Wearied, I return to the quiet and shady groves of the hotel, a large pile of buildings streaked red and yellow, with a grand bit of garden ground at the back, and a wooden tower, from which you may see all Cairo at a glance. All the houses are flat-roofed, and many of them look unfinished, though not in reality so. I sink into a rocking-chair, light my pipe, and talk of the future of Cairo. I say I want to visit a Coptic Church, the church which was held heretical by the Orthodox Church, as they were said to have held imperfect ideas of the dual nature of Christ. One gentleman tells me I had better keep away, as the priests will pick your pockets in the very church. He has 300 Copts in his employ, and gives them all a very bad character. I ask as to the Khedive; everyone gives him a bad character, though he has discovered one wife is enough for any man. ‘He has the bad blood of his father and grandfather,’ says an Englishman to me. He has a thin veneer of civilization, but he is weak and ignorant, eaten up with ambition, and over head and ears in debt, though his allowance is £100,000 a year, a sum which should go far in a city where the price of labour is from two piastres to five, the piastre being valued at twopence halfpenny.
The people live exclusively on maize-corn, certainly not an expensive article of diet. The intelligent people are all in favour of the English Government, but, alas! the majority does not in Cairo, as I am told it does at home, represent the enlightened opinions of an intelligent people. I hear the shilly-shally policy of the English Government bitterly condemned. We are here, and must remain here. As it is, the people know not what to expect. There is no progress, but a terrible paralysis all over the city. ‘I like you English,’ said an intelligent native; ‘but you are here to-day and may be gone to-morrow, and then we who have adhered to England will all have our throats cut. We are like a boat between two shores, and know not whither we are going. The English must either stop or go.’ Our stay is to the lasting advantage of all the European nations.
We have wonderfully improved the condition of the fellaheen, who, according to all I hear, are not too thankful for the liberty we have gained for them. I met an intelligent old Greek, who deeply resented that we had abolished flogging—a little of it now and then, according to him, did the natives good. Manual labour is so cheap that it is used in every department. At the hotel I note that they bring the coals in in baskets, and in the railway-station I see a native employed in laying the dust, with a skin of water, which he carries on his back, using the neck as a water-spout.
Of all the cities I have known—and, like Ulysses, I am ever wandering with a hungry heart—I infinitely prefer Cairo, and am not surprised that it is becoming more and more the winter residence of the English aristocracy. It was a delight to live when I was there, and as I took my breakfast al fresco in the beautiful grounds of the Hôtel du Nil, with tropical plants in full flower all round me, a bright sun and unclouded blue sky above, the question whether life was worth living seemed to me an absurdity. But, alas! no one can look for perfect happiness—at any rate, on earth. In Cairo there are the flies, not so bad as I have seen them in Australia or America, but a terrible infliction nevertheless. One of my companions, Mr. Willans, the popular proprietor of the Leeds Daily Mercury, suffered much from them, and had for a time to give up reading and writing, and to wear coloured glasses, but I was let off more easily. In Cairo, for the first time, I realized what a luxury it was to have dates to eat. We at home, who buy dates at the grocer’s, have no idea how juicy the date of Cairo is.
Life and prosperity seem everywhere to prevail, and the station at Cairo conducts you at once into a fine city, with broad streets, well watered, and shaded by trees, handsome shops, fine hotels, beautiful gardens, and the inevitable statue of Mohammed Ali, who did so much to develop modern Egypt. Palaces of all kinds attract the eye, one of the finest of these being the residence of Lord Cromer. Cairo is distinctly a society place, though, perhaps, not so much so as Cannes or Nice, and living is dear, though cheaper than it used to be. French seems the language principally used, though the guides, who pester you at every corner, and the donkey-boys, who are equally persistent, have a confusing smattering of English. The resident English colony is chiefly composed of the diplomatic and Consular bodies, or of those connected with the different Consular departments, and of officers of the garrison. You meet many English soldiers whose appearance is creditable to the country, and amongst the birds of passage are many Americans. There are two good clubs for visitors—the Khediveal and the Turf, the latter chiefly supported by army officers. The theatre, where French plays and Italian operas are performed, is a very fine building. In the same neighbourhood is also a café chantant in the gardens. All day long, under the bright blue sky, the scene is very animated.
But the visitors, although a welcome addition, do not entirely make up Cairene society. The gaiety begins and is mainly kept up by the residents, especially the British civil and military, who are always most hospitable at the winter time of year. Cairo is no doubt a court and capital, the residence of the sovereign to whom diplomatists are accredited from all the civilized Powers. But it is also a British military station, and it owes much of its present liveliness to the British officers and civil servants.
It was the British garrison that established the Cairo Sporting Club, where good polo is played, and very fair cricket, ‘squash’ rackets, and lawn-tennis; where there are monthly race-meetings, and officers ride steeplechases on their own horses. The big lunches, the pleasant afternoon teas, the dances and flirtations so constantly in progress, are essentially British.
Out at Mena, under the shadow of the Sphinx, there is a golf-course, and the caddie is an Arab boy in a long blue bed-gown, and you can aim your ball from the putting-green straight at the Pyramid of Cheops. Out at Matarieh, just where Mr. Wilfrid Blunt lives the life of an Arab patriarch, under tents, surrounded by his flocks and herds, there is a training stable, and the British sporting subaltern keeps his ‘tit’ there, and comes out to give him his gallops at early dawn.