October 23.—Yesterday I met a Saedee—a friend of the brother of the Sheykh of the wild Abab’deh, and as we stood handshaking and kissing our fingers in the road, some of the Anglo-Indian travellers passed and gazed with fierce disgust; the handsome Hassan, being black, was such a flagrant case of a ‘native.’ Mutter dear, it is heart-breaking to see what we are sending to India now. The mail days are dreaded, we never know when some outrage may not excite ‘Mussulman fanaticism.’ The English tradesmen here complain as much as anyone, and I, who as the Kadee of Luxor said am ‘not outside the family’ (of Ishmael, I presume), hear what the Arabs really think. There are also crowds ‘like lice’ as one Mohammed said, of low Italians, French, etc., and I find my stalwart Hassan’s broad shoulders no superfluous porte-respect in the Frangee quarter. Three times I have been followed and insolently stared at (à mon age)!! and once Hassan had to speak. Fancy how dreadful to Muslims! I hate the sight of a hat here now.
I can’t write more now my eyes are weak still. Omar begs me to give you his best salaam and say, Inshallah, he will take great care of your daughter, which he most zealously and tenderly does.
December 23, 1864: Mrs. Austin
To Mrs. Austin.
On the Nile,
Friday, December 23, 1864.
Dearest Mutter,
Here I am again between Benisouef and Minieh, and already better for the clear air of the river and the tranquil boat life; I will send you my Christmas Salaam from Siout. While Alick was with me I had as much to do as I was able and could not write for there was much to see and talk about. I think he was amused but I fear he felt the Eastern life to be very poor and comfortless. I have got so used to having nothing that I had quite forgotten how it would seem to a stranger.
I am quite sorry to find how many of my letters must have been lost from Luxor; in future I shall trust the Arab post which certainly is safer than English travellers. I send you my long plaits by Alick, for I had my hair cut short as it took to falling out by handfuls after my fever, and moreover it is more convenient Turkish hareem fashion.
Please tell Dean Stanley how his old dragoman Mahommed Gazawee cried with pleasure when he told me he had seen Sheykh Stanley’s sister on her way to India, and the ‘little ladies’ knew his name and shook hands with him, which evidently was worth far more than the backsheesh. I wondered who ‘Sheykh’ Stanley could be, and Mahommed (who is a darweesh and very pious) told me he was the Gassis (priest) who was Imám (spiritual guide) to the son of our Queen, ‘and in truth,’ said he, ‘he is really a Sheykh and one who teaches the excellent things of religion, why he was kind even to his horse! and it is of the mercies of God to the English that such a one is the Imám of your Queen and Prince.’ I said laughing, ‘How dost thou, a darweesh among Muslims, talk thus of a Nazarene priest?’ ‘Truly oh Lady,’ he answered, ‘one who loveth all the creatures of God, him God loveth also, there is no doubt of that.’ Is any one bigot enough to deny that Stanley has done more for real religion in the mind of that Muslim darweesh than if he had baptised a hundred savages out of one fanatical faith into another?
There is no hope of a good understanding with Orientals until Western Christians can bring themselves to recognise the common faith contained in the two religions, the real difference consists in all the class of notions and feelings (very important ones, no doubt) which we derive—not from the Gospels at all—but from Greece and Rome, and which of course are altogether wanting here.