Lady Lucie Duff Gordon

“ My old washerwoman sent me a fervent entreaty through Omar that I would dine with her one day, since I had made Cairo delightful with my presence. If one will only devour these people’s food, they are enchanted; they like that much better than a present. So I will honour her house some day. Good old Hannah, she is divorced for being too fat and old, and replaced by a young Turk whose family sponge on Hajjee Ali and are condescending. If I could afford it, I would have a sketch of a beloved old mosque of mine, falling to decay, and with three palm-trees growing in the middle of it. ”

“ How then should her husband ever desire the coffee-shop? Wallahy! she can always amuse him at home. And as to my lady, the thing is not that she does not know. When I feel my stomach tightened, I go to the divan and say to her, ‘Do you want anything, a pipe, or sherbet, or so and so?’ and I talk till she lays down her book and talks to me, and I question her and amuse my mind, and, by God! if I were a rich man and could marry one English Hareem like that I would stand before her and serve her like her memlook. ”

“ This country noblesse is more interesting to me by far than the town people, though Omar, who is quite a Cockney, and piques himself on being ‘delicate,’ turns up his nose at their beggarly pride, as Londoners used to do at bare-legged Highlanders. The air of perfect equality—except as to the respect due to the head of the clan—with which the villagers treated Mustapha, and which he fully returned, made it all seem so very gentlemanly. They are not so dazzled by a little show, and far more manly than the Cairenes. ”

“ Can you imagine a house without beds, chairs, tables, cups, glasses, knives—in short, with nothing but an oven, a few pipkins and water-jars, and a couple of wooden spoons, and some mats to sleep on? And yet people are happy and quite civilized who live so. An Arab cook, with his fingers and one cooking-pot, will serve you an excellent dinner quite miraculously. The simplification of life possible in such a climate is not conceivable unless one has seen it. The Turkish ladies whom I visit at Karnac have very little more. ”

“ My kitchen was a pretty scene. Mohammed, in his ample brown robes and white turban, lay asleep on the floor with the baby’s tiny pale face and little eyelids stained with kohl against his coffee-brown cheek, both fast asleep, baby in her father’s arms. Omar leant against the fournaise in his house-dress, a white shirt open at the throat and white drawers reaching to the knees, with the red tarboosh and red and yellow kufyeh (silk handkerchief) round it turban-wise, contemplating them with his great, soft eyes. The two young men made an excellent contrast between Upper and Lower Egypt. ”

“ He was a Turkish memlook and his condescension in wishing to serve a Christian woman is astounding. His fair face and clear blue eyes, and brisk, neat, soldier-like air contrast curiously with the brown fellaheen. He is like an Englishman only fairer and like them too fond of the courbash. What would you say if I appeared in Germany attended by a memlook with pistols, sword, dagger, carbine and courbash, and with a decided and imperious manner the very reverse of the Arab softness—and such a Muslim too—prays five times a day and extra fasts besides Ramadan. ”

“ Omar, the colour of new boxwood or old ivory, pale, with eyes like a cow, full lips, full chin and short nose, not the least negro, but perfectly Egyptian, the eyes wide apart—unlike the Arab—moustache like a woman’s eyebrow, curly brown hair, bad hands and feet and not well made, but graceful in movement and still more in countenance, very inferior in beauty to the pure Arab blood which prevails here, but most sweet in expression. ”

“ An acquaintance of mine, one Abdurachman, is Boaz, and as I sat with him on the threshing-floor and ate roasted corn, I felt quite puzzled as to whether I were really alive or only existing in imagination in the Book of Ruth. It is such a kief that one enjoys under the palm-trees, with such a scene. The harvest is magnificent here; I never saw such crops. There is no cattle disease, but a good deal of sickness among the people; I have to practise very extensively, and often feel very anxious, as I cannot refuse to go to the poor souls and give them medicine, with sore misgivings all the while. ”

“ No words can describe the departure of the holy Mahmal and the pilgrims for Mecca. I spent half the day loitering about in the Bedaween tents admiring the glorious, free people. To see a Bedaween and his wife walk through the streets of Cairo is superb. Her hand resting on his shoulder, and scarcely deigning to cover her haughty face, she looks down on the Egyptian veiled woman who carries the heavy burden and walks behind her lord and master.
By no deed of my own have I become a slave-owner. ”

“ They don’t give one the notion of human dwellings at all at first, but soon the eye gets used to the absence of all that constitutes a house in Europe, the impression of wretchedness wears off, and one sees how picturesque they are, with palm-trees and tall pigeon-houses, and here and there the dome over a saint’s tomb. The men at work on the river-banks are exactly the same colour as the Nile mud, with just the warmer hue of the blood circulating beneath the skin. ”

“ Yesterday we had the thermometer at 110; I was the only person awake all day in the boat. Omar, after cooking, lay panting at my feet on the deck. Arthur went fairly to bed in the cabin; ditto Sally. All the crew slept on the deck. Omar cooked amphibiously, bathing between every meal. The silence of noon with the white heat glowing on the river which flowed like liquid tin, and the silent Nubian rough boats floating down without a ripple, was magnificent and really awful. Not a breath of wind as we lay under the lofty bank. ”

“ I shall enlarge his backsheesh. There are a lot of camels who sleep in the yard under my verandah; they are pretty and smell nice, but they growl and swear at night abominably. I wish I could draw you an Egyptian farm-yard, men, women and cattle; but what no one can draw is the amber light, so brilliant and so soft, not like the Cape diamond sunshine at all, but equally beautiful, hotter and less dazzling. There is no glare in Egypt like in the South of France, and, I suppose, in Italy. ”

“ Hekekian had the honour of kissing his old slave’s hand. If anyone tries to make you believe any bosh about civilization in Egypt, laugh at it. The real life and the real people are exactly as described in the most veracious of books, the ‘Thousand and One Nights’; the tyranny is the same, the people are not altered—and very charming people they are. If I could but speak the language I could get into Arab society here through two or three different people, and see more than many Europeans who have lived here all their lives. ”

“ If thou wert a man, I would say to thee, take the labour and sorrow upon thee, and thine own heart will repay thee.’ He too said like the old Sheykh, ‘I only pray for Europeans to rule us—now the fellaheen are really worse off than any slaves.’ I am sick of telling of the daily oppressions and robberies. If a man has a sheep, the Moodir comes and eats it, if a tree, it goes to the Nazir’s kitchen. My poor sakka is beaten by the cawasses in sole payment of his skins of water—and then people wonder my poor friends tell lies and bury their money. ”

“ I have never heard a woman’s misconduct spoken of without a hundred excuses; perhaps her husband had slave girls, perhaps he was old or sick, or she didn’t like him, or she couldn’t help it. Violent love comes ‘by the visitation of God,’ as our juries say; the man or woman must satisfy it or die. A poor young fellow is now in the muristan (the madhouse) of Cairo owing to the beauty and sweet tongue of an English lady whose servant he was. How could he help it? God sent the calamity.
I often hear of Lady Ellenborough, who is married to the Sheykh-el-Arab of Palmyra, and lives at Damascus. ”

“ There is such a group all stitching away at the big new sail; Omar, the Reis, two or three volunteers, some old sailors of mine, and little Darfour. If I die I think you must have that tiny nigger over; he is such a merry little soul, I am sure you would love him, he is quite a civilized being and has a charming temper, and he seems very small to be left alone in the world. ”

“ The days of the beauty of Cairo are numbered. The mosques are falling to decay, the exquisite lattice windows rotting away and replaced by European glass and jalousies. Only the people and the Government remain unchanged. Read all the pretty paragraphs about civilisation here, and then say, Bosh!
If you know anyone coming here and wanting a good servant and dragoman, recommend my dear Omar Abou el-Haláweh of Alexandria. ”

“ Think too what splendid pay it must be that the boat-owner can give out of £25 a month to twelve men, after taking his own profits, the interest of money being enormous.
When I call my crew black, don’t think of negroes. They are elegantly-shaped Arabs and all gentlemen in manners, and the black is transparent, with amber reflets under it in the sunshine; a negro looks blue beside them. I have learned a great deal that is curious from Omar’s confidences, who tells me his family affairs and talks about the women of his family, which he would not to a man. ”

“ Where she saw no harm in an act, opinion had no greater effect on her than summer flies to one with a fan. The country people, sorely tried by the spectacle at first, remembered the gentle deeds and homely chat of an eccentric lady, and pardoned her, who was often to be seen discoursing familiarly with the tramp on the road, incapable of denying her house-door to the lost dog attached by some instinct to her heels. ”