Modern Society

by Julia Ward Howe

I cannot yet release you. Here are two gentlemen who wear the tarbouche with their European costume. They were rebels in our war of secession, and at its close took service with the Khedive. Ignoring ancient sectional differences, they are very cordial with us, their countrywomen. They would be glad to see their country again, but cannot get their salaries paid, the French and English commissioners having taken the direction of Egyptian finances, and making no allowance for the past services of these American officers, who were dismissed at their instance.

We are still at Shepherd's table d'hôte, and before us sit an English nobleman and his wife, who have obtained permission to give a fête at the Pyramids. A gay party of English residents and visitors are gathering to accompany them, and presently the carriages and cavalcade start, with a band of music, and a small army of servants. They illuminate the Great Pyramid with colored fires, race their horses and donkeys through the desert, sup and sleep in the Khedive's kiosk, not without much boisterous mirth and disturbance.

Or, behold me on Bairam day, paying a New-Year's visit to the harem of the Khedive. A row of grinning eunuchs, black as night, guard the entrance. After various turns of ceremonial, we greet the three princesses, all wives of the Khedive, who has many others not of this rank. In order not to give offence, we are obliged to smoke the chibouque, a pipe about five feet in length. We smile and courtesy at the proper moment, but find conversation difficult. They are curious to hear where we came from, and whither we are going. I ask whether they, also, enjoy travelling, and am reminded that their institutions do not allow it. These poor princesses little knew that in two months from that time an involuntary journey awaited them, on the occasion of the Khedive's abdication, and departure from the country.

We please ourselves, in these days, with the praise of Islamism, and think, quite rightly, that Mahomet and his Koran had their raison d'être, and have done their part for mankind. But here is Islamism in modern society. The howling dervishes sit on the ground groaning Allah, Allah. By and by they rise, and bend their heads backward and forward until the most eminent among them fall in fits, and are taken up in an unhappy condition. Within a short distance from our hotel, we hear of a company of men met for a religious exercise. One of them chews a glass goblet and swallows it. Another endeavors to swallow a small snake. A third gashes himself wildly with a sword. These are religious enthusiasts. If their faith be genuine, these dangerous experiments, they say, can do them no harm.

These things remind us of the temptation of Christ: "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence."

But let us leave the city and hotel, and betake ourselves to the historic river, dumb with all its mouths, and poor with all its wealth. Modern society is well represented on board our steamer. Here are two Californian gentlemen, two sons of a Sandwich Island missionary, two or three Italians. Here is a sister-in-law of John Bright. She has visited Alaska, and considers this Nile trip a small parenthesis in her voyage round the world. Here are an English couple, belonging to fashionable life. Here is a clergyman of the same nation, who glories in the fact that Dr. Johnson hated, or said he hated, a Whig. Here is an American who cannot visit the ruins because his whole day is divided into so many glasses of milk, to be taken at such and such times.

We land one day at Assiout, and visit its bazaars. The trade in ostrich feathers is brisk, the natives steadily raising their prices as the demand increases, until we find that the feathers might be more cheaply bought in London or Paris. Amid the general confusion of tongues I am accosted by a handsome youth, cleanly and civil, who speaks fair English, and asks if he can serve me.

Who are you? A pupil of the American Mission School in this place. He brings two of his fellow-pupils to speak with me. One of these is a girl, whose innocent, uncovered face seems to rebuke the hidden faces of the Arab women, veiled and disfigured to evince their modesty, but making more evident the immodesty of the men.

We return to our steamer, followed by a crowd of boys and girls, shrieking and naked, who plunge into the water to get the backshish, which some of our party throw them. On the bank stand two beautiful youths, nearly black, with eyes like sloes, and with crisped hair standing erect like a flame above their foreheads. They are clad in kilts of white cotton cloth. Struck with their beauty, we inquire of what tribe they are. "Of the Bischouri," says our dragoman, "a tribe of the desert, who feed only upon uncooked grain." To the last their bright smile pursues us with its pathos. Would that they, too, were pupils of the American Mission School. Would not our vegetarian chief send for them?[1]

[1] Mr. Alcott, Dean of the Concord School of Philosophy, has always been known as a vegetarian.