as loud as they can.
You will have seen my letter to my mother, and heard how much better I am
for the glorious air of Nubia and the high up-country. Already we are
returning into misty weather. I dined and spent the day with Wassef and
his Hareem, such an amiable, kindly household. I was charmed with their
manner to each other, to the slaves and family. The slaves (all Muslims)
told Omar what an excellent master they had. He had meant to make a
dance-fantasia, but as I had not good news it was countermanded. Poor
Wassef ate his boiled beans rather ruefully, while his wife and I had an
excellent dinner, she being excused fasting on account of a coming baby.
The Copt fast is no joke, neither butter, milk, eggs nor fish being
allowed for fifty-five days. They made Sally dine with us, and Omar was
admitted to wait and interpret. Wassef's younger brother waited on him
as in the Bible, and his clerk, a nice young fellow, assisted. Black
slaves brought the dishes in, and capital the food was. There was plenty
of joking between the lady and Omar about Ramadan, which he had broken,
and the Nasranee fast, and also about the number of wives allowed, the
young clerk intimating that he rather liked that point in Islam. I have
promised to spend ten or twelve days at their house if ever I go up the
Nile again. I have also promised to send Wassef all particulars as to
the expense, etc. of educating his boy in England, and to look after him
and have him to our house in the holidays. I can't describe how
anxiously kind these people were to me. One gets such a wonderful amount
of sympathy and real hearty kindness here. A curious instance of the
affinity of the British mind for prejudice is the way in which every
Englishman I have seen scorns the Eastern Christians, and droll enough
that sinners like Kinglake and I should be the only people to feel the
tie of the 'common faith' (_vide_ 'Eothen'). A very pious Scotch
gentleman wondered that I could think of entering a Copt's house, adding
that they were the publicans (tax-gatherers) of this country, which is
partly true. I felt inclined to mention that better company than he or I
had dined with publicans, and even sinners.
The Copts are evidently the ancient Egyptians. The slightly aquiline
nose and long eye are the very same as the profiles of the tombs and
temples, and also like the very earliest Byzantine pictures; _du reste_,
the face is handsome, but generally sallow and rather inclined to
puffiness, and the figure wants the grace of the Arabs. Nor has any Copt
the thoroughbred, _distingue_ look of the meanest man or woman of good
Arab blood. Their feet are the long-toed, flattish foot of the Egyptian
statue, while the Arab foot is classically perfect and you could put your
hand under the instep. The beauty of the Ababdeh, black, naked, and
shaggy-haired, is quite marvellous. I never saw such delicate limbs and
features, or such eyes and teeth.
CAIRO,
_March_ 19.
After leaving Siout I caught cold. The worst of going up the Nile is
that one must come down again and find horrid fogs, and cold nights with
sultry days. So I did not attempt Sakhara and the Pyramids, but came a
day before my appointed time to Cairo. Up here in the town it is much
warmer and dryer, and my cough is better already. I found all your
letters in many volumes, and was so excited over reading them that I
could not sleep one moment last night, so excuse dulness, but I thought
you'd like to know I was safe in Briggs' bank, and expecting Janet and
Ross to-night.
April 9, 1863: Mrs. Austin
_To Mrs. Austin_.
CAIRO,
_April_ 9, 1863.
Dearest Mutter,
I write to you because I know Janet is sure to write to Alick. I have
had a very severe attack of bronchitis. As I seemed to be getting worse
after Janet and Ross left for Alexandria, Omar very wisely sent for
Hekekian Bey, who came at once bringing De Leo Bey, the surgeon-in-chief
of the Pasha's troops, and also the doctor to the hareem. He has been
most kind, coming two and three times a day at first. He won't take any
fee, _sous pretexte_ that he is _officier du Pasha_; I must send him a
present from England. As to Hekekian Bey, he is absolutely the Good
Samaritan, and these Orientals do their kindnesses with such an air of
enjoyment to themselves that it seems quite a favour to let them wait
upon one. Hekekian comes in every day with his handsome old face and a
budget of news, all the gossip of the Sultan and his doings. I shall
always fancy the Good Samaritan in a tarboosh with a white beard and very
long eyes. I am out of bed to-day for the second time, and waiting for a
warm day to go out. Sally saw the illuminations last night; the Turkish
bazaar she says was gorgeous. The Sultan and all his suite have not
eaten bread here, all their food comes from Constantinople. To-morrow
the Mahmaal goes--think of my missing that sight! _C'est desclant_.
I have a black slave--a real one. I looked at her little ears wondering
they had not been bored for rings. She fancied I wished them bored (she
was sitting on the floor close at my side), and in a minute she stood up
and showed me her ear with a great pin through it: 'Is that well, lady?'
the creature is eight years old. The shock nearly made me faint. What
extremities of terror had reduced that little mind to such a state. She
is very good and gentle, and sews quite nicely already. When she first
came, she tells me, she thought I should eat her; now her one dread is
that I should leave her behind. She sings a wild song of joy to
Maurice's picture and about the little Sitt. She was sent from Khartoum
as a present to Mr. Thayer, who has no woman-servant at all. He fetched
me to look at her, and when I saw the terror-stricken creature being
coarsely pulled about by his cook and groom, I said I would take her for
the present. Sally teaches her, and she is very good; but now she has
set her whole little black soul upon me. De Leo can give no opinion as
to what I ought to do, as he knows little but Egypt, and thinks England
rather like Norway, I fancy. Only don't let me be put in a dreadful
mountain valley; I hear the drip, drip, drip of Eaux Bonnes in bad dreams
still, when I am chilly and oppressed in my sleep. I'll write again
soon, send this to Alick, please.
April 13, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.
CAIRO,
_April_ 13, 1863.
Dearest Alick,
You will have heard from my mother of my ill luck, falling sick again.
The fact is that the spring in Egypt is very trying, and I came down the
river a full month too soon. People do tell such lies about the heat. To-
day is the first warm day we have had; till now I have been shivering,
and Sally too. I have been out twice, and saw the holy Mahmaal rest for
its first station outside the town, it is a deeply affecting sight--all
those men prepared to endure such hardship. They halt among the tombs of
the Khalifah, such a spot. Omar's eyes were full of tears and his voice
shaking with emotion, as he talked about it and pointed out the Mahmaal
and the Sheykh al-Gemel, who leads the sacred camel, naked to the waist
with flowing hair. Muslim piety is so unlike what Europeans think it is,
so full of tender emotions, so much more sentimental than we imagine--and
it is wonderfully strong. I used to hear Omar praying outside my door
while I was so ill, 'O God, make her better. O my God, let her sleep,'
as naturally as we should say, 'I hope she'll have a good night.'
The Sultan's coming is a kind of riddle. No one knows what he wants. The
Pasha has ordered all the women of the lower classes to keep indoors
while he is here. Arab women are outspoken, and might shout out their
grievances to the great Sultan.
_April_ 15.--I continue to get better slowly, and in a few days will go
down to Alexandria. Omar is gone to Boulak to inquire the cost of a
boat, as I am not fond of the railroad, and have a good deal of heavy
baggage, cooking utensils, etc., which the railway charges enormously
for. The black slave girl, sent as a present to the American
Consul-General, is as happy as possible, and sings quaint, soft little
Kordofan songs all day. I hope you won't object to my bringing her home.
She wails so terribly when Omar tells her she is not my slave, for fear I
should leave her, and insists on being my slave. She wants to be a
present to Rainie, the little Sitt, and laughs out so heartily at the
thought of her. She is very quiet and gentle, poor little savage, and
the utter slavishness of the poor little soul quite upsets me; she has no
will of her own. Now she has taken to talking, and tells all her woes
and how _batal_ (bad) everyone was at Khartoum; and then she rubs her
little black nose on my hand, and laughs so merrily, and says all is
_quyis keteer_ (very good) here, and she hugs herself with delight. I
think Rainie will like her very much.
I am going to visit an old Muslim French painter's family. He has an
Arab wife and grown-up daughters, and is a very agreeable old man with a
store of Arab legends; I am going to persuade him to write them and let
me translate them into English. The Sultan goes away to-day. Even water
to drink has been brought from Constantinople; I heard that from Hekekian
Bey, who formerly owned the eunuch who is now Kislar Aghasy to the Sultan
himself. Hekekian had the honour of kissing his old slave's hand. If
anyone tries to make you believe any bosh about civilization in Egypt,
laugh at it. The real life and the real people are exactly as described
in the most veracious of books, the 'Thousand and One Nights'; the
tyranny is the same, the people are not altered--and very charming people
they are. If I could but speak the language I could get into Arab
society here through two or three different people, and see more than
many Europeans who have lived here all their lives. The Arabs are keenly
alive to the least prejudice against them, but when they feel quite safe
on that point they rather like the amusement of a stranger.
Omar devised a glorious scheme, if I were only well and strong, of
putting me in a takterrawan and taking me to Mecca in the character of
his mother, supposed to be a Turk. To a European man, of course, it
would be impossible, but an enterprising woman might do it easily with a
Muslim confederate. Fancy seeing the pilgrimage! In a few days I shall
go down to Alexandria, if it makes me ill again I must return to Europe
or go to Beyrout. I can't get a boat under 12 pounds; thus do the Arabs
understand competition; the owner of boats said so few were wanted, times
were bad on account of the railway, etc., he must have double what he
used to charge. In vain Omar argued that that was not the way to get
employment. 'Maleesh!' (Never mind!), and so I must go by rail. Is not
that Eastern? Up the river, where there is no railroad, I might have had
it at half that rate. All you have ever told me as most Spanish in Spain
is in full vigour here, and also I am reminded of Ireland at every turn;
the same causes produce the same effects.
To-day the Khamseen is blowing and it is decidedly hot, quite unlike the
heat at the Cape; this is close and gloomy, no sunshine. Altogether the
climate is far less bright than I expected, very, very inferior to the
Cape. Nevertheless, I heartily agree to the Arab saying: 'He who has
drunk Nile water will ever long to drink it again'; and when a graceful
woman in a blue shirt and veil lifts a huge jar from her shoulder and
holds it to your lips with a hearty smile and welcome, it tastes doubly
sweet. _Alhamdulillah_! Sally says all other water is like bad small-
beer compared to sweet ale after the Nile water. When the Khamseen is
over, Omar insists on my going to see the tree and the well where Sittina
Mariam rested with Seyidna Issa {55} in her arms during the flight into
Egypt. It is venerated by Christian and Muslim alike, and is a great
place for feasting and holiday-making out of doors, which the Arabs so
dearly love. Do write and tell me what you wish me to do. If it were
not that I cannot endure not to see you and the children, I would stay
here and take a house at the Abbassieh in the desert; but I could not
endure it. Nor can I endure this wandering life much longer. I must
come home and die in peace if I don't get really better. Write to
Alexandria next.
April 18, 1863: Mr. Tom Taylor
_To Mr. Tom Taylor_.
CAIRO,
_April_ 18, 1863.
My dear Tom,
Your letter and Laura's were a great pleasure to me in this distant land.
I could not answer before, as I have been very ill. But Samaritans came
with oil and wine and comforted me. It had an odd, dreary effect to hear
my friend Hekekian Bey, a learned old Armenian, and De Leo Bey, my
doctor, discoursing Turkish at my bedside, while my faithful Omar cried
and prayed _Yah Robbeena_! _Yah Saatir_! (O Lord! O Preserver!) 'don't
let her die.'
Alick is quite right that I am in love with the Arabs' ways, and I have
contrived to see and know more of family life than many Europeans who
have lived here for years. When the Arabs feel that one really cares for
them, they heartily return it. If I could only speak the language I
could see anything. Cairo _is_ the Arabian Nights; there is a little
Frankish varnish here and there, but the government, the people--all is
unchanged since that most veracious book was written. No words can
describe the departure of the holy Mahmal and the pilgrims for Mecca. I
spent half the day loitering about in the Bedaween tents admiring the
glorious, free people. To see a Bedaween and his wife walk through the
streets of Cairo is superb. Her hand resting on his shoulder, and
scarcely deigning to cover her haughty face, she looks down on the
Egyptian veiled woman who carries the heavy burden and walks behind her
lord and master.
By no deed of my own have I become a slave-owner. The American Consul-
General turned over to me a black girl of eight or nine, and in
consequence of her reports the poor little black boy who is the slave and
marmiton of the cook here has been entreating Omar to beg me to buy him
and take him with me. It is touching to see the two poor little black
things recounting their woes and comparing notes. I went yesterday to
deposit my cooking things and boat furniture at my washerwoman's house.
Seeing me arrive on my donkey, followed by a cargo of household goods,
about eight or ten Arab women thronged round delighted at the idea that I
was coming to live in their quarter, and offering me neighbourly
services. Of course all rushed upstairs, and my old washerwoman was put
to great expense in pipes and coffee. I think, as you, that I must have
the 'black drop,' and t |
