Last year Mariette Bey made excavations at Gourneh forcing the people to work but promising payment at the rate of—Well, when he was gone the four Sheykhs of the village at Gourneh came to Mustapha and begged him to advance the money due from Government, for the people were starving. Mustapha agrees and gives above 300 purses—about £1,000 in current piastres on the understanding that he is to get the money from Government in tariff—and to keep the difference as his profit. If he cannot get it at all the fellaheen are to pay him back without interest. Of course at the rate at which money is here, his profit would be but small interest on the money unless he could get the money directly, and he has now waited six months in vain.
Abdallah the son of el-Habbeshee of Damankoor went up the river in chains to Fazoghlou a fortnight ago and Osman Bey ditto last week—El-Bedrawee is dead there, of course.
Shall I tell you what became of the hundred prisoners who were sent away after the Gau business? As they marched through the desert the Greek memlook looked at his list each morning, and said, ‘Hoseyn, Achmet, Foolan (like the Spanish Don Fulano, Mr. so and so), you are free; take off his chains.’ Well, the three or four men drop behind, where some arnouts strangle them out of sight. This is banishment to Fazoghlou. Do you remember le citoyen est élargi of the September massacres of Paris? Curious coincidence, is it not? Everyone is exasperated—the very Hareem talk of the government. It is in the air. I had not been five minutes in Keneh before I knew all this and much more. Of the end of Hajjee Sultan I will not speak till I have absolute certainty, but, I believe the proceeding was as I have described—set free in the desert and murdered by the way. I wish you to publish these facts, it is no secret to any but to those Europeans whose interests keep their eyes tightly shut, and they will soon have them opened. The blind rapacity of the present ruler will make him astonish the Franks some day, I think.
Wheat is now 400 piastres the ardeb up here; the little loaf, not quite so big as our penny roll, costs a piastre—about three-half-pence—and all in proportion. I need not say what the misery is. Remember that this is the second levy of 220 men within six months, each for sixty days, as well as the second seizure of camels; besides the conscription, which serves the same purpose, as the soldiers work on the Pasha’s works. But in Cairo they are paid—and well paid.
It is curious how news travels here. The Luxor people knew the day I left Alexandria, and the day I left Cairo, long before I came. They say here that Abu-l-Hajjaj gave me his hand from Keneh, because he would not finish his moolid without me. I am supposed to be specially protected by him, as is proved by my health being so far better here than anywhere else.
By the bye, Sheykh Alee Abab’deh told me that all the villages close on the Nile escaped the cholera almost completely, whilst those who were half or a quarter of a mile inland were ravaged. At Keneh 250 a day died; at Luxor one child was supposed to have died of it, but I know he had diseased liver for a year or more. In the desert the Bishareen and Abab’deh suffered more than the people at Cairo, and you know the desert is usually the place of perfect health; but fresh Nile water seems to be the antidote. Sheykh Yussuf laid the mortality at Keneh to the canal water, which the poor people drink there. I believe the fact is as Sheykh Alee told me.
Now I will say good-bye, for I am tired, and will write anon to the rest. Let Mutter have this. I was very poorly till I got above Siout, and then gradually mended—constant blood spitting and great weakness and I am very thin, but, by the protection of Abu-l-Hajjaj I suppose I am already much better, and begin to eat again. I have not been out yet since the first day, having much to do in the house to get to rights. I felt very dreary on Christmas-day away from you all, and Omar’s plum-pudding did not cheer me at all, as he hoped it would. He begs me to kiss your hand for him, and every one sends you salaam, and all lament that you are not the new Consul at Cairo.
Kiss my chicks, and love to you all. Janet, I hope is in Egypt ere this.
January 3, 1866: Maurice Duff Gordon
To Maurice Duff Gordon.