The Copts are far more close and reserved and backward than the Arabs, and they have been so repudiated by Europeans that they are doubly shy of us. The Europeans resent being called ‘Nazranee’ as a genteel Hebrew gentleman may shrink from ‘Jew.’ But I said boldly, ‘Ana Nazraneeh. Alhamdulillah!’ (I am a Nazranee. Praise be to God), and found that it was much approved by the Muslims as well as the Copts. Curious things are to be seen here in religion—Muslims praying at the tomb of Mar Girgis (St. George) and the resting-places of Sittina Mariam and Seyidna Issa, and miracles, brand-new, of an equally mixed description.
If you have any power over any artists, send them to paint here. No words can describe either the picturesque beauty of Cairo or the splendid forms of the people in Upper Egypt, and above all in Nubia. I was in raptures at seeing how superb an animal man (and woman) really is. My donkey-girl at Thebes, dressed like a Greek statue—Ward es-Sham (the Rose of Syria)—was a feast to the eyes; and here, too, what grace and sweetness, and how good is a drink of Nile water out of an amphora held to your lips by a woman as graceful as she is kindly. ‘May it benefit thee,’ she says, smiling with all her beautiful teeth and eyes. ‘Alhamdulillah,’ you reply; and it is worth thanking God for. The days of the beauty of Cairo are numbered. The mosques are falling to decay, the exquisite lattice windows rotting away and replaced by European glass and jalousies. Only the people and the Government remain unchanged. Read all the pretty paragraphs about civilisation here, and then say, Bosh!
If you know anyone coming here and wanting a good servant and dragoman, recommend my dear Omar Abou el-Haláweh of Alexandria. He has been my friend and companion, as well as my cook and general servant, now for six months, and we are very sad at our approaching separation. I am to spend a day in his house with his young wife at Alexandria, and to eat his bread. He sadly wants to go with me to Europe and to see my children. Sally, I think, is almost as fond of the Arabs as I am, and very popular. My poor ragged crew were for ever calling out ‘Yah Sara’ for some assistance or other, hurt fingers or such calamities; and the quantity of doctoring I did was fearful. Sally was constantly wishing for you to see all manner of things and to sketch. What a yarn I have made!
May 12, 1863: Mrs. Austin
To Mrs. Austin.
Alexandria,
May 12, 1863.
Dearest Mutter,
I have been here a fortnight, but the climate disagrees so much with me that I am going back to Cairo at once by the advice of the doctor of the Suez Canal. I cannot shake off my cough here. Mr. Thayer kindly lends me his nice little bachelor house, and I take Omar back again for the job. It is very hot here, but with a sea-breeze which strikes me like ice; strong people enjoy it, but it gives even Janet cold in the head. She is very well, I think, and seems very happy. She is Times correspondent and does it very well.
I am terribly disappointed at not being as materially better as I had hoped I should be while in Upper Egypt. I cannot express the longing I have for home and my children, and how much I feel the sort of suspense it all causes to you and to Alick, and my desire to be with you.
One must come to the East to understand absolute equality. As there is no education and no reason why the donkey-boy who runs behind me may not become a great man, and as all Muslims are ipso facto equal; money and rank are looked on as mere accidents, and my savoir vivre was highly thought of because I sat down with Fellaheen and treated everyone as they treat each other. In Alexandria all that is changed. The European ideas and customs have extinguished the Arab altogether, and those who remain are not improved by the contact. Only the Bedaween preserve their haughty nonchalance. I found the Mograbee bazaar full of them when I went to buy a white cloak, and was amused at the way in which one splendid bronze figure, who lay on the shop-front, moved one leg to let me sit down. They got interested in my purchase, and assisted in making the bargain and wrapping the cloak round me Bedawee fashion, and they too complimented me on having ‘the face of the Arab,’ which means Bedaween. I wanted a little Arab dress for Rainie, but could not find one, as at her age none are worn in the desert.
I dined one day with Omar, or rather I ate at his house, for he would not eat with me. His sister-in-law cooked a most admirable dinner, and everyone was delighted. It was an interesting family circle. A very respectable elder brother a confectioner, whose elder wife was a black woman, a really remarkable person, who speaks Italian perfectly, and gave me a great deal of information and asked such intelligent questions. She ruled the house but had no children, so he had married a fair, gentle-looking Arab woman who had six children, and all lived in perfect harmony. Omar’s wife is a tall, handsome girl of his own age, with very good manners. She had been outside the door of the close little court which constituted the house once since her marriage. I now begin to understand all about the wesen with the women. There is a good deal of chivalry in some respects, and in the respectable lower and middle classes the result is not so bad. I suspect that among the rich few are very happy. But I don’t know them, or anything of the Turkish ways. I will go and see the black woman again and hear more, her conversation was really interesting.
May 12, 1863: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.
Alexandria,
May 12, 1863.
Dearest Alick,
I only got your letter an hour ago, and the mail goes out at four. I enclose to you the letter I had written to my mother, so I need not repeat about my plans. Continue to write here, a letter comes as soon and safer. My general health is so much stronger and better—especially before I had this last severe attack—that I still hope, though it is a severe trial of patience not to throw it up and come home for good. It would be delightful to have you at Cairo now I have pots and pans and all needful for a house, but a carpet and a few mattresses, if you could camp with me à l’Arabe.
How you would revel in old Masr el-Kahira, peep up at lattice windows, gape like a gasheem (green one) in the bazaar, go wild over the mosques, laugh at portly Turks and dignified Sheykhs on their white donkeys, drink sherbet in the streets, ride wildly about on a donkey, peer under black veils at beautiful eyes and feel generally intoxicated! I am quite a good cicerone now of the glorious old city. Omar is in raptures at the idea that the Sidi el Kebir (the Great Master) might come, and still more if he brought the ‘little master.’ He plans meeting you on the steamboat and bringing you to me, that I may kiss your hand first of all. Mashallah! How our hearts would be dilated!
May 21, 1863: Mrs. Austin