Alick will tell you how curiously Omar illustrated the patriarchal feelings of the East by entirely dethroning me in favour of the ‘Master.’ ‘That our Master, we all eat bread from his hand, and he work for us.’ Omar and I were equal before our Seedee. He can sit at his ease at my feet, but when the Master comes in he must stand reverently, and gave me to understand that I too must be respectful.
I have got the boat of the American Mission at an outrageous price, £60, but I could get nothing under; the consolation is that the sailors profit, poor fellows, and get treble wages. My crew are all Nubians. Such a handsome reis and steersman—brothers—and there is a black boy, of fourteen or so, with legs and feet so sweetly beautiful as to be quite touching—at least I always feel those lovely round young innocent forms to be somehow affecting. Our old boat of last summer (Arthur Taylor’s) is sailing in company with us, and stately old reis Mubharak hails me every morning with the Blessing of God and the Peace of the Prophet. Alee Kuptan, my steamboat captain will announce our advent at Thebes; he passed us to-day. This boat is a fine sailer, but iron built and therefore noisy, and not convenient. The crew encourage her with ‘Get along, father of three,’ because she has three sails, whereas two is the usual number. They are active good-humoured fellows—my men—but lack the Arab courtesy and simpatico ways, and then I don’t understand their language which is pretty and sounds a little like Caffre, rather bird-like and sing-song, instead of the clattering guttural Arabic. I now speak pretty tolerably for a stranger, i.e. I can keep up a conversation, and understand all that is said to me much better than I can speak, and follow about half what people say to each other. When I see you, Inshallah, next summer I shall be a good scholar, I hope.
January 2, 1865: Mrs. Austin
To Mrs. Austin.
Luxor,
January 2, 1865.
Dearest Mutter,
I posted a letter for you at Girgeh, as we passed Siout with a good wind, I hope you will get it. My crew worked as I never saw men work, they were paid to get to Luxor, and for eighteen days they never rested or slept day or night, and all the time were merry and pleasant. It shows what power of endurance these ‘lazy Arabs’ have when there is good money at the end of a job, instead of the favourite panacea of ‘stick.’
We arrived at midnight and next morning my boat had the air of being pillaged. A crowd of laughing, chattering fellows ran off to the house laden with loose articles snatched up at random, loaves of sugar, pots and pans, books, cushions, all helter-skelter. I feared breakages, but all was housed safe and sound. The small boys of an age licensed to penetrate into the cabin, went off with the oddest cargoes of dressing things and the like—of backsheesh not one word. Alhamdulillah salaameh! ‘Thank God thou art in peace,’ and Ya Sitt, Ya Emeereh, till my head went round. Old Ismaeen fairly hugged me and little Achmet hung close to my side. I went up to Mustapha’s house while the unpacking took place and breakfasted there, and found letters from all of you, from you to darling Rainie, Sheykh Yussuf was charmed with her big writing and said he thought the news in that was the best of all.
The weather was intensely hot the first two days. Now it is heavenly, a fresh breeze and gorgeous sunshine. I brought two common Arab lanterns for the tomb of Abu-l-Hajjaj and his moolid is now going on. Omar took them and lighted them up and told me he found several people who called on the rest to say the Fathah for me. I was sitting out yesterday with the people on the sand looking at the men doing fantasia on horseback for the Sheykh, and a clever dragoman of the party was relating about the death of a young English girl whom he had served, and so de fil en aiguille we talked about the strangers buried here and how the bishop had extorted £100. I said, ‘Maleysh (never mind) the people have been hospitable to me alive and they will not cease if I die, but give me a tomb among the Arabs.’ One old man said, ‘May I not see thy day, oh Lady, and indeed thou shouldest be buried as a daughter of the Arabs, but we should fear the anger of thy Consul and thy family, but thou knowest that wherever thou art buried thou wilt assuredly lie in a Muslim grave.’ ‘How so?’ said I. ‘Why, when a bad Muslim dies the angels take him out of his tomb and put in one of the good from among the Christians in his place.’ This is the popular expression of the doctrine that the good are sure of salvation. Omar chimed in at once, ‘Certainly there is no doubt of it, and I know a story that happened in the days of Mahommed Ali Pasha which proves it.’ We demanded the story and Omar began. ‘There was once a very rich man of the Muslims so stingy that he grudged everybody even so much as a “bit of the paper inside the date” (Koran). When he was dying he said to his wife, “Go out and buy me a lump of pressed dates,” and when she had brought it he bade her leave him alone. Thereupon he took all his gold out of his sash and spread it before him, and rolled it up two or three pieces at a time in the dates, and swallowed it piece after piece until only three were left, when his wife came in and saw what he was doing and snatched them from his hand. Presently after he fell back and died and was carried out to the burial place and laid in his tomb. When the Kadee’s men came to put the seal on his property and found no money they said, “Oh woman, how is this? we know thy husband was a rich man and behold we find no money for his children and slaves or for thee.” So the woman told what had happened, and the Kadee sent for three other of the Ulema, and they decided that after three days she should go herself to her husband’s tomb and open it, and take the money from his stomach; meanwhile a guard was put over the tomb to keep away robbers. After three days therefore the woman went, and the men opened the tomb and said, “Go in O woman and take thy money.” So the woman went down into the tomb alone. When there, instead of her husband’s body she saw a box (coffin) of the boxes of the Christians, and when she opened it she saw the body of a young girl, adorned with many ornaments of gold necklaces, and bracelets, and a diamond Kurs on her head, and over all a veil of black muslin embroidered with gold. So the woman said within herself, “Behold I came for money and here it is, I will take it and conceal this business for fear of the Kadee.” So she wrapped the whole in her melayeh (a blue checked cotton sheet worn as a cloak) and came out, and the men said “Hast thou done thy business?”’ and she answered “Yes” and returned home.
‘In a few days she gave the veil she had taken from the dead girl to a broker to sell for her in the bazaar, and the broker went and showed it to the people and was offered one hundred piastres. Now there sat in one of the shops of the merchants a great Ma-allim (Coptic clerk) belonging to the Pasha, and he saw the veil and said, “How much asketh thou?” and the broker said “Oh thine honour the clerk whatever thou wilt.” “Take from me then five hundred piastres and bring the person that gave thee the veil to receive the money.” So the broker fetched the woman and the Copt, who was a great man, called the police and said, “Take this woman and fetch my ass and we will go before the Pasha,” and he rode in haste to the palace weeping and beating his breast, and went before the Pasha and said, “Behold this veil was buried a few days ago with my daughter who died unmarried, and I had none but her and I loved her like my eyes and would not take from her her ornaments, and this veil she worked herself and was very fond of it, and she was young and beautiful and just of the age to be married; and behold the Muslims go and rob the tombs of the Christians and if thou wilt suffer this we Christians will leave Egypt and go and live in some other country, O Effendina, for we cannot endure this abomination.”