My boat has not yet made its appearance. I am very well indeed now, in spite, or perhaps because of, the great heat. But there is a great deal of sickness—chiefly dysentery. I never get less than four new patients a day and my ‘practice’ has become quite a serious business. I spent all day on Friday in the Abab’deh quarters where Sheykh Hassan and his slave Rahmeh were both uncommonly ill. Both are ‘all right’ now. Rahmeh is the nicest negro I ever knew, and a very great friend of mine. He is a most excellent, honest, sincere man, and an Effendi (i.e. writes and reads) which is more than his master can do. He has seen all the queer people in the interior of Africa.
The Sheykh of the Bishareen—eight days’ journey from Assouan has invited me and promises me all the meat and milk I can eat, they have nothing else. They live on a high mountain and are very fine handsome people. If only I were strong I could go to very odd places where Frangees are not. Read a very stupid novel (as a story) called ‘le Secret du Bonheur’—it gives the truest impression of the manners of Arabs that I have read—by Ernest Feydeau. According to his book achouat (we are brothers). The ‘caressant’ ways of Arabs are so well described.
It is the same here. The people come and pat and stroke me with their hands, and one corner of my brown abbaieh is faded with much kissing. I am hailed as Sitt Betaana ‘Our own Lady,’ and now the people are really enthusiastic because I refused the offer of some cawasses as a guard which a Bimbashee made me. As if I would have such fellows to help to bully my friends. The said Bimbashee (next in rank to a Bey) a coarse man like an Arnoout, stopped here a day and night and played his little Turkish game, telling me to beware—for the Ulema hated all Franks and set the people against us—and telling the Arabs that Christian Hakeems were all given to poison Muslims. So at night I dropped in at the Maōhn’s with Sheykh Yussuf carrying my lantern—and was loudly hailed with a Salaam Aleykee from the old Shereef himself—who began praising the Gospel I had given him, and me at the same time. Yussuf had a little reed in his hand—the kalem for writing, about two feet long and of the size of a quill. I took it and showed it to the Bimbashee and said—‘Behold the neboot wherewith we are all to be murdered by this Sheykh of the Religion.’ The Bimbashee’s bristly moustache bristled savagely, for he felt that the ‘Arab dogs’ and the Christian khanzeereh (feminine pig) were laughing at it together.
Another steam boat load of prisoners from Gau has just gone up. A little comfort is derived here from the news that, ‘Praise be to God, Moussa Pasha (Governor of the Soudan) is dead and gone to Hell.’ It must take no trifle to send him there judging by the quiet way in which Fadil Pasha is mentioned.
You will think me a complete rebel—but I may say to you what most people would think ‘like my nonsense’—that one’s pity becomes a perfect passion, when one sits among the people—as I do, and sees it all; least of all can I forgive those among Europeans and Christians who can help to ‘break these bruised reeds.’ However, in Cairo and more still in Alexandria, all is quite different. There, the same system which has been so successfully copied in France prevails. The capital is petted at the expense of the fellaheen. Prices are regulated in Cairo for meat and bread as they are or were in Paris, and the ‘dangerous classes’ enjoy all sorts of exemptions. Just like France! The Cairenes eat the bread and the fellaheen eat the stick.
The people here used to dislike Mounier who arrived poor and grew rich and powerful, but they all bless him now and say at El-Moutaneh a man eats his own meat and not the courbash of the Moudir—and Mounier has refused soldiers (as I refused them on my small account) and ‘Please God,’ he will never repent it. Yussuf says ‘What the Turkish Government fears is not for your safety, but lest we should learn to love you too well,’ and it is true. Here there is but one voice. ‘Let the Franks come, let us have the laws of the Christians.’
In Cairo the Franks have dispelled this douce illusion and done the Turk’s work as if they were paid for it. But here come only travellers who pay with money and not with stick—a degree of generosity not enough to be adored.
I perceive that I am a bore—but you will forgive my indignant sympathy with the kind people who treat me so well. Yussuf asked me to let the English papers know about the Gau business. An Alim ed Deen ul-Islam would fain call for help to the Times! Strange changes and signs of the times—these—are they not so?
I went to Church on Good Friday with the Copts. The scene was very striking—the priest dressed like a beautiful Crusader in white robes with crimson crosses. One thing has my hearty admiration. The few children who are taken to Church are allowed to play! Oh my poor little Protestant fellow Christians, can you conceive a religion so delightful as that which permits Peep-bo behind the curtain of the sanctuary! I saw little Butrus and Scendariah at it all church time—and the priest only patted their little heads as he carried the sacrament out to the Hareem. Fancy the parson kindly patting a noisy boy’s head, instead of the beadle whacking him! I am entirely reconciled to the Coptic rules.