Wednesday.—Last night I bored Sheykh Yussuf with Antara and Abou-Zeyd, maintaining the greater valour of Antara who slew 10,000 for the love of Ibla; you know Antara. Yussuf looks down on such profanities, and replied, ‘What are Antara and Abou-Zeyd compared to the combats of our Lord Moses with Og and other infidels of might, and what is the love of Antara for Ibla compared to that of our Lord Solomon for Balkees (Queen of Sheba), or their beauty and attractiveness to that of our Lord Joseph?’ And then he related the combat of Seyyidna Mousa with Og; and I thought, ‘hear O ye Puritans, and give ear O ye Methodists, and learn how religion and romance are one to those whose manners and ideas are the manners and ideas of the Bible, and how Moses was not at all a crop-eared Puritan, but a gallant warrior!’ There is the Homeric element in the religion here, the Prophet is a hero like Achilles, and like him directed by God—Allah instead of Athene. He fights, prays, teaches, makes love, and is truly a man, not an abstraction; and as to wonderful events, instead of telling one to ‘gulp them down without looking’ (as children are told with a nasty dose, and as we are told about Genesis, etc.) they believe them and delight in them, and tell them to amuse people. Such a piece of deep-disguised scepticism as Credo quia impossibile would find no favour here; ‘What is impossible to God?’ settles everything. In short, Mohammed has somehow left the stamp of romance on the religion, or else it is in the blood of the people, though the Koran is prosy and ‘common-sensical’ compared to the Old Testament. I used to think Arabs intensely prosaic till I could understand a little of their language, but now I can trace the genealogy of Don Quixote straight up to some Sheykh-el-Arab.
A fine, handsome woman with a lovely baby came to me the other day. I played with the baby, and gave it a cotton handkerchief for its head. The woman came again yesterday to bring me a little milk and some salad as a present, and to tell my fortune with date stones. I laughed, and so she contented herself with telling Omar about his family, which he believed implicitly. She is a clever woman evidently, and a great sibyl here. No doubt she has faith in her own predictions. She told Mme. Mounier (who is a Levantine) that she would never have a child, and was forbidden the house accordingly, and the prophecy has ‘come true.’ Superstition is wonderfully infectious here. The fact is that the Arabs are so intensely impressionable, and so cowardly about inspiring any ill-will, that if a man looks askance at them it is enough to make them ill, and as calamities are not infrequent, there is always some mishap ready to be laid to the charge of somebody’s ‘eye.’ Omar would fain have had me say nothing about the theft of my purse, for fear the Karnac people should hate me and give me the eye. A part of the boasting about property, etc., is politeness, so that one may not be supposed to be envious of one’s neighbours’ nice things. My Sakka (water carrier) admired my bracelet yesterday, as he was watering the verandah floor, and instantly told me of all the gold necklaces and earrings he had bought for his wife and daughters, that I might not be uneasy and fear his envious eye. He is such a good fellow. For two shillings a month he brings up eight or ten huge skins of water from the river a day, and never begs or complains, always merry and civil. I shall enlarge his backsheesh. There are a lot of camels who sleep in the yard under my verandah; they are pretty and smell nice, but they growl and swear at night abominably. I wish I could draw you an Egyptian farm-yard, men, women and cattle; but what no one can draw is the amber light, so brilliant and so soft, not like the Cape diamond sunshine at all, but equally beautiful, hotter and less dazzling. There is no glare in Egypt like in the South of France, and, I suppose, in Italy.
Thursday.—I went yesterday afternoon to the island again to see the crops, and show Sally my friend farmer Omar’s house and Mustapha’s village. Of course we had to eat, and did not come home till the moon had long risen. Mustapha’s brother Abdurachman walked about with us, such a noble-looking man, tall, spare, dignified and active, grey-bearded and hard-featured, but as lithe and bright-eyed as a boy, scorning any conveyance but his own feet, and quite dry while we ‘ran down.’ He was like Boaz, the wealthy gentleman peasant—nothing except the Biblical characters gave any idea of the rich fellah. We sat and drank new milk in a ‘lodge in a garden of cucumbers’ (the ‘lodge’ is a neat hut of palm branches), and saw the moon rise over the mountains and light up everything like a softer sun. Here you see all colours as well by moonlight as by day; hence it does not look as brilliant as the Cape moon, or even as I have seen in Paris, where it throws sharp black shadows and white light. The night here is a tender, subdued, dreamy sort of enchanted-looking day. My Turkish acquaintance from Karnac has just been here; he boasted of his house in Damascus, and invited me to go with him after the harvest here, also of his beautiful wife in Syria, and then begged me not to mention her to his wives here.
It is very hot now; what will it be in June? It is now 86° in my shady room at noon; it will be hotter at two or three. But the mornings and evenings are delicious. I am shedding my clothes by degrees; stockings are unbearable. Meanwhile my cough is almost gone, and the pain is quite gone. I feel much stronger, too; the horrible feeling of exhaustion has left me; I suppose I must have salamander blood in my body to be made lively by such heat. Sally is quite well; she does not seem at all the worse at present.
Saturday.—This will go to-morrow by some travellers, the last winter swallows. We went together yesterday to the Tombs of the Kings on the opposite bank. The mountains were red-hot, and the sun went down into Amenti all on fire. We met Mr. Dümmichen, the German, who is living in the temple of Dayr el-Bahree, translating inscriptions, and went down Belzoni’s tomb. Mr. Dümmichen translated a great many things for us which were very curious, and I think I was more struck with the beauty of the drawing of the figures than last year. The face of the Goddess of the Western shore, Amenti, Athor, or Hecate, is ravishing as she welcomes the King to her regions; death was never painted so lovely. The road is a long and most wild one—truly through the valley of the shadow of death—not an insect nor a bird. Our moonlight ride home was beyond belief beautiful. The Arabs who followed us were immensely amused at hearing me interpret between German and English, and at my speaking Arabic; they asked if I was dragoman of all the languages in the world. One of them had droll theories about ‘Amellica’ (America), as they pronounce it always. Was the King very powerful that the country was called ‘Al Melekeh’ (the Kings)? I said, ‘No: all are Kings there: you would be a King like the rest.’ My friend disapproved utterly: ‘If all are Kings they must all be taking away every man the other’s money’—a delightful idea of the kingly vocation.
When we landed on the opposite shore, I told little Achmet to go back in the ferry-boat, in which he had brought me over my donkey; a quarter of an hour after I saw him by my side. The guide asked why he had not gone as I told him. ‘Who would take care of the lady?’ the monkey is Rainie’s size. Of course he got tired, and on the way home I told him to jump up behind me en croupe after the Fellah fashion. I thought the Arabs would never have done laughing and saying Wallah and Mashallah. Sheykh Yussuf talked about the excavations, and is shocked at the way the mummies are kicked about. One boy told him they were not Muslims as an excuse, and he rebuked him severely, and told him it was haraam (accursed) to do so to the children of Adam. He says they have learned it very much of Mariette Bey, but I suspect it was always so with the fellaheen. To-day a tremendous wind is blowing; excellent for the corn. At Mustapha’s farm they are preparing for the harvest, baking bread and selecting a young bull to be killed for the reapers. It is not hot to-day; only 84° in a cool room. The dust is horrid with this high wind; everything is gritty, and it obscures the sun. I am desired to eat a raw onion every day during the Khamseen for health and prosperity. This too must be a remnant of ancient Egypt. How I do long to see you and the children. Sometimes I feel rather down-hearted, but it is no good to say all that. And I am much better and stronger. I stood a long ride and some scrambling quite well last evening.
April 6, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon
To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.
Luxor,
April 6, 1864.
Dearest Alick,