Bonaparte in Egypt and the Egyptians of To-day

by Abdullah Browne

Great as was the hatred of the Christians for the Moslems it was not, as we have seen, sufficient to prevent their joining these in their protest against a French reform that touched their own prejudices; but though that incident might have taught them that it would be to their own interests to conciliate Moslem feeling, so far from attempting anything of the kind they hastened to avail themselves of the collapse of the revolt to indulge in language and acts offensive to the Mahomedans. Believing that the permanency of French rule was now assured, they abandoned all the restraints they had been compelled to submit to in the time of the Beys, and which they had been more or less chary of neglecting under the early pro-Moslem policy of their successors. Having suffered but little from the event that had proved so disastrous to the Moslems, they had ample funds to enable them to follow their own inclinations, and, throwing aside the simple costumes and habits prescribed for them by the old law, went abroad clad in gold-embroidered garments, carrying weapons and mounted upon horses—all luxuries that had long been forbidden to them—and did not fail to flaunt their new-born liberty in the eyes of the Moslems, and openly exult in the discomfiture that had overtaken these.

Meanwhile a party of the French army was in constant pursuit of the fugitive Mamaluks, and small parties were being sent from Cairo to punish raiding Bedouins or villages that obstinately refused to pay the taxes imposed upon them. These latter always returned to Cairo with such booty of flocks and herds and other property as they had been able to obtain, all of which was appropriated to the use of the French. However excusable or even necessary this continuation of military operations may have been, it had a most disastrous effect upon the trade and commerce of the country. The small foreign trade that the country still possessed at the time of the invasion had ceased altogether, and the disturbed condition of the country had been almost equally fatal to local trade. Communications between Cairo and distant towns, even Alexandria and Damietta, were rare and uncertain, and the attempts of the French to maintain a postal service between the scattered portions of the army had almost completely failed. As a consequence of the general disorder thus prevailing, the merchants and dealers of Cairo suffered so heavily that large numbers of them were reduced to indigency and compelled to seek a livelihood by any means that offered. Some who had contrived to save a small amount from the wreck of their business opened restaurants or coffee-houses, or took to the sale of fruits and cakes and other small articles that were in demand among the French, while yet others gained a living by hiring the donkeys they had once themselves ridden in state to the soldiers, who had taken to donkey-riding and racing as one of their chief amusements.

The approach of the second year of the occupation brought no change in the condition of affairs, but rumours of the coming of a Turkish army were growing not only more frequent but more consistent, and Bonaparte, believing that it would be better for him to assume the offensive than to await an attack, began to hasten the carrying out of preparations for the conquest of Syria. The prospect of active service was hailed with pleasure by the troops, but the native Christians were dismayed at the idea of any large body of the French army leaving the immediate vicinity of the town, fearing that the Moslems would seize the opportunity to avenge themselves for the insults and injuries they had been bearing at their hands. Urged by this fear and with the idea of inducing Bonaparte to postpone his departure if not to abandon it altogether, some Syrians went to him and told him that the Moslems were preparing a new revolt. Fortunately for the Moslems these mischief-makers, in the excess of their cunning and anxiety to influence the French, gave a number of alleged details which Bonaparte at once saw afforded him a possibility of testing the truth of the information given. Some precautions were taken, but it was soon evident that the Moslems had no intention whatever of modifying in any way the pacific attitude they had assumed. Enraged at the attempt to mislead him, Bonaparte not only had the offenders arrested but issued an order that all the Syrians in the town were to resume the distinctive costume and be subjected to the other restrictions that had formerly been imposed upon them by the Beys. The annual fast of the month of Ramadan, during which the Moslems abstain from eating, drinking, and smoking from early dawn until sunset, beginning about this time, a proclamation was issued forbidding all non-Moslems to eat, drink, or smoke in the streets, or in sight of those who were fasting, and a Christian who was caught smoking was promptly arrested and bastinadoed. These and other concessions that were made to Moslem sentiment were not altogether unappreciated by them, but coming as they did at a time when, as they were well aware, the French had more than usual interest in gaining their goodwill, they could not but regard these things as the husks of the corn that the French were to eat, and saw, therefore, but little reason to be grateful for them, but they at least returned them in kind by according the French the passive submission they were so anxious for, and so, satisfied by the conduct of the people that he could safely withdraw the bulk of his army, Bonaparte started for Syria.

With the story of this ill-fated expedition we have nothing to do, for though usually given at great length in the histories of the country it forms no part of its history, the Egyptians having no further interest in it than that arising from their sympathy with the people attacked. They heard with pleasure of the difficulties and privations the army had to encounter and endure, with regret of its successes, and with sincere rejoicing of its ultimate discomfiture. It was in vain that Bonaparte sent them the most rose-coloured reports; no one accepted or believed them. The cold-blooded butchery of six thousand disarmed prisoners at Jaffa was an incident of the expedition which historians in vain try to gloss over or excuse, but with all the fawning fallacies with which they seek to save the honour of their hero, the massacre was one of the most brutal and inexcusable atrocities of all those that sully the pages of history. No sophisms can defend it, for not only was there not the slightest ground for a plea of justification, but the measure was a stupid and impolitic blunder. The soldiers, we are told, carried out their revolting task of shooting down the bound and helpless victims with the greatest reluctance. It was a notable example of the power of discipline, the immediate, unquestioning obedience of the soldier; but such discipline as this! When we think of the men on the fast-sinking Birkenhead falling into rank and standing to order as the doomed vessel made her final plunge one feels that discipline may be great and glorious—but the discipline that stained the sands of Jaffa with the blood of six thousand unarmed, pinioned men!

Meanwhile the Ramadan having come to an end, the people of Cairo celebrated the Eed, or feast with which they return to the ordinary routine of life, in much the same way but with much less feasting and rejoicing than usual. According to the regular custom in all Mahomedan towns and villages, the people assembled on the first day of the feast to celebrate it with special prayers and thanksgivings, and we get a curious insight into their manner of regarding the ceremonies of their religion from an incident that occurred on this occasion. By some strange forgetfulness the Imam, or official leader of the prayers, omitted to recite the Fatiha, the prayer which is in Islam that which the "Lord's Prayer" is in the Christian Church, with the addition that it is always recited as the opening prayer whenever and wherever Moslems worship. Under all ordinary circumstances the Moslem idea of propriety in a mosque or place of prayer is such as prevails in the churches of Europe, but the reverent attention that is customarily given to the Imam will not stand any great strain and so, reminded by a storm of protests from the thousands of worshippers present, the Imam on this occasion had to recommence the service! Let the reader try and imagine the congregation at some great festival in St. Paul's or St. Peter's roaring at his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, or his Holiness the Pope that he had omitted the collect for the day, and peremptorily ordering him to recommence the service!

Two months later, in May, 1799, the great Eed, or day of sacrifice, was kept, but in this as in all things the shadow of the French occupation overhung the people and embittered their feelings. Sheep, which for several reasons are the animals generally chosen for sacrifice, could not be had, partly because the flocks of the neighbouring villages had been almost wholly consumed by the French and partly because the restless condition of the country prevented those of more distant places being sent into the town. So the salvos of artillery with which according to custom the occasion was celebrated were listened to by the people but failed to awaken the usual enthusiasm, and, fired as they were by the unorthodox hands of the French gunners, were to the Moslems little better than a mockery.

Early in the year when the plague had first appeared rigorous police regulations had been issued for the protection of the French, who suffered from the dread of epidemics so universal in Christian Europe, but which, as readers of Kinglake's "Eothen" will remember, so slightly disturb the Oriental mind. As the year had advanced the plague had shown no signs of disappearing, and new and more stringent orders were issued in the hope of restricting it. Dire penalties were therefore imposed for concealing a case or a death, or for neglecting the prescribed sanitary precautions, and some idea of the frantic terror that possessed the compilers of these regulations may be gathered from the fact that death was the punishment proclaimed for any one sick of the plague who should dare enter any other house than his own dwelling.

Thus the first year of the French occupation and the year of the Moslem calendar came to an end within a few days of each other, and Gabarty winds up his long and yet all too brief record of the woes and tribulations of the twelve months by saying that it had been full of "unheard-of events, the most important being that the people of Egypt had been unable to make the pilgrimage to Mecca!"

A very notable conclusion of the year's story—a conclusion that tells us much of the people and their most extraordinary and irrational way, as you no doubt think it, of looking upon the affairs of life. The coming of the French, the terrible sufferings of the panic-stricken town, the gathering of that wild storm of revolt, its bursting, collapse, the long-delayed hope of relief, the daily outraging of the most cherished prejudices of the people—all these, the great flood of evil and sorrow that was the one recollection of that miserable time for all the people—all this was of less importance than the fact that a few hundred individuals had been unable to perform the dangerous journey to Mecca!

Death, want, misfortune and misery of every kind had filled the record of the year for one and all of the people, but this one thing in which but a few of them only could have any direct personal interest, this was "the most important event of the year!"