Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedivé

by F. Barham Zincke

There are some aspects and incidents of the subject of the preceding chapter which, though one would prefer passing them by unnoticed, cannot be omitted from an honest attempt to sketch the peculiarities of Eastern life. For instance, in the Christian heaven they neither marry, nor are given in marriage. Of this everybody approves: at all events one never met, or heard of, a Christian who wished it otherwise. In the Mahomedan heaven, however, those who have kept the faith, and lived holy lives, will be rewarded with houris, damsels whose earthly charms have been perfected for the hareems of Paradise. This article of his faith is of such a nature, that it colours all the believer’s conceptions not only of the life that is to come, but also of the life that is now. The vision of these companions, as bright as stars, and as many in number, is so attractive, and so engrossing, that all other thoughts of Paradise die out of the mind and heart by the side of it. It is enough. It is Paradise. And if so, then the houris of earth are the Paradise of earth.

I have been told by men who have resided long in the East, and have had good opportunities for knowing the people well, that the facts of life there have conformed themselves to this anticipation. The houris of earth are the end-all and be-all of oriental life. Unlike anything amongst ourselves, it is with a view to them that even the arrangements of oriental houses are designed. No wonder men think they cannot make too much of, or guard too carefully, this treasure, for what more can heaven itself give them? Each, therefore, at once makes for himself in this matter, as far as his means allow, a present Paradise. The Sheik of the Great Mosk of Omar at Jerusalem introduced me to his son, a lad of sixteen, who was, as I have lately mentioned, already the master of two houris. It is said at Cairo that this part of the present Khedivé’s household does not at all fall short of what might be expected of the ruler of Egypt. To oriental thought there is nothing incongruous, nothing unbecoming, in their prophet, the chosen recipient of the Divine mind, and of all men the most absorbed in holy things, having been a matrimonial pluralist.

This is the very opposite to a sentiment with which the European world has been made familiar: the sentiment that husband, or wife, cannot be loved, except at the expense of the love of God; that it would be well if love were no worse than of the earth earthy; that those who do life-long violence to this master sentiment of our youthful nature, who trample upon it, and endeavour to extinguish it, and who put in its place such feelings as minds, that do this despite to nature, can alone originate, are better, and purer, and holier, than those who accept the duties, and cares, and happinesses of wedded life. It is strange that these ideas, which, through a natural reaction, had their birthplace in the East, are now most alien to oriental modes of thought.

Orientals are not more luxurious than ourselves. The difference is that their luxury is directed more exclusively to one object; and that that one object is of such a nature as to make their luxury more enervating than ours. Their luxury is houris, and all that appertains to them; and all that contributes to investing their society with a halo of sensuous delights; gorgeous apartments; plashing fountains; shady, and colour-enamelled gardens; exquisite odours. Our universal luxury does not relax the fibre of our minds, and bodies, as much as their one particular luxury does theirs.

We may bring ourselves to understand, to some extent, how this system acts on Orientals by picturing to our thought how it would act on ourselves. Take the first fifty men you meet in the Strand, or see coming out of a Church. Look into their faces, and endeavour to make our what you can about them from their appearance. They are evidently most of them married men. This means with us that their bark of life, as respects one most important matter at all events, is now moored in harbour. Hope and fortune are words that, in this matter, have no longer any meaning for them. They have accepted the situation, and have ceased to think about houris. Each has taken his wife for better, for worse; for sickness and for health, till death shall part them. Their thoughts are now about their business, their families, their pursuits, their society. But what a change would come over the spirit of their dreams, if each could have as many houris as he pleased, and could afford, of one kind or another, houris ever fair and ever young; and could dismiss at any moment any he wished, for any reason, to be rid of, by the simple form of a writing of divorcement: no more trouble in it than in making an entry in one’s pocket-book, and as exclusively one’s own affair; and could dismiss some without even this small formality of the writing of divorcement. Under such circumstances the houri question, which now has no place in the thoughts of one of these worthy members of society, would straightway occupy in the minds of many of them the first place of all. It would then become necessary that a complete end should be put to many things that no harm comes from now. These staid and respectable gentlemen would soon find that houris must be excluded from Churches, as Orientals have found that they must be from Mosks, during the time of Divine Service, because, under the new system, it would be impossible for them to be devout when surrounded with houris. Neither could houris be any longer domestic servants in our fashion. Houris also must be excluded from society. Nor would it be admissible for houris to appear in public, or anywhere, except in the presence of their lords, with unveiled faces. A little exercise of the imagination enables us to see what the metamorphosis would be in ourselves. And on the Oriental the effects of the system are even greater, because he has no political life, less pre-occupation from business than we have, and none of those pursuits, and employments for the mind, which our education, and the state of knowledge amongst us give rise to here.

As we were returning to Cairo by the river, we passed the corpse of a woman floating on the water. Every European of the party felt pity for her fate, and for her fault. Had it been possible we would gladly have given sepulture to these dishonoured remains of our common humanity, from which the Divine inmate had been expelled so cruelly. Such sentiments, however, are unintelligible to the Arab mind. The dogs and the vultures, they think, will give sepulture good enough to one who has brought disgrace so stinging on father, brothers, and husband. No pity have they for the fallen. No consciousness of failings of their own.

This is evil. But perhaps it might be more evil to care for none of these things. Indifference might be worse than hardness. Indifference would mean moral decay and rottenness. Hardness here is moral indignation, kindling up into an uncontrollable flame, which burns up, like stubble, all other feelings. These are simple-minded people, and they feel strongly within their narrow range of feelings.

Something perhaps might be said in extenuation of the fault of this poor frail one, whose punishment, if it were not greater than her fault, was still the extremest man can inflict. What agonizing moments must those last ones have been when, not weakened by slow disease, nor broken by days spent in long imprisonment, but fresh from her home, in the flower of youth and Nature’s pride of strength, with the blood quick and warm, she was being dragged away to the dark river, and by those God had made nearest and dearest to her. Her brothers are foremost in the work. There is not a heart in all the world, except, perhaps, of one whom she dare not think of now, that is touched with pity for her. Brothers are turned to worse than tigers, for they never did to death their own kin, or even their own kind.

But under such a system there will be some, among those who have wealth and leisure more than enough, who must fall. Women, like men, are only what the ideas in their minds make them. Every idea that is implanted, or springs up in the mind, may be regarded as a living thing. It has the attributes of life. It roots itself in the brain; it feeds, and assimilates what it feeds on; it grows; it ramifies; it bears fruit: it propagates itself after its kind; it carries on the Darwinian conflict for life with other ideas. If not killed itself, it may kill them. It may develop itself abnormally. It may get possession of an undue proportion of the ground.

These are general properties. But each particular idea has also, precisely as the various species of plants have, its own special properties. Some are beneficent, and these are beneficent in various ways. Some are poisonous, and these are poisonous in various ways. Some bear little fruit, some much. Some are serviceable to all, some only to a few. Some are feeble, some strong. Some are bitter, some sweet. Some burn, some soothe. Some are beautiful, some unsightly. Some can stand alone, some need support.