Dearest Alick,
Don’t make yourself unhappy, and don’t send out a nurse. And above all don’t think of coming. I am nursed as well as possible. My two Reises, Ramadan and Yussuf, are strong and tender and Omar is admirable as ever. The worst is I am so strong.
I repeat I could not be better cared for anywhere than by my good and loving crew. Tell Maurice how they all cried and how Abd el-Haleem forswore drink and hasheesh. He is very good too. But my Reises are incomparable. God bless you. I wish I had seen your dear face once more—but not now. I would not have you here now on any account.
Footnotes:
[1] See my ‘Three Generations of English Women.’
[4] See ‘Three Generations of English Women.’
[48] A smoker or eater of hasheeshs (hemp).
[55] Lady Mary and Lord Jesus.
[188] About 7½ bushels.
[293] Now, I believe, abolished. The Sheykh of the Saadeeyeh darweeshes, passing part of the night in solitude, reciting prayers and passages of the Koran, went to the mosque, preached and said the noonday prayer; then, mounting his horse, proceeded to the Ezbekeeyeh. Many darweeshes with flags accompanied him to the house of the Sheykh of all the darweeshes where he stayed for some time, whilst his followers were engaged in packing the bodies of those who wished to be trampled under the hoofs of the Sheykh’s horse as closely together as they could in the middle of the road. Some eighty or a hundred, or more men lay side by side flat on the ground on their stomachs muttering, Allah Allah! and to try if they were packed close enough about twenty darweeshes ran over their backs, beating little drums and shouting Allah! and now and then stopping to arrange an arm or leg. Then appeared the Sheykh, his horse led by two grooms, while two more rested their hands on his croup. By much pulling and pushing they at last induced the snorting, frightened beast to amble quickly over the row of prostrate men. The moment the horse had passed the men sprang up, and followed the Sheykh over the bodies of the others. It was said that on the day before the Dóseh they, and the Sheykh, repeated certain prayers which prevented the horse’s hoofs from hurting them, and that sometimes a man, overcome by religious enthusiasm, had thrown himself down with the rest and been seriously hurt, or even killed.