Dearest Alick,
I have not written for a long time because I have had a fever. Now I am all right again, only weak. If you can come please bring the books in enclosed list for an American Egyptologist at Luxor—a friend of mine. My best love to Janet and my other chicks. I wish I could see my Maurice. Tell Janet that Hassan donkey boy, has married a girl of eleven, and Phillips that Hassan remembers him quite tenderly and is very proud of having had his ‘face’ drawn by him, ‘certainly he was of the friends if not a brother of the Sitt, he so loved the things of the Arabs.’ I went to the Hareem soirée at Hassan’s before the wedding—at that event I was ill. My good doctor was up the river, and Hekekian Bey is in Italy, so I am very lonely here. The weather is bad, so very damp; I stream with perspiration more than in June at Luxor, and I don’t like civilization so very much. It keeps me awake at night in the grog shops and rings horrid bells and fights and quarrels in the street, and disturbs my Muslim nerves till I utter such epithets as kelb (dog) and khanseer (pig) against the Frangi, and wish I were in a ‘beastly Arab’ quarter.
October 21, 1864: Mrs. Austin
To Mrs. Austin.
Cairo,
October 21, 1864.
Dearest Mutter,
I got your letter yesterday. I hope Alick got mine of two weeks ago before leaving, and told you I was better. I am still rather weak, however I ride my donkey and the weather has suddenly become gloriously dry and cool. I rather shiver with the thermometer at 79°—absurd is it not, but I got so used to real heat.
I never wrote about my leaving Luxor or my journey, for our voyage was quite tempestuous after the three first days and I fell ill as soon as I was in my house here. I hired the boat for six purses (£18) which had taken Greeks up to Assouan selling groceries and strong drinks, but the reis would not bring back their cargo of black slaves to dirty the boat and picked us up at Luxor. We sailed at daybreak having waited all one day because it was an unlucky day.
As I sat in the boat people kept coming to ask whether I was coming back very anxiously and bringing fresh bread, eggs and things as presents, and all the quality came to take leave and hope, Inshallah, I should soon ‘come home to my village safe and bring the Master, please God, to see them,’ and then to say the Fattah for a safe journey and my health. In the morning the balconies of my house were filled with such a group to see us sail—a party of wild Abab’deh with their long Arab guns and flowing hair, a Turk elegantly dressed, Mohammed in his decorous brown robes and snow-white turban, and several fellaheen. As the boat moved off the Abab’deh blazed away with their guns and Osman Effendi with a sort of blunderbuss, and as we dropped down the river there was a general firing; even Todoros (Theodore), the Coptic Mallim, popped off his American revolver. Omar keeping up a return with Alick’s old horse pistols which are much admired here on account of the excessive noise they make.
Poor old Ismain, who always thought I was Mme. Belzoni and wanted to take me up to Abou Simbel to meet my husband, was in dire distress that he could not go with me to Cairo. He declared he was still shedeed (strong enough to take care of me and to fight). He is ninety-seven and only remembers fifty or sixty years ago and old wild times—a splendid old man, handsome and erect. I used to give him coffee and listen to his old stories which had won his heart. His grandson, the quiet, rather stately, Mohammed who is guard of the house I lived in, forgot all his Muslim dignity, broke down in the middle of his set speech and flung himself down and kissed and hugged my knees and cried. He had got some notion of impending ill-luck, I found, and was unhappy at our departure—and the backsheesh failed to console him. Sheykh Yussuf was to come with me, but a brother of his just wrote word that he was coming back from the Hejaz where he had been with the troops in which he is serving his time; I was very sorry to lose his company. Fancy how dreadfully irregular for one of the Ulema and a heretical woman to travel together. What would our bishops say to a parson who did such a thing? We had a lovely time on the river for three days, such moonlight nights, so soft and lovely; and we had a sailor who was as good as a professional singer, and who sang religious songs, which I observe excite people here far more than love songs. One which began ‘Remove my sins from before thy sight Oh God’ was really beautiful and touching, and I did not wonder at the tears which ran down Omar’s face. A very pretty profane song was ‘Keep the wind from me Oh Lord, I fear it will hurt me’ (wind means love, which is like the Simoom) ‘Alas! it has struck me and I am sick. Why do ye bring the physician? Oh physician put back thy medicine in the canister, for only he who has hurt can cure me.’ The masculine pronoun is always used instead of she in poetry out of decorum—sometimes even in conversation.