On the 19th we went on board the Espero, the Khedive having summoned him to Egypt, where the work of organization went on, and they landed at Tur (where he had landed in 1853), and went to Arafat, and to El Muwáylah and Shermá, to Jebel el Abyaz, and innumerable other places.
I spent my time partly in Trieste, but mostly in the rural (Opçina) inn away up in the mountains, engaged in correcting the proofs of one of his books. One day a party of friends came up to look after me, as they said they wondered what on earth I was doing, it being the gay time in Trieste, and I absent from everything; and they found me occupied in rather a curious way, which gave rise to a great deal of chaff. I had assembled a large party of all the country priests of the Karso, some of them very curious, and I was giving them a dinner to amuse myself, and the contrast between them (mostly Slavs) and the "swell" party from Trieste was rather absurd. I never heard the end of that dinner. "So this is the way you pass your time out here?" they all said to me. "What a curious taste!" All my real days were taken up with protection of cruelty to animals in the Karso, which is very bad, and writing. I used to take tremendous long walks over the mountains. The landlady of the inn also gave me enough to do. She and her husband were a spoony, gawky boy and girl. They had just had their first baby (we had known their grandfather and their father and mother). She was only sixteen, and knew absolutely nothing; so when she was occupied in running after her boy-husband, this baby was flung in swaddling clothes down upon the stone floor, anywhere, and left to bawl its heart out for food or care of any sort, and I began to perceive that it was dying; so I took it from her, and kept it entirely under my own care. I passed three weeks with that child in my arms. I dressed it in English baby clothes with flannel, and I fed it and doctored it till it got quite well. By the time she had a second she had grown wiser, and adopted my nursery ways instead of her own.
While I was waiting I had one of my annual fêtes, giving prizes for humanity to animals. It took place in the great hall called del Ridotto, decorated with flags, and was well filled with the Authorities, my friends, and crowds of people. The military band played, the Governor was President, and he and the Committee and I sat at a big table on the platform covered with the usual green cloth. There were a great many speeches; I made mine in Italian, and spoke for nearly three-quarters of an hour. The prizes were thirty of twenty-five florins, six of twenty florins, two of fifteen florins, one of ten florins, and we gave away many decorations and diplomas. I had the honour of receiving a medal and many kisses and congratulations from my friends.
I had the great pleasure of receiving Miss Irby and Miss Johnstone, who were doing such admirable work in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and which was most interesting to hear about, and also again a visit from the Stillmans. I had one more sorrow to go through. Léon Favre and his wife, our French Consul-General, had always been most kind to us, and during my husband's absence I was always counted upon for their Sunday dinner. The Sunday before I had been up there, and we had been thirteen at table, which I, being a superstitious woman, strongly objected to, but I was laughed out of it. The following Sunday I went as usual to dinner, when the maid-servant who opened the door informed me, with tears, that her mistress had been dead just an hour. Léon Favre is now dead, so that my remarks cannot agitate him, but when I saw her I was of opinion that she was not dead. The eyes were closed and the mouth shut exactly as in sleep, and no one had either bound up the jaw or closed the eyes. I called her husband, who was devoted to her, and told him; but he declared that the doctors had been called in, and certified that she was dead. The next day I went again, and had the same feeling about it, and another great friend of hers, independently of me, went upstairs and made a great fuss. However the doctors said she was dead, and she was buried. She had died of heart disease.
I got very good news shortly about the Expedition, which put me in good spirits.
On the second Expedition it was arranged that as soon as I had corrected the last proof of his "Midian," I should make my way out to Cairo and Suez, and get the Khedive to send me on. I had been restless with impatience to start ever since he had been gone, and I was on board an Austrian-Lloyd's as soon as the last proof was out of my hand and I was free. About seventy of my friends came to see me off, and as it was heavy weather, the passengers were all very sick, and I had the ship pretty well to myself. At Corfú we had full moon and the water like oil, but on steaming out there was a rough sea, and deluges of rain and darkness all through the Ionian Islands, which did not better itself till we had passed Gozo. Landing at Alexandria, I immediately found my letters and instructions, which did not please me much, as "I was not to attempt to join unless I could do so in proper order;" it remained to be seen what "proper order" meant. I always wonder when people sleep in Alexandria, for the whole night long there is a perfect pandemonium of clogs, carriages, cracking of whips, and pleasure-parties.
I went off at once to Cairo, and I had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of our Consul-General, Mr. and Mrs. Vivian. I also had the worry of learning that the last Sambúk (or open boat) had gone the day before. Not that I could have gone in her, because that would decidedly not have been "going properly," but I should have sent loads of things by it. I did not want to stop for the gaieties of Cairo; I wanted to get as near as I could to the opposite side of the water, and watch my chance of going. So I made my way up to Zagazíg, and visited poor Mrs. Clarke, who was just as unhappy as myself because her husband was gone with mine as secretary. I do not know that we did each other very much good. At Suez lived the Levick family (he was the Postmaster-General, and did good service to the State for something like forty-seven years, though his widow and children are now left to starve), and they were awfully kind to me. At last I was informed that a ship was going to be sent out, and that I was to have the offer of going in her, though it was intimated to me privately that the Khedive and the Governor, Said Bey, were very much in hopes that I should refuse. It was an Egyptian man-of-war, the Senaar, that was to anchor off the coast till the expedition emerged from the desert, and to bring them back. The Captain received me with all honour. All hands were piped on deck, and a guard and everything provided for me. They were most courteous, said that they would like to take me, and would do everything in their power to make me comfortable, but I saw at once that the accommodation was of too public a nature; in short, that it would be impossible for any woman to embark without her husband on an Egyptian man-of-war. It would lower her in their eyes, and hurt his dignity. Besides turning them out of their only quarters, when my husband came to embark the men of his Staff, I should be excessively in the way; so, thanking them exceedingly for their courteousness, I returned to the town, to the immense relief of all concerned, took some small rooms at the Suez Hotel, and started my literary work. To have crossed the Red Sea in an open Sambúk, with head winds blowing, and then to fight my way across the desert alone upon a camel, would have been dangerous to me and infra dig. for my husband's position; and the Khedive was just in that critical state that I could not have asked him to organize a second Expedition, to send me out with no definite object, save my own pleasure, although I am sure that he would have done it in former prosperous years.
There was a nice little Franciscan Convent of Italian monks near the inn, a mere hut with a room decorated as a chapel, where I used to pass an hour or so every day. Consul West and his wife were most hospitable to me, and they lent me a gigantic white donkey which nobody could break. He was more difficult to ride than any horse I ever mounted, as he ate his head off in the stable and never was ridden. I took long desert rides on him, but he nearly dislocated all my bones. Once I rode to see the Haj Caravan, and I went to see the Da'aseh (the mounted Shaykh riding over the backs of the people), and once came in for a tremendous sand-storm.
General Charles Gordon arrived, and stayed a week here, which I enjoyed very much, for of course I used to see him every day. He was certainly very eccentric, but very charming. I say eccentric, until you got to know and understand him. Also Mr. and Mrs. Ashley-Dodd came there for several days. I was obliged to go to Cairo for four days, including journeys. In those days it was a ten-hours' wearying affair. I arrived at six, and about half an hour afterwards got an invitation to the Khedive's theatricals, balls, and supper. It was a magnificent affair, a perfect garden upstairs, halls of blazing light and flowers, gorgeous dresses, magnificent supper and good wine, first-rate acting, and all the great people in Egypt present. The Khedive was exceedingly gracious to me. I had loads of people to see me, and many invitations. Amongst others, that admirable old man, Baron Ferdinand de Lesseps (in spite of his late failure, not his fault, a real Grand Old Man); and his pretty wife invited me to Ismailíyyeh; but of course I could not go. I just caught a glimpse of all my friends, not forgetting Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Baird, and on the fourth day worried back to Suez in the ten-hour train. During those four days and nights I think I had had only four hours' sleep.