There is no greater mistake than to suppose that Eastern ladies are prisoners in the harem, and that they are to be pitied for the want of liberty which the jealousy of their husbands condemns them to. The Christian ladies live from choice and habit in the same way as the Mahomedan women: and, indeed, the Egyptian fair ones have more facilities to do as they choose, to go where they like, and to carry on any intrigue than the Europeans; for their complete disguise carries them safely everywhere. No one knows whether any lady he may meet in the bazaar is his wife, his daughter, or his grandmother: and I have several times been addressed by Turkish and Egyptian ladies in the open street, and asked all sorts of questions in a way that could not be done in any European country. The harem, it is true, is by law inviolable: no one but the Sultan can enter it unannounced, and if a pair of strange slippers are seen left at the outer door, the master of the house cannot enter his own harem so long as this proof of the presence of a visitor remains. If the husband is a bore, an extra pair of slippers will at all times keep him out; and the ladies inside may enjoy themselves without the slightest fear of interruption. It is asserted also that gentlemen, who are not too tall, have gone into all sorts of places under the protection of a lady's veil, so completely does it conceal the person. But this is not the case with the Levantine or Christian ladies: although they live in a harem, like the Mahomedans, it is not protected in the same way: the slippers have not the same effect; for the men of the family go in and out whenever they please; and relations and visitors of the male sex are received in the apartments of the ladies.
On one occasion I accompanied an English traveller, who had many acquaintances at Cairo, to the house of a Levantine in the vicinity of the Coptic quarter. Whilst we were engaged in conversation with an old lady the curtain over the doorway was drawn aside, and there entered the most lovely apparition that can be conceived, in the person of a young lady about sixteen years old, the daughter of the lady of the house. She had a beautifully fair complexion, very uncommon in this country, remarkably long hair, which hung down her back, and her dress, which was all of the same rich material, rose-coloured silk, shot with gold, became her so well, that I have rarely seen so graceful and striking a figure. She was closely followed by two black girls, both dressed in light-blue satin, embroidered with silver; they formed an excellent contrast to their charming mistress, and were very good-looking in their way, with their slight and graceful figures. The young Levantine came and sat by me on the divan, and was much amused at my blundering attempts at conversation in Arabic, of which I then knew scarcely a dozen words. I must confess that I was rather vexed with her for smoking a long jessamine pipe, which, however, most Eastern ladies do. She got up to wait upon us, and handed us the coffee, pipes, and sherbet, which are always presented to visitors in every house. This custom of being waited upon by the ladies is rather distressing to our European notions of devotion to the fair sex: and I remember being horrified shortly after my arrival in Egypt at the manners of a rich old jeweller to whom I was introduced. His wife, a beautiful woman, superbly dressed in brocade, with gold and diamond ornaments, waited upon us during the whole time that I remained in the house. She was the first Eastern lady I had seen, and I remember being much edified at the way she pattered about on a pair of lofty cobcobs, and the artful way in which she got her feet out of them whenever she came up towards where we sat on the divan, at the upper end of the apartment. She stood at the lower end of the room; and whenever the old brute of a jeweller wanted to return anything, some coins which he was showing me, or anything else, he threw them on the floor; and his beautiful wife jumping out of her cobcobs picked them up; and when she had handed them to some of the maids who stood at the door, resumed her station below the step at the further end of the room. She had magnificent eyes and luxuriant black hair, as they all have, and would have been considered a beauty in any country; but she was not to be compared to the bright little damsel in pink, who, besides her beauty, was as cheerful and merry as a bird, and whose lovely features were radiant with archness and intelligence. Many of the Abyssinian slaves are exceedingly handsome: they have very expressive countenances, and the finest eyes in the world, and, withal, so soft and humble a look, that I do not wonder at their being great favourites in Egyptian harems. Many of them, however, have a temper of their own, which comes out occasionally, and in this respect the Arab women are not much behind them. But the fiery passions of this burning climate pass away like a thunderstorm, and leave the sky as clear and serene as it was before.
The Arab girls of the lower orders are often very pretty from the age of about twelve to twenty, but they soon go off; and the astounding ugliness of some of the old women is too terrible to describe. In Europe we have nothing half so hideous as these brown old women, and this is the more remarkable, because the old men are peculiarly handsome and venerable in their appearance, and often display a dignity of bearing which is seldom to be met with in Europe. The stately gravity of an Arab sheick, seated on the ground in the shade of a tree, with his sons and grandsons standing before him, waiting for his commands, is singularly imposing.
CHAPTER VI.
Mohammed Bey, Defterdar—His Expedition to Senaar—His Barbarity and Rapacity—His Defiance of the Pasha—Stories of his Cruelty and Tyranny—The Horse-shoe—The Fight of the Mamelukes—His cruel Treachery—His Mode of administering Justice—The stolen Milk—The Widow's Cow—Sale and Distribution of the Thief—The Turkish Character—Pleasures of a Journey on the Nile—The Copts—Their Patriarchs—The Patriarch of Abyssinia—Basileos Bey—His Boat—An American's choice of a Sleeping-place.
Just before my arrival in Cairo a certain Mohammed Bey, Defterdar, had died rather suddenly, after drinking a cup of coffee, a beverage which occasionally disagrees with the great men in Turkey, although not so much so now as in former days. This Defterdar, or accountant, had been sent by the Sultan to receive the Imperial revenue from the Pasha of Egypt, who had given him his daughter in marriage. As the presence of the Defterdar was probably a check upon the projects of the Pasha, he sent him to Senaar, at the head of an expedition, to revenge the death of Toussoun Pasha, his second son, who had been burned alive in his house by one of the exasperated chiefs of Nubia. This was a mission after Mohammed Bey's own heart: he impaled the chief and several of his family, and displayed a rapacity and cruelty unheard of before even in those blood-stained countries. His talent for collecting spoil, and valuables of every description, was first-rate; chests and bags of the pure gold rings used in the traffic of Central Africa accumulated in his tents; he did not stick at a trifle in his measures for procuring gold, pearls, and diamonds, wherever they were to be heard of; streams of blood accompanied his march, and the vultures followed in his track. He was a sportsman too, and hunted slaves, killing the old ones, and carrying off the children, whom he sent to Egypt to be sold. Many died on the journey; but that did not much matter, as it increased the value of the rest.
At last, alter a most successful campaign, the Defterdar returned to his palace at Cairo, which was reported to be filled with treasure. The habits he had acquired in the upper country stuck to him after he got back to Egypt, and the Pasha was obliged to express his disapprobation of the cruelties which were committed by him on the most trivial occasions. The Defterdar, however, set the Pasha at defiance, told him he was no subject of his, but that he was an envoy from his master the Sultan, to whom alone he was responsible, and that he would do as he pleased with those under his command. The Pasha, it is said, made no further remonstrance, and continued to treat his son-in-law with distinguished courtesy.
Numerous stories are told of the cruelty and tyranny of this man. One day, on his way to the citadel, he found that his horse had cast a shoe. He inquired of his groom, who in Egypt runs by the side of the horse, how it was that his horse had lost his shoe. The groom said he did not know, but that he supposed it had not been well nailed on. Presently they came to a farrier's shop; the Defterdar stopped, and ordered two horseshoes to be brought; one was put upon the horse, and the other he made red hot, and commanded them to nail it firmly to the foot of the groom, whom in that condition he compelled to run by his horse's side up the steep hill which leads to the citadel.
In Turkey it was the custom in the houses of the great to have a number of young men, who in Egypt were called Mamelukes, after that gallant corps had been destroyed. A number of the Mamelukes of Mohammed Bey, Defterdar, driven to desperation by the cruelties of their master, beat or killed one of the superior agas of the household, took some money which they found in his possession, and determined to escape from the service of their tyrant. His guards and kawasses soon found them out, and they retired to a strong tower, which they determined to defend, preferring the remotest chance of successful resistance to the terrors of service under the ferocious Defterdar. The Bey, however, managed to cajole them with promises, and they returned to his palace, expecting to be better treated. They found the Bey seated on his divan in the Manderan or hall of audience, surrounded by the officers and kawasses whom interest had attached to his service. The young Mamelukes had given up the money which they had taken, and the Bey had it on the divan by his side. He now told them that if they would divide themselves into two parties and fight against each other, he would pardon the victorious party, present them with the bag of gold, and permit them to depart; but that if they did not agree to this proposal he would kill them all. The Mamelukes, finding they were entrapped, consented to the conditions of the Bey, and half their number were soon weltering in their blood on the floor of the hall. When the conquerors claimed the promised reward, the Defterdar, who had now far superior numbers on his side, again commanded them to divide and fight against each other. Again they fought in despair, preferring death by their own swords to the tortures which they knew the merciless Defterdar would inflict upon them now that he had got them completely in his power. At length only one Mameluke remained, whom the Bey, with kind and encouraging words, ordered to approach, commending his valour and holding out to him the promised bag of gold as his reward. As he approached, stepping over the bodies of his companions, who all lay dead or dying on the floor, and held out his hands for the money, the Defterdar, with a grim smile, made a sign to one of his kawasses, and the head of the young man rolled at the tyrant's feet "Thus," said he, "shall perish all who dare to offend Mohammed Bey."