Letters from Egypt to plain folks at home

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LETTERS FROM EGYPT

TO

Plain Folks at Home.

-61.

BY

MARY L. WHATELY,

Author of ''Ragged Life in Egypt" " Among the Huts" etc.

WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS,

SEE LEY, JACKSON, &* HALLIDAY, FLEET STREET,

LONDON, MDCCCLXXIX,

\All Rights Reserved.^

^d. A . KA

Hasell, Watson, and Viney, Prinkers, London and Aylesbary.

CONTENTS.

LUTTIS

I. Introductory . . .

VLQM

1

11. A Little about Old Egyptlaji

re . 10

III. The River

. 21

IV. The Gardens of Egypt

. 34

V. The People . . .

. 56

VI. The People — contintced

. 70

VII. What they Eat

. 79

VIII. Superstitions .

. 89

IX. Slavery as it is in Egypt

. 107

X. The Village .

. 134

XL Town Life

. 166

XII. The House of Mirth .

. 180

XIIL The House of Mourning

. 205

X IV. Nile Trips . . ,

. 222

XV. About the School

. 240

XVI. Conclusion . .

. 258

I

1

LETTERS FROM EGYPT

TO PLAIN FOLKS AT HOME.

LETTER I.

introductory.

My good Friends, —

By God*s providence I have been led to settle
in this distant land, and can but seldom visit Eng-
land ; however, I do not forget friends there, and
often think, not only of those I know personally,
but also of the poor, for whom I always have felt
great interest, particularly the old people and the
children. One day it came to my mind that I might
do some little good to old folks at home — and per-
haps to the young, too — in spite of being so far off,
and having a large school to look after, and several
other things ; and this was my idea: — that I would
write some simple familiar accounts of the land

1

2 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

of Egypt where I dwell, which might be nsefnl
and pleasant to some whose pleasm^es are but few,
and which might lead such as are praying Chris-
tians (and I believe there are many such to be
found in bumble abodes) to join with me in ask-
ing the Lord to let the Gospel light shine into
this land where there is so much of ignorance
and darkness and false belief. These letters would
then be like the links of a chain between the dark
Egyptian labouring among the sugar canes on the
banks of the river Nile, and the praying English
cottager over the seal

There are indeed so many books about Egypt
already, that some may think another was not
wanted, but most of the learned and historical
books would not suit any one who had not received
an advanced education, and many are very diffi-
cult to understand even for those who have had
this; the others are chiefly written by travellers,
and are in language too fine for simple persons,
besides which, being written in general by those
who were ignorant of the language of the country,
and who had only stayed a short time there,
they are apt to be full of mistakes and incorrect
notions.

I have lived a great many years here, and my

INTRODUCTORY.

business has been among the people, especially the
poor, and the children. I began to study the
language as soon as I arrived, and am accustomed
to converse in it with different classes of the peo-
ple, and also to visit them and receive them in
my turn, so that I can tell you a good deal about
their ways and habits.

But before we begin to speak about the Egyp-
tians of the present day we must first understand
something about the country itself, and its former
inhabitants.

All who study their Bibles know that Egypt is
there spoken of very frequently ; indeed, except
Canaan, the promised land, no other place is so
frequently alluded to in Scripture. The first time
we hear of it is in the twelfth chapter of Genesis,
where we find Abraham going to sojourn in Egypt
on account of the famine in Canaan, and afterwards
we have the history of Joseph's captivity, leading
to the settling of his family there and the sufferings
of the children of Israel under Pharaoh. There are
very ancient histories and records of the Egyptians,
many of which are of peculiar interest as confirming
the Scripture accounts ; not that the word of God
needs the histories of uninspired man to prove its
truth, but that it is very curious and beautiful to

4 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

see that the more learned men search into the re-
cords of the past, the more clearly do the accomits
given in the Bible stand out. To give one instance out
of many, some very old writings on stone were dis-
covered in the ancient Egyptian characters (or pic-
ture letters), and when the meaning was after much
trouble made out, they found it alluded to the great
famine, when people from all countries came to buy
corn in Egypt.* The old Egyptians were idolaters,
and though in many things they were a very clever
people, they were foolish as well as wicked in this,
and made idols of every possible material ; some of
stone so large that they seemed to represent giants
of the most enormous size; others so small that
they could be carried in the pocket or round the
neck, and these were often carved out of agates or
cornelians and other rare polished stones ; others
again were made of a curious sort of blue pottery,
others of copper ; they are still found in the sand
in the places where the ancient people of the land
used to bring their dead and have their idolatrous
temples. They also worshipped many animals ;
monkeys, cats, beetles, were all revered, but the
bull was considered especially sacred, because they
fancied one of their chief gods had taken the form of

* See Genesis xlii.

INTRODUCTORY. 5

a bull, and they kept many of these creatures in
sacred enclosures, gave them divine honours, and
actually buried them in coffins of polished marble,
having first embalmed their bodies, — which means
to wrap them up in linen with quantities of
spices, and then bake by very slow heat in
ovens. I have seen these marble coffins, and
have often picked up the whitened bones of the
sacred bulls in the sand in a place where once
a great city and splendid temples are believed to
have stood.

The golden calf made by Aaron to please the
children of Israel was no doubt made in imitation
of the Egyptians among whom the people had
lived so long, and of their sacred bulls : the in-
spired Psalmist, in holy anger at the profane and
wicked action, says, " So they turned their glory
into the similitude of an ox which eateth hay."

It is sad to think of a people so learned and
clever in many respects, being so darkened in
mind as to religion ; for in the arts of life they
were far more advanced than the nations of Europe,
who at that early time were mostly quite barbarous
and savage in their customs, and ignorant of much
that was quite familiar to the Egyptians. While
our own ancestors were living in wretched huts

6 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

built of reeds, with neither books nor public
buildings, and scantily clad in the skins of beasts,
the Egyptians had built long before stately palaces
for their kings, and temples for their idols, of solid
stone, so strong that, after so many hundreds of
years, a great part stUl remain ; and though in
ruins, some of the great pillars are quite perfect.
They carved inscriptions on the walls of these
buildings, and on pillars of granite or marble, and
on the images of their gods. Their writing was
very curious, consisting not of letters as with us,
but of signs like small pictures, each sign express-
ing a word. Some of these signs were remarkably
ingenious, and showed much thought and wisdom.
For instance, an eye was used as a sign of the
all-seeing power of God; for it seems they had
some little idea of a Supreme Power, although a
very indistinct and imperfect idea. But as I have
already said, they worshipped various living crea-
tures, as well as the idols they made with their
own hands. Their priests and learned men are
believed to have first taught that the Divine Spirit
entered into certain animals, and that others were
emblems or signs of the Divine Power ; and by
degrees the emblems came to be looked on as
real deities of an inferior order, and thus received

INTRODUCTORY. 7

worship. Those Christian Churches that teach men
to pay worship and honour to angels and saints,
and to bow before images of them, or of our Lord
Himself, are falling into the same kind of sin as
the ancient Egyptians ; it is true that a holy man
or woman who lived long ago is very different
from a calf or a beetle, but the difference is in
the degree^ not in the kind of sin. God has told
us in plain words not to bow down before anything
or any person in heaven above or earth beneath,
so that if we disobey in this matter we are breaking
the commands of our Creator as truly as the old
Egyptian.

But the bull was not the only animal which
was honoured by tombs and special burying-places,
though none was so highly thought of and re-
vered. I once visited an ancient burial-place for
sacred cats, and actually saw in the pit many
bundles of linen brown with age, which contained
the bones of the dead pussies ! These when ex-
posed to the open air were apt to crumble and
turn into dust, but when first found were in
good preservation, the pit or cave being in dry
sand, and the air of the country very dry and pure.

Human beiogs were buried in the same way,
rolled up in linen with spices, and then exposed

8 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

to heat, after which they were packed in cases of
wood and stone.

The people seem to have tried in this way to
keep their dead from the decay which is the lot
of all flesh, not knowing that One alone who tasted
of death yet saw no corruption, because that holy
One alone was without sin.

Thousands of yards of the linen for which Egypt
was famous, were wasted in thus wrapping dead
men and dead animals. I saw an ancient tomb
which had been recently opened more than twenty
years ago ; and lying among the sand and rubbish
that had been thrown out, I found a small earthen
jar without any opening to it.* On breaking this
it was found to contain one of the sacred birds
of the Egyptians called an Ibis (as I was told
by a learned man who was of the party visiting
the tomb). I unfolded at least two yards of half-
burnt linen (for it had been baked according to
their custom), and found within, the crumbling
bones of the bird, his long beak being quite
perfect, — a memorial of the folly of man in thus

* It seems the custom was to make the jar after the
embalmed creature was ready, and then to bake all, other-
wise it would not have got in, as no sort of opening was
to be found.

INTRODUCTORY. 9

wasting time and labour, and yet more their
sin, in worshipping the creature more than the
Creator.

In my next letter you will have a little more
on the early history of Egypt, and some account
of its climate and productions.

10

LETTER 11.

A LITTLE ABOUT OLD EGYPTIANS.

In the Book of Exodus we read that after Joseph's
death, and that of the generation following, there
arose a " neifo king, who knew not Joseph." Now
it is plain that this must have been a king from a
distance, and not a son or nephew of the Pharaoh
who was Joseph's friend, as such would not have
been ignorant of the history of that remarkable
person who was second only to the monarch himself,
and who had saved Egypt in the great famine. The

early histories of Egypt show that there were several
changes of what is called the " dynasties " or royal
families of Egypt, one king being overcome and
driven out by another from a distant province, or
from even a different country, and sometimes the old
race or dynasty returning again.

But it is not easy even for the most learned, men
who have searched carefully into the records of those
ancient times to be sure of the dates or exact periods

A LITTLE ABOUT OLD EGYPTIANS. 11

at which the events spoken of took place. We
must recollect that there was no printing and no
paper then, so that the records and histories were
written either on stone or on skins carefully pre-
pared, or upon the leaves of a certain reed which
was used in Egypt for writing on. Only portions
of their ancient writings have come down to us, a
great deal having been lost or destroyed in the
course of time : so it is only by putting a bit from
one and a bit from another together, that learned
men can find out what happened and was recorded.
However, one thing is quite clear, even to unlearned
people, and that is, that the Pharaoh spoken of in
Exodus was of a different family and race from the
Pharaoh whose dream Joseph interpreted ; the name
of Pharaoh was given to all the kings of the country
just as afterwards Caesar was to all the emperors
of Rome. But though Pharaoh himself knew not
Joseph, it is impossible that the people should not
have known something of the true God from the
descendants of Joseph and his brethren ; and there-
fore they were as sinful as he was in oppressing the
Israelites, and shared in the punishments sent by
God in the time of Moses.

After the chosen people had left Egypt, and the
wicked king and his army had been destroyed in

12 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

the Red Sea, the nation still remained idolaters,
though they had seen the power of the Creator and
the uselessness of their own false gods, — ^yet so
perverse is man's heart. " For the customs of the
people are vain," saith the prophet (Jer. x. 3). We
may hope, indeed, that some at least did learn to
forsake their idols ; but, as a nation, we know they
remained the same. Different foreign powers came
one after another to fight in Egypt, and to obtain
that fertile land for their own rulers ; the Assyrians,
as foretold in Scripture, for a time ruled over the
people: you will see this invasion alluded to in
Jeremiah xlvi., as well as in other places. Later,
the Greeks, under the famous Alexander the Great,
took Egypt ; Alexandria, on the sea coast, was
founded by this monarch ; and he left the country
to Ptolemy, one of his four successors. The family
of Ptolemy reigned for a considerable period over
Egypt ; and such numbers of Greeks settled in the
chief towns that the Greek language seems to have
been learned by many of the educated among the
people, and the language of the country was written
in letters imitated from the old Greek characters, so
that the hieroglyphic or picture characters went out
of use.

After the rule of the Greek came the Iron power

A LITTLE ABOUT OLD EGYPTIANS. 13

— the Eoman, which had nearly all the known parts
of the world at one time under its strong hand.
The Jews and Egyptians were alike under Roman
rule when our blessed Lord was born and when the
cruelty of the tributary King Herod (who governed
subject to the Romans) caused the young Child and
His mother to be sent by Divine command into
Egypt for a season. They still show a tree — a
great sycamore fig, under which I have sat many
a time — which the tradition says Jesus and His
mother and Joseph rested under on their first
arrival.

We cannot tell whether it be true or not, but it
is possible. However, the people have learned to
think so much more of the mother of Jesus than
of Himself, that it is always called the Virgin's tree,
and they seem to have no idea that the interest
belonging to it, if the tradition be true, ought to
be that the Saviour of mankind rested there in His
infancy ; whereas I never heard His name in connec-
tion with it, and even the Mahometan gardeners will
often tell strangers, as they have heard from so-called
Christians, that this is " Mary's tree " I After the
death and resurrection of our Lord, the Gospel was
brought into Egypt, it is said, by the Evangelist
Mark, but of this there is no actual proof, although

14 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

it appears to be probable. ApoUos, whose name is
mentioned in the Epistles and Acts of the Apostles,
was, as you know, a Jew of Alexandria : there was
quite a Jewish colony in that city, and they had
adopted the Greek language (not the Egyptian,
which seems strange, but Alexandria was then, as
it is now indeed, full of a mixed multitude, and
having been long the capital under the Greek rule,
that tongue had greatly prevailed), the Old Testa-
ment had been translated by learned Jews into
Greek from the original Hebrew; and at the
time when Christianity began to spread in Egypt,
Alexandria was a sort of centre for education, as
there were many learned men there of different
nations, but especially Jews and Greeks ; and many
books were found there both in Greek and in the
Egyptian written language, which was called the
Coptic. Many copies of the Scripture were written
in this. When I say " many," however, you must
remember it is only compared with the utter poverty
of nations who had no books, or hardly any ; but
when printing and paper do not exist, books must
of necessity always be expensive and few. As time
passed, the Egyptian Church became corrupted, just
as was the case with the Greek and Roman Church,
and as always mil be the case when the study of

A LITTLE ABOUT OLD EGYPTIANS. 15

the Scripture is neglected, and when ceremonies
and outward forms are made of too much con-
sequence. The ceremony — the procession, the
chanting, the dress of the minister, and the way
in which the service of God is arranged outwardly^
— being more thought of than prayer for the Holy
Spirit and constant dependence on Christ and
close attention to the Word of God, gradually
takes the highest place in men's hearts, instead
of being considered as comparatively of very little
consequence. Besides this, in all the Christian
Churches of the time I speak of, which is called
by historians the " Middle Ages," there was a great
inclination to adopt many old heathen festivals and
customs, with a certain alteration, which was sup-
posed to make them Christian ; from these causes
and from others which I do not wish to talk of
here, the Egyptian Christians had lost much of
their simple faith, and though there were no doubt
some believers among them, I fear there were but
few, and that very many had almost lost sight of
Christ in the multitude of saints they revered and
the vain ceremonies in which their religion con-
sisted.

Their clergy had become fonder of disputing
about words than of teaching the ignorant, and

16 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

often too much given to luxury and grandeur.
At this period (about 600 years after Christ) new
religion had begun to make a stir in the world.
In Arabia, which you know is divided from Africa
by the Red Sea, the famous Mohammed had arisen,
and his followers were fast spreading in the East,
and getting more and more powerful.

This man was originally only a camel-driver, but
was very clever ; and having, when on a journey
into Syria (as Palestine had now got to be called),
learned something of the Christian religion, and
something also of the Jewish, from Jews resident
in Arabia, he made a book, with the help of some
friends, which was compounded of passages taken
from the Old Testament, and some little from the
New also — rather in the form of allusions than
of actual quotations ; and to these were added a
great many maxims and directions of his own.
He began with a great truth — that Grod is one
God; for he wished to overthrow the idolatry of
Arabia, and so far was right; but the addition
that he was himself the prophet and apostle of
God was an assertion without grounds, as you of ^
course know. The only proof that God has sent
a man to make himself inspired head and leader
must be miracles ; mere teachers and preachers of

A LITTLE ABOUT OLD KGYPTLANS. 17

the already-written and revealed word do not need
miracnlons aid, for they appeal to God's word,
which is thoroughly authenticated and proved by
thousands of evidences to any one who fairly
examines it. But any one who claims to be the
medium of a new revelation is in a diOFerent posi-
tion from a teacher of revealed truth, and should
have miraculous powers to prove what he asserts.
The Arabian prophet spoke of visions and wonders
he had seen, but no witness was ever brought to
prove that he had any divinely miraculous power
at all. But the Scripture says, " If one shall come
in his own name, him ye will receive;" and so
it was.

We need not wonder at the great success that
after a time followed, for not only were the maxims
and regulations arranged so as to suit specially the
nations of the East, and clothed in language pecu-
liarly acceptable to them, but there was real good
mixed with it sufficient to satisfy the moral craving
of some who had conscience and morality to a certain
degree. Besides this, it had the help of the arm
of flesh which Christians are forbidden to use in
spreading their religion. I do not mean that some
bearing the name have not done so : but by their
disobedience to the Saviour's plain command, and

2

18 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

assurance that His kingdom is not of this world,
they show that they are not in reality His disciples,
or at the best are very weak and mistaken ones.

But the faiti of Mohammed was aided by the
sword from the first. Arabia was peopled in great
part by wandering tribes, as is still the case, many
of them having no houses but the " Bedouin's moving
home" — ^the tent, their wealth consisting in camels
and goats. Numbers of the children of Midian
and Esau, as well as the Ishmaelites— from whom
the Arabs of Arabia proper are said to have de-
scended, — lead this travelling life. Other tribes
were more settled, and had cities and villages under
chiefs, who were generally at war with one another,
more or less. By degrees these tribes began to join
themselves to the new leader, and to offer their
swords in assisting to spread the new doctrines; at
first only a very few joined, and those either relatives
or personal friends; but after meeting much opposi-
tion, he gained a firm footing, and was regarded as
the chosen of God by all his followers.

At last, after his death, his successors went on
fighting their way with bravery worthy of a better
cause. With their book, the Koran,* in one hand

* This is properly pronounced Eorann, with the emphasis on
the last syllable and the Js a soft gnttoraL

A LITTLE ABOUT OLD EGYPTIANS. 19

and a sword in the other, as one may say, they went
on their conquering way till they had all Arabia and
Palestine and many other countries under their
sway and rule, and then at length they invaded
Egypt also. The poor Egyptians were crashed*
under the fierce wild Arab soldiers, who gave no
quarter: conformity or death was proclaimed;
multitudes gave in and conformed ; others, more
courageous, or at least more trae to their religion,
fled and hid where they could. After a time, the
Arab Caleefs, as they were called, — that being the
name of their kings or chiefs, — ^ruled entirely over
Egypt. The remnant of the Christians, though much
persecuted and trampled on, were allowed to live ; but
the Arabic language was taught in all the schools,
and soon became the only spoken tongue in the
whole country, and the customs and ways of the
conquerors prevailed in many respects. After a
long period the poor country fell into the hands of •
yet another foreign power. The Turks, also Moham-
medans, who had come from Asia into Europe, and
taken from the Greeks the great city of Constanti-
nople, had increased as rapidly as the Arabs had
done in power, and had become masters of Palestine
and then of Egypt also. But though their power
as rulers was great, they never seem to have spread

20 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

their language nor mixed with the people of the
land as the Arabs did. One reason for this is that
the Koran (the sacred book of all the followers of
MoTiammed of whatever nation) is not allowed by
their religious law to be translated into any other
tongue, and is therefore read and studied in the
original Arabic by Turks as well as Arabs, and
taught in all their schools. This would alone
ensure the preservation of the Arabic language
among the people. Although the Turks still rule
over Egypt, and the great part of the wealth of the
land is in ithe hands of their descendants, and many
of these Turkish families use their own tongue
exclusively among themselves, still the Arabic is
the language of the -country, the Arab customs are
those that prevail, and in many respects the Turk
is still a foreigner, while the Arab is become an
Egyptian.

. This sketch, very short and very imperfect as it
is, may just give you such an idea of old Egypt as
will enable you to understand better what I wish to
tell you about present Egypt, as I now see it, and
as I have watched and observed its climate and
people for many years.

21

LETTER III.

THE RIVER.

The river of Egypt! that is the most important
thing in respect of cultivation, and indeed the most
important feature altogether in the country we are
now considering. How often it is alluded to in the
Bible ! Pharaoh, in his wonderful dream, saw the
lean and fat cows coming up out of the river, — not
a river, but the river, observe; and into the river
were the infants of the children of Israel thrown,
and the young Moses saved in his little ark of bul-
rushes "in the flags by the river's brink." Then
later, we read how Moses and Aaron, at God's com-
mand, smote the waters of the river and turned
them into blood, and in the Prophets we find again
and again mention of "the river" of Egypt. It is
not named, it is spoken of as the river of Egypt
because it is the only river in that strange country.
Just think how many rivers there are in our small
island of England — how many in Ireland, which is

22 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

still smaller; the children in schools are often quite
tired with the number of names they have to learn
of all our rivers — Thames, Severn, Trent, and many
more. Now Egypt has but one; that one, however,
is a large and very long river, and is very remarkable
in the effect it has on the country. Egypt is, as
you know, in the north of Africa, which of course
is very much further south than Europe, and much
hotter; the south part of Egypt, indeed, is very near
the tropics, and there falls scarcely any rain except
near the sea coast. At Cairo, where I live, which is
near the middle, th^re are sometimes four or five
showers in the year, sometimes more, but rarely ;
in the upper provinces only one or two; nothing
would grow therefore if the vegetation depended on
rain, and though there are heavy dews, these would
be quite insufficient; the sun is so powerful that
the whole land would be one vast sandy desert, dry
and barren, were it not for the wonderful river Nile.
At a certain season every year this river begins to
rise gradually; it is supplied from the mountains
where it has its source very far off in the middle
of Africa, where rain falls copiously at a regular
time of year. When it has reached the greatest
height (which, is ascertained by careful measure-
ment, persons appointed for the purpose watching

THE RIVER. 23

day and night as the time draws near), the dams
which have been artificially made are cut or broken
through, and the water overflows the low lands all
over the country and fills the numerous canals
which cross it in every direction. It would cer-
tainly overfiow its banks naturally and without
this artificial help as soon as the height of those
banks had been reached by the water, but much
of the country would then be untouched, and some
lands get more water than they needed. From very
ancient times the Egyptians knew how to regulate
the flow and manage it so that (except on occasions
of sudden and excessive rise which now and then
make a flood in some places) the land should be
properly watered ; and their various conquerors had
the wisdom to let the natives, who were accustomed
to it, have the direction of their great river and its
canals. It is probable that the irrigation was much
more extended in old times, and that, instead of
being as now a strip of cultivated land on each
side of the river and sandy desert beyond — as is the
case in a large part of the middle and southern
provinces — the canals were more numerous and a
far wider tract under cultivation. However, the
canals are increasing under the present govern-
ment, and the famous " sweet water canal " of Suez

24 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

is alone a proof of what water can do in Egypt.
When I first came here, the whole region where
the modern town of Ismaila stands was nothing
but a sandy waste, inhabited by gazelles and desert
foxes. Now the great work of the two canals — the
salt water one connecting the Mediterranean and
Red Seas, and the sweet water one which conducts
the Nile water — ^have combined to make it a delight-
ful spot ; gardens rose like magic, grapes and even
strawberries grow where twenty years ago burning
dry sand and pebbles lay, and thickets of feathery
bamboo and gay flowering shrubs meet the eye
and look the more attractive from the waste all
around. " The parched land shall become a pool,
and the thirsty land springs of water." Would
that those who laboured in that wondrous canal
had known the blessed spiritual refreshing of which
the entrance of the water into the desert land
affords so beautifcd a tjrpel

But to return to the river: its rise does not
begin till summer, and during the winter it is
gradually sinking and retiring. The winter of
Egypt is very unlike our English ideas of that
season ; there is comparatively very little cold ; the
nights are indeed sharp, and sometimes a strong
cold wind blows, but you would say it cannot be

THE RIVER. 25

very severe when frost is almost an unknown thing.
Some labourers in the country near Cairo once
found a very thin film of ice, at daybreak, on some
shallow water channels, and reported that the water
was bewitched as it would not flow I So very rare
was the wonder that none of them had ever seen such
a thing before. Latterly, Europeans have introduced
artificial ice, and cheap ices are even sold in the
city ; but this anecdote may show what the climate
in winter is. The sun is generally warm at midday,
and the people seek out sunny corners to sit in,
especially the old; and now and then a party of
labourers will light a fire of brushwood and sit
round it in a field. The poor have a curious way
of warming themselves in the short period of cold,
which they feel especially, being used to such heat ;
there are no fireplaces, and fuel is dear, but in the
country villages dry reeds and such light things
are tolerably abundant. They will then light a
bundle of these in the oven — a large one made of
mud brick is the common kind. As soon as this
is extinct, which is pretty soon of course, the good
woman of the house — or rather hut — sweeps out the
embers, and the family cram into the oven and
sleep ! I was hospitably offered the use of an oven,
heated on purpose for me and a friend by some

26 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

kindly peasants, during one of our little voyages
up the river, when stopping at a village on the
coast during cold, stormy weather. But, in general,
the winter months are delightful and healthy.
All the fields are luxuriantly green; the orange
gardens are rich with their golden fruit, and I
have more than once spent a Christmas afternoon
in an orange grove ; while friends in England
were rubbing their hands over the fire after return-
ing from church, I and my party were picking
oranges off the trees, and choosing a shady spot
to rest in. The harvest of sugar canes is in winter;
a good deal of sugar is manufactured in Egypt,
although not sufficient to supply all that is con-
sumed ; a large quantity is brought from France,
but being not nearly so sweet it is more expensive
and very inferior. The Egyptian sugar, though
less brilliantly white, is of a very good quality, and
" goes far," as the housewives say, from its extreme
sweetness. But the canes are not only used for
sugar making ; a great number are eaten — or rather
chewed — to extract the juice, by the people, who
are excessively fond of this cheap and wholesome
luxury ; Europeans seldom care for it, because the
juice, which is thin and watery, with little flavour,
and only moderately sweet, has to be obtained with

THE RIVER. 27

an amount of trouble which they seldom think
it worth, — the hard pith in which it is contained
requiring Egyptian teeth to do it justice. As the
natives of the country almost always have remark-
ably fine strong teeth, they find no difficulty in
masticating the canes, and no fruit can be more
enjoyed than they are in their season. The great
bundles of sugar cane on their way either to the
manufactory or to the markets are a beautiful
sight in winter, whether the larger species, of
a rich purple colour, with its flag-like green leaves
waving about over the head of the camel who
bears it, or almost smothering the little donkey;
or the smaller kind of cane, called the native or
belladee, which is of a delicate yellowish green.
The former is more cultivated about Cairo, as being
much larger and coming earlier, but some say the
little native cane is the sweetest.

All the vegetables we have in summer in
England are in their prime in the winter of Egypt,
or in very early spring, and the green fields, in
January, February, and March, are more brilliantly
green with the rich clove of the country than
any fields I have seen even in dear old Ireland,
the emerald isle I But there are two sides to
everything in this world, and spring drives away

28 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

the verdure just as winter does with us, only that
heat and not cold is the agent; the clover dis-
appears, the cattle having eaten it, and having,
poor things, nothing but dry food to look forward
to for several months ; the hot winds begin to
blow, the corn rapidly gets yellow, and is reaped
in April (I speak here of middle Egypt). By the
middle of May, the intense heat of summer has
usually set in and the fields look dry and brown,
— ^unless watered • with much labour from the
canals ; the very weeds, except the thistles, which
seem to need scarcely any water, are withered up,
and man most literally eats bread in the sweat
of his brow if he has to labour in the field. For
the native of the soil, I do not think that great
heat is the cause of as much suffering among the
poor as great cold. The Egyptian, if a real child
of the country (for settled foreigners of Syrian,
Armenian, or even Turkish extraction are far more
sensitive to heat, though they may have been here
for two generations or more), does not mind heat,
and prefers summer in general to winter ; if he
has to labour hard, of course he must be greatly
&tigued in the hot weather, but at any rate his
family do not suffer with him. Cold falls most
heavily on little children and aged persons, while

THE RIVER. 29

these in the hot weather here sit in the shade of
their mud walls, and as they do not mind dnst and
vermin, which abound, they appear happy in their
way, — ^and certainly the comforts within their reach
are cheap. Fuel and warm clothes, as you know
too well, are costly, but the cucumbers and melons
of summer here are cheap luxuries ; and the pools
of water in which the bare-legged boys are play-
ing half the day cost nothing at all. Foreigners,
however, even to the second and third generation,
feel summer heat very trying, especially if obliged
to be exposed to the outer air in the middle of
the day. As far as possible they ought to avoid
this, and to be very early in their habits, and tem-
perate; with these precautions, the inconvenience
will be considerably diminished.

In July, the heat is at its greatest height and
the river at its lowest — everything seems panting
and parched ; the ground is so hot that one can
scarcely endure to lay a bare hand on its surface,
and it appears as if one walked into a furnace if
obliged to be out in any part of the day except the
early morning and late evening. These are very
lovely — the pure dry air seems to make every
object stand out and look as if painted in rich
and delicate hues, but like all earthly beauties

30 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

these fair colours soon fade ; as the hours advance
a whitish haze of intense heat seems to settle over
everything, and (oh how true are the words of the
Book of Grod in even the smallest particular!)
then "the hireling earnestly desireth the sha-
dow." Well may the weary hired labourer long
for the shadow, which sets him free to throw
himself down and rest, and bathe his burning
brow in the waters of the little channel, and
enjoy the comparative coolness of night. To us,
indeed, it is but comparative, for in July the nights
are only a little less hot than the days. When
August comes the suffocation seems increasing, a
sort of still breathless heat prevails : this shows
th« river is at its height. The water is not good
to drink at this time, unless carefully filtered or
boiled ; the peasants do not, however, take this
trouble, and drink it as it is. At last, about
the fifth or sixth of August (sometimes several
days later), the great day comes when the
Nile is cut. The watchers who for a week or
more have relieved each other night and day,
measuring incessantly to ascertain the moment
the right height has been reached, give the
news, and immediately the dam is removed and
the water flows; not all at once all over the

THE RIVEB. •» 31

country, but at first over the lower lands, and
then entering the canals, by degrees waters aU the
country, AU the coasts of the river are at once
flooded, of course, and the effect on the landscape
is wonderful to see. Where you saw yesterday a
great brown dry field, reaching from the highroad
all the way to the river banks, is now a shallow
lake glistening in the sun, the little villages
with their groups of pahn trees peeping out like
islands from the water. The pools and brim-
ming canals look very beautiful and refreshing
after the long, sultry heat ; not that it is
less hot, rather I think more oppressive in some
respects, but the moisture is something delightful
to look at ; and every one is so happy. The poor
women, who had to toil along a weary way to fill
their great pitchers, now laugh and sing as they
trip down to the watercourse close at hand; the
children spend most of their day in the river or
the canals, — occasionally, however, getting drowned
therein; the great buffaloes stand up to their
horns in water, giving contented puffs to show
their enjoyment ; everywhere reeds and rushes
spring up with wonderful speed ; water birds sport
in the places lately full of dry clods and choking
dust ; the brilliant king-fisher darts after his prey

32 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

in the deep pool that was but yesterday a pit
" wherein was no water." It is impossible not to
rejoice over the inundation, and while thanking
the Giver of all good for His mercies, the Christian
adds an earnest prayer that the water of life may
flow also in Egypt.

Then the water begins to subside, and the labourer
goes out to sow his seed. Often he is seen throwing
it on the surface of a shallow lake, reminding one
of the words, " Cast thy bread on the waters, and
thou shalt find it after many days." Perhaps still
oftener we see the seed flung on a sort of thin mud,
the man with difficulty finding a spot just raised
enough to be sufficiently dry to support his weight
while he stands. Eaised pathways border all the
canals and most of the fields that are liable to over-
flow, but the sower has sometimes to descend from
this causeway to reach distant parts of the field.
In that hot sun the water dries very quickly, and
in a wonderfully short time a beautiful green hue
appears spreading over the whole country. A little
later the crops are in full beauty. The fields lately
so bare are now all covered with rich verdure. The
ancient Egyptians not unreasonably made September
their new year, as after the inundation the com-
mencement of vegetation seemed more like spring.

THE RIVER. 33

and more suited to starting afresh, as it were, than
any other period. The chief crops in Egypt are
wheat, barley, beans, lentils, maize, cotton, sugar ;
the clover I have already mentioned, and a great
variety of vegetables, as tomatoes, black and white
egg-plants, cucumbers, melons and gourds, onions,
garlic, and some others not known in Europe, all
grow abundantly ; indeed, with proper attention
and plenty of water, almost anything will grow in
this fertile land. But it must be cultivated with
care; not a wild berry is found that could give
nourishment, however imperfect, to man; all land
not made to pay its tribute by labour and watering
soon becomes a sandy desert from the power of the
sun.

34

LETTER IV.

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT.

I HAVE told you in my last letter something about
tho cultivation of this country, but you may like
some further information, and especially, I think,
the way in which gardens are managed here will
interest you. After what you have heard about the
river and its inundation, you will easily suppose
that there must be a great difference between field
and ganien cultivation, since if the river at the time
of tlie overflow were suflered to flood the gardens
much of their crops would be destroyed, and the
flowers and shrubs swamped and injured. Now and
tJien, by accident, this does happen in gardens near
the river. I reci^Uect a pretty, though somewhat
rudely managevl ganien, chiefly planted with pome-
granates, on the lianks of the Nile, where I once sat
for an hour with a beloved friend ; the vear follow-
ing I wa$ at the same sjH^t* — no garden was visible.
I looked alK>ut in amazement^ and said to a man

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT. 35

whom I recognized as one we had spoken with last
time, " Where is your garden gone ? " He replied,
*^ In the great flood last autumn the water washed
away every tree, not one is left ; " and then he went
on to ask after the sick lady who had rested under
his pomegranate trees. Ah, she too was gone, but,
as I told him, to that place " where the tree of life
is blooming " by the heavenly city.

But to return to our gardens. They are watered
by small channels only a few inches wide, which
are made to intersect or cross and recross the
garden, the beds between them being usually square
in shape. When they are to be watered the gardener
removes with his hand or his foot the small dams
made of earth rudely heaped up at the corners, and
lets the water from the well (or canal) fill them up
mitil the level of the bed is reached. He then
stops the flow by pushing the heap of earth back
again, and danmiing up the water. Each bed gets
its share in turn, generally every second, or in cool
weather, every third or fourth day is sufficient,
so that one portion of a garden is watered every
day ; in very hot weather, if water is abundant and
the garden full of flowers, it may be daily watered.
Many gardens are dependent on wells which, with
very few exceptions, are brackish and unfit to drink.

36 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

but answer fairly for watering plants, though sweet
water wells are more esteemed, of course.*

Others have water brought from canals supplied
by the Nile, and the garden receives its water by
means of machinery, without which it would not be
possible to fill the small channels. The simplest
of the machines in use is the " Shadoof." A long
pole is sxmk close to the well, and a large stone, as
a weight, is hung to it by a rope ; the other end of
this rope is tied to a sort of dipper made of leather,
which a man keeps emptying into the trough that
supplies the channels, as fast as it gets drawn up
by the weight which pulls it as soon as he looses
his hold. He has to keep pulling and emptying
incessantly, so that it is very hard work, though
much quicker than if he had to draw up a bucket
with a windlass, as we do in wells used for drinking,
etc. The other machine most conmionly used is a
Sakea or Sahkea ; it is much less simple, but does
more work in a short time. It consists of two
wheels of great size, one of which is deep down in
the well, and is turned by the other, the upper
wheel being turned by an ox, buffalo, or camel (the
fonner are the commonest). The lower wheel is

* Figs from certain villages that possess sweet water wells
fetch a higher price in the market.

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT. 37

furnished with a set of rude earthen pitchers fastened
by ropes of palm fibre all round it. As fast as one
half of them are filled by the turning of the wheel,
the other half empty their contents into a stone
trough which supplies the channels that water the
garden. The sahkea is always raised a little above
the garden level, so that the water easUy flows into
it. Very refreshing is the sight and sound on a
warm day, for trees are almost always planted near
it, so that the labourer and beasts of burden may
have a little shade ; and the trickling and splashing
of the water, the sun shining on the bright drops as
they fall from turning pitchers, and even the creaky
creaking sound of the wheels, are all pleasant in this
climate ; they speak of coolness and moisture, and
every one likes to sit beside the troughs and watch
the flow of the little channels. The favourite tree
to plant by a sahkea is the sycamore fig alluded to
in several places in Scripture. It affords excellent
shade from its thick foliage ; the rounded leaves of
rich dark green grow in such a way as to form
almost a roof over one's head, and the lower branches
stretch out and spread downwards, often extending
quite across a path or road. You recollect Zaccheus,
whose short stature hindered him from seeing Jesus
in the press, and how he climbed into a sycamore

38 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

tree in order to see Him. When I first saw these
trees in Egypt, I at once perceived how well they
were suited for such an object, and that of all trees
this was the most likely to be fixed on from being
planted by a road for the sake of shade very often,
and from its peculiar growth making it so easy to
climb quickly.

We also read that the prophet Amos was a
^^ gatherer of sycamore fruit," before called by the
Lord to warn and rebuke the people and their
rulers. You may like to know what these fruits
that Amos gathered were ; they are still largely
consumed in Egypt, and probably in Syria also,
but chiefly by peasants, as they do not reckon
among choice fruits, and strangers generally think
them disagreeable. You will remember that there
is no resemblance to our sycamore of England —
it is a different tree altogether ; it is allied to the
fig, which its fruit is very like in shape, and it
has the same peculiarity of the flower and fruit
being in one. The appearance of the sycamore fig
when ripe is very pretty ; it is then of a delicate
pink or salmon colour, and grows either on the
trunk or on the branches of the tree, to which they
are fixed by such very short foot-stalks, as to look
at a distance as if they actually grew on the surface

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT. 39

of the trank. At the season, which is from the
end of May to July, a man climbs the tree with
a basket, which he lets down to the women who
come in troops to purchase from him and retail
in the town, and when the rustic baskets they bring
are nicely lined with green leaves, and the pink
fruit piled upon them and placed on the head of
the peasant woman, they look very tempting and
pretty, but if you tasted them, you would own to
the truth of the proverb, "appearances are de-
ceitful," for any fruit more insipid and worthless
I never met with.

The mulberry is often planted by the Sahkeas
also ; it grows to a great size here, and affords
delightful shade, but the fruit is very inferior to
the black mulberry of Europe and Syria ; it is
the white variety that is cultivated here, but very
little silk is made, though I believe the white
mulberry is generally planted with that view, as
its leaves are thought best for silk-worms.

The ground near the water-works is often devoted
to patches of onions, cucumbers, and such things as
need a great deal of water, and on the low lands
near the river, in many places, there are large
fields of melons of different sorts ; the most
esteemed is called the "shamam," and is one of

40 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

the most delicious of fruits, and coining in the
driest and hottest part of the year, is specially
valued. What a sign of God's goodness to man
is it that just when the people crave for something
fresh and cool, and when the water of the Nile
is at its lowest, and often not pleasant to drink
(without much filtering), the land should bring
forth in abundance these juicy firuits I There are
many inferior kinds, which are excessively cheap,
and within the reach of the poorest in their season.
A little later come the enormous water melons.
But all these belong more properly to field than
garden cultivation ; the melons especially do not
answer well, except near the river, and in a wide
space generally.

Tlie fifanlens of the wealthv are often enclosed
by stone walls, and latterly by iron railings in the
suburbs of the city, but the old Egyptian style
of paling is usual in the country, and with all who
are not able to aflford expensive enclosures. It
consists of the tall strong reeds so plentiful here,
which, when cut and dried, form very good palings,
tied with palm fibre ropes, crossways. They need
renewing after a few years, indeed, but are easily
procured. These reeds are one of the great features
of a real Egyptian garden, being used whenever

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT. 41

small sticks are wanted, wood being scarce, and
the native shrubs and trees often useless for
" sticking," on account of the sharp thorns be-
longing to most of them; a reed is indispensable
to the gardener in many ways, and it often makes
a shepherd's pipe or flute, on which they play a
monotonous but not unpleasing tune, as they keep
their goats or sheep.

But the reed is capable of proving treacherous ;
if leaned on too carelessly giving way suddenly
and inflicting a sharp wound. The prophet Isaiah
alludes to this when recording the words of Kab
Shakeh, the great general of the Assyrian king,
who came against Hezekiah, king of Israel, " Lo,
thou trustest in the staiF of this broken reed, on
Egypt ; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his
hand, and pierce it : so is Pharaoh, king of Egypt,
to all that trust in him." I thought of this text
one day, when noticing my gardener's hand bound
up ; I asked what ailed him, and found that he
had been driving a reed into the ground to support
a plant, and it had suddenly broken and entered
his palm, making a wound rather troublesome to
heal.

The garden here is specially fertile in suggesting
texts of Scripture to the mind of any one who

42 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

makes that blessed book his study, as all Christians
ought to do. Who can see the labourer opening
the little channels to let the wat«r flow over the
parched earth on his beds, and returning the clods
to their place with his bare foot, without recalling
the words of Moses in describing the promised land
to the Israelites, who had so long sojourned in
Egypt that they knew no other manner of culti-
vation : " The land whither thou goest to possess
it, is not as the land of Egypt, where thou sowedst
thy seed and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden
of herbs"? (Deut. xi. 10.)

Who can see the gardens of the peasants, full
of leeks and onions and garlic, and fail to remember
the Israelites in the desert longing for these juicy
vegetables, to which they had been accustomed?

•

Truly it pleases Grod sometimes to let His chosen
ones be for a season deprived of some things which
are not sinful in themselves, and of which the
deprivation is trying ; but they may take warning
by the Israelites, and pray to be kept from mur-
muring, and if He keeps them in a desert and
withholds the onions and the cucumbers, He will
give the manna from heaven, which is better.

You must not suppose that gardens here have
no flowers in them ; although, except in the cases

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT. 43

of very rich men's gardens, the flower cultivation is
not attended to as it is with ns ; if it were, in so
fair a climate, where almost everything will grow
with care and water, they might have an extra-
ordinary abundance and variety. Still, they love
flowers, though lazy about cultivating them, and es-
pecially prize such as are fragrant, for all Orientals
are passionately fond of sweet-scented things.
In ordinary gardens the flowering shrubs and a
few annuals are strewn, with little order, among
the vegetables and fruit trees, and some trees with
beautifal blossoms are planted in all gardens of
any pretension. The luxuriant growth in so
fertile a soil makes this careless arrangement of
no consequence; in fact, it is prettier, in many
respects, than a more formal trim garden. The
creepers, of which they have several native to the
country as well as some of foreign race, grow in
a rich tangle round the reed fences, and the
jasmine and rose, which continue in bloom more
than two-thirds of the year, grow beside the egg-
plant and tomato, and the effect is almost as if
they grew of themselves. Annuals, if once sown,
and succeeding well, become self-sown, and grow
like wild flowers ever after ; and then the profusion
is so lovely as to make up for a little disorder.

44 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

Qlio Bahmea is a favourite vegetable here, whicli
is nuit with both in gardens and in fields, and
might well pass as a flower, being very pretty.
It is a sort of mallow, the blossom of a delicate
straw colour with a dark brown centre. The seed
vessel is the part eaten ; it is full of a glutinous
juice, and is by most people esteemed highly,
l^ut the king of plants and trees in Egypt is the
date palm, which is found everywhere ; by the
roailsidc, in the courts of princes' dwellings, and
by the hut of the peasant, in the city, and in the
vilhigo, is the gmcoful feathery foliage of the palm
branch to bo seen stuniling out against the clear
blue sky of noonday, or the golden and crimson
hues of early morning and sunset. By the river
siilo, above all, givat plantations of palms are
quite a foatun^ of the innintry. No garden is con-
sidenxi annploto without a few jmlm trees, and at
loajiit one or two im^ lU^-ays plant eii when a garden
is laid out.

IMoturo^, or rather prints, in our magazines and
cheatHT Inx^ks, an^ very apt to make a confusion
Ivtwivu the i\H\vii-uut t^alm of India and China
and the date j^alm of Arabi(V» Kgvpt, and South
Syria ; 1 havo, iudixxi, sivu some prints repre-
soniiw^ a fabulous ^^rt ixf j^ilm tjve between the

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT. 45

two! They are, as every gardener who has seen
them in hot-houses well knows, very different,
though both are of the palm tree family, which
is a large one. The cocoa-nut palm, I may observe,
will not grow at a distance from the sea greater
than fifty miles, or thereabouts, I believe* So, in
the interior of Egypt it would not thrive if planted;
but it might grow by the sea coast, and may
some day be introduced, as many Indian trees have
already been. The date palm is, however, a native
of the country, though much cultivated, as the
fruit of the wild ones is not esteemed. Like all
the palm family, its age is noted by the rings,
or rather notches in the trunk, which increase
every year; its branches grow from the top in a
sort of feathery crown ; the leaves, long, narrow,
and pointed, are of a lightish green, changing with
the air and the time of day more than is the case
with any other tree ; sometimes it looks quite a
dull, dark, greyish-green, and then again almost
purple, and then a golden green, and many other
shades which charm a painter's eye. The flower
is of delicate cream colour, and bursts out of a
green sheath about a foot and a half, or more, in
length; a shower of lovely little blossoms hang down
from slender footstalks in a great cluster, something

46 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

like ivory carvings, being exactly the colour of fine
ivory; when these drop off, tiny green dates appear,
and gradually increase in size till they turn of a
rich golden yellow or a bright red, turning as they
ripen to a purplish red or a dark brown before
they get dry. There are many varieties, differing
somewhat in size and colour. Each tree bears
from seven to ten of these clusters, occasionally
even more, and each cluster, or bunch, is so large
and heavy that a fine one is about as much as a man
can lift I The fruit is much liked by the people in
its fresh state, though, in general, Europeans think
it too dead sweet at that time. I was amazed to
find that the poorer people will eat the date in its
green state, when its astringent flavour is so intense
that how they can swallow it without choking is
strange. I was once persuaded by a poor woman
to taste one ; she had a basketful, and assured me
they were very nice ; I made the experiment, but
never repeated it, nor can ever forget the effect
upon the throat and tongue.

The date harvest is quite a feast among the
people, especially country people, and vUlage
mothers choose that time to visit married
daughters in town, and take them a cluster
of dates as a present. The mother of one of

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT. 47

my scholars, who has a dozen fine palms in her
garden, once sent me one, and it feasted all the
family and the girls of our little home, besides
making several jars of preserve. The leaf stalk of
the date palm is greatly used in Egypt for making
frames of all kinds, hampers, bird-cages, rustic
seats and bedsteads, and many other useful things
are composed of them ; and the leaves are twisted
into mats, baskets, etc., but they are not used (as
I actually saw it asserted in an English magazine
that they are) as umbrellas, for the good reason
that being slender narrow leaves, growing on a
long stem, they would be as unfit to exclude the rays
of the sun as anything could possibly be ; indeed,
the shade thrown by palms is a light shade, not
sufficient for protection from sun even when grow-
ing, unless a number are quite close together.
Probably, the writer was confounding the date
palm with some other species of which the leaf
is wide, but this shows how careful we should be
in speaking of what we have not seen or accurately
ascertained to be true.

The banana is another plant very common in
Egypt, and which is wild in many parts of Africa,
and probably is a native of Egypt ; therefore, the
whole country, except the actual desert, is so under

48 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

cultivation that it is difficult to know exactly what
was wild once in it. The broad leaves of the banana^
of a beautiful rich green, make it an ornament to a
garden, and wherever water is plentiful it is planted,
for its fruit is greatly liked. It has two distinct
blossoms on one stem, a large reddish-brown one,
somewhat of the shape of a huge tiger-lily, and
al)ove that, a set of small white blossoms growing
from the top of the flower stem. When these drop
off, a bunch of green fruit, the size of almonds,
ai)[)ears, and raj)idly swell till larger than an egg
(unlcjss of the small variety, which is longer and
thinner than the other). As they ripen they turn
of a delicate j)ale-yellow, and are very delicious in
flavour. One curious thing about them is that they
flower and fruit nearly all the year round, though
the chief abundance is in autumn ; but there is
hardly any part of the year when some are not to
be seen. As they need a great deal of water and
good earth, they are not much cultivated by the
peasants; j)erhap8 they dislike the extra trouble,
but they bring so good a price in the city, that I
often wonder more are not planted near the canals,
etc. The banana is not a tree, properly speaking ;
its stem is like a gigantic reed, being hollow in the
upper part of middle, and the bark is composed of

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT. 49

pith, full of a glutinous sap. The fibres of this bark
are very tough, and are used as bass is with us to
tie up plants, etc. When cleansed they z>x^jine as
well as strong, and can be made into paper of an
excellent quality.

The orange (which I have already mentioned as
common in Egypt) is not a native, but was intro-
duced from other countries — some kinds from India,
as the shaddock, eto., and the common sweet orange
from Portugal; it is therefore generally known as
the "Portugal." I have seen in some orange-
gardens eight or ten varieties of this delightful tree,
all covered with fruit in different stages of ripeness ;
the soil suits it so well that it grows far better than
in India, as I have been told by those who have
come from thence, and in the end of autumn and
winter, oranges are both abundant and cheap, and
far more juicy of course than those which come to
us by sea. In a large garden occupying no less
than ten acres (some miles distant from Cairo) I
saw lemons of extraordinary size, and^ citrons,
oranges of all kinds, and limes, all in such profusion
that the boughs of some trees had to be supported,
and the ground was strewn with fallen fruit. The
gardener told me it belonged to a wealthy childless

widow of Turkish race, who never even came to see

4

50 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

it, and the golden splendour was seen by no eyes
save those of this poor labourer, in his ragged blue
shirt, and his children, and an agent who came now
and then to order the sale for his lady, and doubt-
less to secure a goodly share for himself. It was
not like one of the grand gardens of noblemen's
houses in England, — no hot-houses (they would be
needless in so warm a climate), no pattern beds
with varieties of choice flowers, nor even the neat
gravel walk and orderiy modest beauty of a humble
though cheerfiil English garden ; but yet it was
lovely — very lovely in its own way, and that suited
the climate better than a more formal one, though
they might have had more flowers certainly, but then
the creepers — the luxuriant jasmine and orange-blos-
soms perfuming the ah-, and the vine and fig growing
as if at their ease I Altogether the effect was very
pleasant. We told the gardener something about
the Grarden of Eden, and man's first life, that in-
terested him, and read him some texts out of a
pocket Gospel, and he said how much he wished
the school we talked of was nearer, that his little
girl might attend it.

In this, as in every Egyptian garden, the pome-
granate bore a place; its brilliant scarlet flowers
were not then in blossom, but the curious and pretty

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT. 51

fruit was still hanging on many of the boughs.
The quince, plum, and apple are also cultivated in
Egypt, but the two latter seem to require a cooler
climate to reach perfection, as they are inferior to
ours. This may, however, be merely want of know-
ledge in the gardeners.

It may be supposed that in a climate so dry, the
people are very fond of sitting out of doors, and few
gardens are without a shady trellis or arbour, covered
with vines or with some of the numerous creepers
of the country. One of the prettiest of these is
called in their tongue, " The Lady of Beauty." It
has a luxuriant dark-green foliage and a pretty lilac
blossom, not unlike a large bindweed in shape. It
is suited for arbours, as being of rapid growth, and
insects seem not to like it, which is a great ad-
vantage. A species of perennial bean, with a pretty
purple flower, is also frequently used as a shady
creeper ; another with a very elegant seed-vessel,
like a small green bag or purse, is called the
"judge's mouthful," or "bit" — a sly allusion to
bribery^ or stopping the mouth of justice with a
purse, being apparently intended. There is a sort
of gourd, which is a pretty creeper, sometimes called
the washplant, because its fruit consists of a kind
of pithy which, when freed from seeds and dried, is

52 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

very useftd in washing, better than any washing
glove, flannel, or other invention of man's making.
But it would take too long to enumerate all the
interesting and curious plants I have seen here.
Before I leave the subject, however, I must tell you
of a singular festival connected with gardens. On
a certain day in spring, called by the name of
" Smell the breeze," * every one goes to a garden if
possible, if not, to a green field, as early as can be.
The i)roper thing is for an onion to be taken and
smelt the first thing in the morning, and then
thrown out of the window. Many have abandoned
this old custom, but they all retain that which fol-
lowed it, of spending great part of the day in a
garden, carrying about flowers, or branches of trees
even if no bouquet is to be had. This festival
seems evidently to be the remains of the ancient
Egyptian worship of the vegetable kingdom, for
they considered the onion to be the king or chief
of vegetables. The feast as now kept is common to
both Moslem and Christian, and they do not know
that their ancestors worshipped plants, most pro-
bably, but keep it up as we do some old customs,
merely by tradition. The roads and fields on this

* Poetically translated, the words would mean "Inhale the
Zephyr I "

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT. 53

day look very pretty and cheerful, with the crowds
of people all in their best clothes, the women and
children generally as gay as tulips in lively-coloured
prints, or silks if they are wealthy ; by six o'clock,
and even earlier, all are out of doors, and few of
their festivals seem more enjoyed or are so pretty
as this.

Some of the great men have lately been improving
their gardens by introducing some European seeds
to add to what was already known, and they succeed
beautifully with proper care* I saw not long ago in
a princess's garden what might be called a wilder^
ness of sweet peas, for instance, and so with many
others ; and some modem arrangements in the
way of tools are also beginning to be used. But
when foreign gardeners are brought over they must
have an Egyptian to look after the watering, for if
ignorant in some things, they fully understand this,
which after all is the most essential business of all
in so dry a climate. No scientific wisdom, no care-
ful weeding or pruning, no watching against hurtful
insects, or bringing seeds from afar, would avail to
make the garden "bring forth and bud," unless
plentifully supplied with water, and unless the
gardener knew how to arrange the little channels
so that every spot should have its due share ; other-

54 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

wise fairest blossom would soon wither and the most
fruitful trees perish in the burning sun.

Now does not this make a beautiful comparison
to the necessity for the Holy Spirit in our hearts ?
Whatever of learning, or wisdom we may possess,
however amiable in natural disposition, however
we may reason, and even heartily try to do good
and put away evil from ourselves or others, we
never can really prosper in our souls, — there can
be no fruits of holiness enduring and real, without
God's Spirit flowing into our souls. The "living
water'''' that Spirit is called by Jesus Himself, and
we can no more do without that living water than
the garden can do without earthly water. And the
emblem is perhaps more striking here than else-
where, because we see the water flowing in, and the
vegetation so rapidly increasing wherever it comes,
and the burning sun destroying with equal rapidity
where it does not. The seed is the word of God,
and the Holy Spirit the water which causes that
seed to bring forth good thoughts, good words, and
good deeds. "Thy soul shall be as a watered
garden," says the prophet, "and thou shalt not
sorrow any more." The second part of this blessed
promise is not yet fulfilled (as we all too well know !),
not while we live in a world which is so full of

THE GARDENS OF EGYPT. 55

trouble and grief, but it mil be ftdfiUed one day
for all the Lord's people ; the time is coming when
they will not sorrow any more, and meantime, even
among the many trials of life here below, if they
trust Jesus and ask Him constantly to send the
Holy Spirit, the Comforter, according to His own
promise, their soul "shall be like a watered
garden ! "

56

LETTER V.

THE PEOPLE.

We now come to the people of Egypt. I will
not at present speak of the foreigners, of whom
many are settled in the largest cities (as Cairo,
Alexandria, and Suez); a mixed multitude indeed
they are, and we must speak of them in due
course, but the natives of the land claim our first
and chief attention. They consist of two great
divisions, the largest by far being the Moslem
'Egyptians, who are the descendants of those who
conformed to the faith of their Arab conquerors,
mixed with those conquerors, and became one
race. The smaller division is that of the Coptic
Egyptians, who are the remnant of the old Chris-
tians who did not conform, and who formeriy were
much persecuted and crushed down in many ways,
their language forbidden in the schools, so that it
became a " dead language " (which means one not
spoken but only found in books), and were forced

THE PEOPLE. 57

to wear a peculiar dress, and harassed in many
ways. But since the days of the famous Moham-
med Alee (that great Pasha who made Egypt so
nearly independent of Turkey), these severe laws
were repealed, and in the present time they enjoy
quite as many advantages as their fellow subjects
of the State religion. Mohammed Alee had great
talent, and had the rarer quality of good sense,
at least in this matter, and gave religious liberty
to both Jews and Christians, and was repaid by
the increased prosperity of his kingdom.

There is not the liberty enjoyed by British sub-
jects in Egypt, nor is education in anything but
its infancy, as one may say, as yet ; still there
is of late years a great movement in favour of
the spread of instruction in various ways. The
Khedive has been always extremely liberal towards
foreigners who endeavoured to establish schools,
and also opened several on a large scale for giving
gratuitous instruction to a number of the young
of both sexes, as well as military and medical
colleges. But you will like to have a little idea
of the people, rather than to enter much into
these things ; and to know something about their
appearance and habits, and daily life. For these
letters are written especially for you who stay at

68 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

home, or whose longest journey is a trip to some
large town in your own country. Many of the
wealthy can visit Egypt by steamer and railroad,
and, from the windows of a great hotel, see more
than I can describe, in less than half an hoiir.
However, it is only a picture after all, whether to
the real eye or to the " mind's eye," that any one
can get who has not tarried long enough in a
place to know the language and habits of the in-
habitants, and it takes a good while for one of our
northern race to do this. How strange the crowd
of African faces look to one first landing on the
African shore ! and yet stranger sound the words
of the unknown tongue, with its gutturals and
curious blending of syllables together ! It seemed
to me like a beautiful and curious but confused
dream, when I first stood on that sunny shore ;
wearied and sea-sick with a stormy voyage, and
bewildered with the noise and shouting of so many
voices all unintelligible, and so many dark faces,
and having to step aside to avoid being knocked
down by a string of huge camels, heavily laden
with sugar-canes (neither of which had I ever
before seen) — yet in the midst of confusion, and
dust, and ragged children, and wretched huts, and
other things far from beautiful in themselves, there

THE PEOPLE. 59

was snch a light over everything, such a clear
brilliant sunshine, and an air so balmy and soft,
everything white looked so dazzling and every
colour so bright, that I admired all I saw, in spite
of the conftision.

It used to puzzle me very much at first to hear
the people of Egypt commonly spoken of as Arabs,
when I knew they were not from Arabia, unless a
certain portion who, as I said before, are mixed
more or less with their Arab conquerors. Of course
the mass of the people are an African race, but the
Arab language has so completely driven out the
other that the word is now commonly, though
not very correctly, applied to all speakers of Arabic.

But some persons in England have a vague sort
of idea that every real African must be black or
nearly so, and this is a great mistake. There are
plenty of negroes in Egypt, whom you shall hear
about in another letter, but they are not Egyptians.
The Egyptians are much darker than English
people indeed, and, in the southern provinces, the
peasants and all who are exposed to the sun are
almost mahogany coloured; but the town people
(especially ladies, who are never in the sun) are
much lighter in complexion, and in the northern
parts of Egypt the citizens in general are not much

60 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

darker than the natives of the south of Italy and
Spain, and many not at all so, indeed. All the
Egyptians, if of pure race, have black hair and eyes,
or so very deep a brown as to appear black at a
little distance. When not affected by the malady,
so frequent here, of ophthalmia (I mean when their
eyes have not been permanently injured by attacks
of it, as is often the case), the Egyptians have
generally fine eyes; some of the peasants, who are
more strong and vigorous than townspeople, are
remarkable for the brightness of their eyes and the
long black eyelashes that shade them. But the
number who have lost one or both eyes is consider-
able ; the poor, as they are apt to neglect the care
and medical aid which are absolutely necessary, are
of course the worst sufferers, and many infants lose
their eyes or have them injured for life merely
through the dirty habits of the mothers : but the
disease is peculiar to the country, and foreigners
are by no means exempt. Pure air and sanitary
regulations, however, diminish the evil, and careful
attention to cleanliness also does much to lighten it.
In point of teeth, Egyptians are better off than
most Europeans, having white, even, and strong
teeth, with rare exceptions, and I have often seen
quite aged persons able to eat a plateful of nuts

THE PEOPLE. 61

without the least difficulty and without using any
nutcrackers but those in their heads I The women
of the working classes, who are a great deal in the
air and carry burdens on their heads, have very
good figures, straight and upright, and walk well ;
they have usually rounded arms and well turned
wrists, and the feet and hands small and neat in
shape. But the women who, from being more
wealthy, do not need to work out of doors, etc., are
generally shut up very much in their houses, and
from an inactive life become fat and shapeless while
still in their prime.

The peasant farmers are generally fine-looking
men, active and, well knit, and frequently of a good
height ; but the townsmen are less healthy and
much oftener undersized. The artizans, who are
active enough indeed, are sometimes sturdy fellows ;
but the shopkeeper is much less on the move than
an English shopman, generally serving his customers
without rising, and having all his goods in a little
den close round him and heaped up by his side; it is
not strange, therefore, that he should be sallow and
unhealthy in comparison to those who take exercise.

From the outward appearance of feature and
complexion we naturally come to dress. I am sure
my female readers will open their ears at this, and

62 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

one may whisper to another : " Do let us hear what
they put on in those distant parts ! " The climate of
Egypt is for so great a part of the year very warm,
that the tight cloth garments of European men
are certainly very unsuitable, and when I first came
here, no one but Europeans ever wore them. I
really cannot find out why they have latterly come
to be worn by most of the highest class of men
and by the Government officials and servants : their
dark skins make them look very ill in black or
dark-coloured clothing, and the weather makes it
a punishment to support them ; yet, except for
wearing a small red cloth cap instead of a hat,
the European garments are the fashion in that
rank of life. The mass of the people, however,
still adnere to their old dress ; the merchants,
tradesmen, and many others of the townspeople,
wear a very becoming garb, well fitted to the
climate ; of course it varies according to the means
of the party, but the poorer tradesman has much
the same shape and style, only substituting cotton
for silk, etc. Properly, then, it consists of an outer
coat of fine cloth, fitting easily to the shoulders and
back and descending in graceful folds to a little
above the heels or ankles; being ctit in what the
dressmakers know as gores, it is not so full as to be

THE PEOPLE. 63

cumbersome and heavy ; this is open in front, and
displays an inner garment of striped silk, also
long, and girt round the waist with a wide sash of
strong silk or embroidered cotton. In the house,
unless the weather be cold, the outer coat or
" gibbeh," as they name it, is laid aside. This
inner dress is, like the outer one, worn of a variety
of colours, but generally two shades of the same
are chosen with remarkable taste ; a dark purple
outer coat, for instance, would be worn with an
inner one, or "kaftan" as it is called, of light
purple with a white or black stripe; a dark red,
again, will have a "kaftan" of delicate crimson
and white stripes ; and a dark brown, a cinnamon-
coloured one with a stripe of cream or pale yellow,
and so on. Slippers of red or yellow leather, made
extremely wide and comfortable instead of pinching
the toes as European shoes so often do; and a
turban of white muslin or thin calico wound round
a red cloth cap, which it almost conceals, completes
the real old Egyptian gentleman's dress. You must
observe that a turban is in the East a special mark
of a man ; when he dies his turban is placed on
the bier, and a turban is carved on the entrance
to many tombs. The idea that dressmakers used
to have — and I am afraid some ignorant painters

64 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

also — that a turban was part of an Eastern lady*s
dress is so very absurd that it would make an
Oriental laugh, as you might if he were to
describe Dame Smith as going to church in a
smock frock and corduroys instead of her bonnet
and cloak. But to return to our Egyptians. The
peasant and the working man, who cannot afford
such rich garments as I have described, nor would
be able to do their active work in them, wear much
simpler ones ; a blue or white cotton " kaftan," not
unlike our old-fashioned English smock frocks, only
much longer and fitting better to the figure, with a
waistcoat of coloured print fastened with a great
many white cotton buttons and loops, worn inside
but showing in front, is the dress of the labouring
men; short cotton trousers and a shirt are worn
inside by all except young children or the very
poor ; and a "rough garment" of goats' or camels'
hair, or rough twisted woollen, often spun by his
own hands, is always worn in winter by the
countryman, to whom it serves as a blanket by
night and a covering by day if the wind be cold,
or if he is heated by work and wishes to rest.
You may recollect the passage in Exodus xxii.
26, 27, 28, "If thou at all take thy neighbour's
raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by

THE PEOPLE. 65

that the sun goeth down : for that is his covering
only^ it is his raiment for his skin : wherein shall
he sleep ? and it shall come to pass when he crieth
unto me, that I will hear ; for I am gracious."
How beautifully is here shown Grod's care for the
poor, whose rough mantle was his only blanket !

The women are always veiled when out of doors,
unless those of the poorest class, who are less
particular and merely draw the end of their dark
muslin mantle over the lower part of the face if
a man is present ; I have frequently seen a woman
whose hands were occupied, hold down the covering
with her teeth till the man or men had passed
by ; which has a very droll effect in European eyes.
But the proper dress for native Egyptian women
is a long strip of black silk, or rather a species
of crape, which is light and yet not transparent;
it is woven on purpose from the outer coating
of the silk cocoons, or inferior part of the
silk ; this is fastened on by a curious little
tube of either gold or brass which supports it,
a sort of fillet being tied round the head with
the tube and veil attached, so that when put
on the whole face is hidden excepting the eyes,
which peer out above the black veil in a mysterious
way, as it seems to strangers. One of white muslin

66 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

is worn by ladies latterly, in preference ; but all
alike hide the face from the age of twelve, and
in wealthy families much earlier. The peasant
girls in the country are not so early hidden, and
usually remain with their faces free until they
marry (which, however, is generally at a very early
age), and they are much less carefdl about veiling
than in towns. The poorer women, and all, whe-
ther rich or poor, who live in the country and are
the wives of labourers or farmers there, wear a
loose dress of dark blue or black cotton or linen
(occasionally cotton and silk, if it be the wife of a
well-to-do farmer). A large mantle of either very
dark purple, black, or blue and white in a very small
check, with broad stripes of dark blue, and some-
times of crimson, at the edge, and with a fringe all
round it, is the out-door garment ; this answers in-
stead of shawl, hat, cap, pelisse, or cloak ; a flowing
veil of thin black muslin being worn inside, and the
outer mantle laid off in the house, or while they are
at work. No belt or sash is worn by the peasant
women, who, on account of having often to work in
great heat, are accustomed to have their clothes all
loose, as a night-dress with us. Even in winter
they have no change except a small waistcoat, or
sleeveless jacket, of red or yellow cotton print.

THE PEOPLE. 67

Full trousers tied just below the knee and falling
over to the ankles, are worn instead of petticoats
by all the respectable classes ; * but the poor are
frequently able only to afford a single garment.
In the great heat of summer they require less
clothing, of course, but the veil and mantle seem,
though often ragged, to be quite essential for
every woman. Little girls are often seen with
only a little blue or white shirt on, and occasion-
ally, in hot weather, with nothing ; and boys very
often. If they possess two suits of clothes they will
put on one over the other for warmth in winter ;
I have seen a woman who had, she told me, three
entire suits one " a-top of the other," as you would
say, and this accounted for her looking so remark-
ably stout.

The citizen's wife is differently attired ; she
always wears a large mantle of thin black silk
for her out-door dress, which entirely hides her
figure; and within it she has another silk gar-
ment, a sort of gown, without sleeves, tied round
her waist with a sash ; this dress is yellow, pink,
or any bright plain colour she likes. As this is
rather an expensive dress, it is only the rich who

* These are often in prints and pictures represented va fattened
round the anUey which is quite incorrect.

68 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

can often renew it ; the rest wear the same for
years, till the silk is rusty and threadbare, but on
no account will they substitute any other material,
unless in the case of very young girls, who wear
a mantle of plain white calico. The indoor dress
of the women of the middle and upper classes is
very pretty, and suitable to their climate. It usually
consists of a print or coloured muslin dress, or one
of white, in hot weather ; very simply made, with-
out flounce or ornament, the neck and sleeves only
being trimmed if the wearer likes. When going
out visiting, and on festivals (especially weddings),
dresses of brocaded silk, etc., are worn by all
women who can afford them, but the style I
describe is that usually seen even among wealthy
persons. In winter, a coat or jacket of warm
material is worn, and ladies often have these of
cloth, either lined with fur or embroidered with
gold thread. A muslin handkerchief of delicate
colours, with a little silk border made by the
needle, is worn on the head by all who keep the
real Egyptian costume, — the hair in long plaits
hanging from under it ; but some ladies have now
adopted the less pretty and more fantastic head-
dress brought from Constantinople, made of gauze,
fastened over a stiffening of some kind, and oma-

THE PEOPLE. 69

mented with artificial flowers. The tight high-
heeled boots brought from France are also be-
ginning to drive out the simple and convenient
shoes of the country, which, being very easy, were
more suitable for a hot dusty climate. They are,
however, still worn by thousands, and those who
have given them up, are repaid by suffering with
tender feet, etc.

The Egyptian ladies live a very retired life, not
being allowed to go out of doors freely as we do
in England, and many never get beyond the walls
of their house at all (which is, therefore, an actual
prison) unless to go to the public female bath?
and on rare occasions to visit near relatives ;
some have not even this degree of liberty, and
have only the change of air to be had in going
from one room to another. But before taking
a peep into these secluded abodes, we will first
see what is the life of the humbler classes, who,
as in every country, are by far the majority of
the people.

70

LETTEE VI.

THE PEOPLE (cOKTENUED).

The difference of the dwellings of those who earn
their daily bread in our country and in Egypt is
very great. I do not of course mean that we have
not, unhappily, in great cities miserable abodes
enough — garrets, cellars, and plenty of wretched
buildings. But the greater part of the inhabitants
of those comfortless homes are such as have been
reduced by some special cause, and in a very large
number of cases, the cause is vice, idleness, or
intemperance ; in others, wasting sickness or acci-
dent, to the head of the family, etc. These garrets
and cellars are not the national dwellings of the
country, even for the very poor. The white cottage,
with its thatched or tiled roof, is the proper
^^countryman's" dwelling in England, and how-
ever poor many of such cottages are, they are
very, very far superior to the village homes of
Egypt.

THE PEOPLE. 71

The mud hnt is the national abode of the work-
ing classes of Egypt, and the great mass of the
people inhabit huts : the villagers, of whom we
shall hear more particularly afterwards, are not the
only ones who live in little huts ; many are found
in certain quarters of the towns, and always in their
suburbs. A cow accustomed to a tolerable stable,
would decline living in one of these ; yet they are
the habitation, not of the vicious, but of the respect-
able poor man, and probably are just such as his
forefathers dwelt in, from the days of Pharaoh
down to this time. Mud, roughly tempered, is
the only material, and the roof often consists of
a bundle or two of reeds; sometimes a beam or
two, with a little dab of mud on the top ; no
window, a door so low that the owner can lean
on it as he stands, and neither whitewash nor
furniture within; — ^generally so small that the
wonder is how the family get in, not that they
have no furniture, for there would not be room
for it.

A few stones outside the door answers for a
kitchen ; a cooking pot or two, a mat, and generally
a box for those who have anything worth keeping,
is the whole of the contents, and too many have
not even these. Press, shelves, clock, and such

/2 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

comforts are not heard of ; a wadded quilt rolled
up in a corner is often found in those who have
some little means, but not with day-labourers in
general. It is not the poor over-taxed peasant's
fault that he has little to make a house pleasant,
nor does he feel the need of comfort, not being used
to it ; the hardship is very much less than in a
cold climate, since by choice the natives of the
country of the working-class sleep out of doors
great part of the year, and live outside nearly
always. Still they are within at times, the women
more than the men, and if they were not so neg-
lected and ignorant, would know that however
humble, a place may always be made clean ; the
dirt, dust, vermin, and disorder in the dwellings
is what makes their great misery, much more than
small size and poverty. They might take example
by the numerous bees which find their living from
the fields of clover all around the cities in the
springtime. What is more fragrant than the fresh
honeycomb, or more perfect in cleanliness and neat-
ness than the little cells made by that wonderful
insect ? Not Egyptians only might go to the bee
for a lesson, as you will, I daresay, agree with me.
The town houses of the poorer people, which yet
are not hutB^ but are two storied or more, and

THE PEOPLE. 73

built of mud brick, and not mere sun-dried mud
worked in a mass, are not as superior as might
be supposed, from this same want of order and
cleanliness, and as they contain a little more, I
think they are almost worse. The women are
married as mere children generally, and have
never been taught clean and orderly ways.

Many decayed and ruined houses in Cairo and
also in Alexandria have been lately removed ; this
was by the order of Government, and a very wise
order it certainly was, but unless the new houses
be kept clean, they will soon fall out of repair,
and be as bad as the old.

The discomfort and dirt in the poor peasants'
dwellings is not, you must observe, the consequence
of drink, as is sometimes, alas 1 the case in English
homes, where people ought to know better; it is
sheer ignorance, added to the laziness which in hot
countries is more natural perhaps than in colder
ones (though I think we all know a few lazy folks
even in cold places) 1 Our poor young Egyptian
mother has not the least idea that dirt brings
disease to young children, for instance : her mother,
and her grandmother, and her mother-in-law, and
old aunts and cousins without number, all tell her
that nothing is so unlucky as to wash baby. So she

74 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

never does wash him; he rolls on the mud floor
half naked, and, when he can toddle, often entirely
so ; or, if still very young, is wrapped in her veil and
popped in a corner while she picks the com and
kneads the bread. A cradle is met with in all the
better class of houses, but the labourer's child is
cradled in mud either indoors or out, as the season
suits. With the abundant space they have — for
their villages generally occupy a great deal of land
— they might build better abodes, and might make
shelves, etc., in what they have, but it never seems
to enter their heads.

I once gave a poor Coptic peasant who could read,
a copy of a Gospel, which he was very glad to receive ;
but a year afterwards, on asking him about it, he
told me (with evident regret at the accident) that
the sheep had eaten it 1 A great fat coffee-coloured
sheep shared his small hut with himself, his wife,
and five children, and having neither shelf nor
drawer nor closet, he could not keep even a book
from the creature's rapacious appetite 1 I gave
him another, which he put in the bosom of his
blue kaftan, declaring neither child nor sheep
should ever get at itl

Countrymen know the absolute necessity of regu-
arity in tilling the ground, and labourers are very

THE PEOPLE. 75

steady in watering and sowing at the right times ;
and the women, more disorderiy in their ways, yet
generally keep to the right time for fetching water
from the canal or river (with so clear a sky they
need no watch to tell how near is sunset); but
in everything except cultivating the soil and milk-
ing cattle, their life is very irregular : women will
be up before dawn one day and very late the next,
especially in town, where they have not rural busi-
ness to force them to rise with the light; they
sleep in their day clothes, and rise without brushing
hair and washing, — at least, far the greater number
evidently do so. On festivals, indeed, they go to the
bath and have a grand "cleaning up," but mean-
time, even decent peasant women will leave their
hair, in its many little plaits, untouched from week
to week, aye, and month to month I

The meals are as irregular as the sleeping, except
the last ; the family assemble for supper about sun-
set in summer, and a little later in winter, when the
days are shorter, because the chief meal for most
Egyptians is the supper, and it must, of course,
always be so for any who have to work in the fields
at a distance from home. But the rest of the day
they seem to take some bread when hungry, and eat
it, squatting down in a shady corner in summer, and

76 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

a sunny one in the cold weather, with a bit of water
melon or some dates, or by itself, as may happen to
be convenient. The children scramble about with
whatever they can get, in dustheaps, or on the wall,
or in the hut, as they like, dirt and liberty being
supreme. Those of a more respectable class, though
not taking their meals as you would, or in what you
would call a comfortable way, are a good deal above
this half-savage style of living. They assemble,
such of the family as are at home, at some hour
in the forenoon ; and if the father of the house be
absent, his dinner is sent to him, or he has a dish
from a cook-shop, if convenient.

I remember once visiting the wife of a Coptic
priest in a ^mall country town; of course, they did
not live in a hut, but a good house. I caniiot say
it was clean, but it only needed cleanliness and
neat order to have made it a cheerful though mo-
dest dwelling. The good woman spread a wadded
quilt over the mat, with one or two hard stuffed
pillows, and we sat down and had a pleasant and
friendly talk together, her sister and herself being
intelligent persons, although without any education,
neither being able to read, or even knowing the
alphabet. This was nothing unusual, however, as
no woman in the whok town knew a single letter.

THE PEOPLE. 77

Presently, the eldest girl brought a small round
table, only a few inches from the ground, and set
on it a tray with the family dinner, or breakfast
(the first regular meal of the day it was, but being
ten o'clock, the children at least must have eaten
before, I fancy). It consisted of some eggs slightly
fried in a great deal of butter, in a metal dish, and
a saucer of coarse earthenware, containing a piece
of native cheese, which we should call cheese begun
and not finished, being in fact only curd drained
and slightly salted (it is good when freshly made,
but does not keep very long); the bread was in dark,
thin, round ^j»«, and was laid in a heap on the
tray and then distributed round ; no plates, forks,
or knives were used, each taking with* the fingers
and a bit of bread, portions of the eggs, etc. A
pitcher of water, with a narrow neck for drinking,
stood beside them, and all sat round the table on
the floor. They cordially invited me to share, and,
of course, I took a morsel not to be impolite,
although I had breakfasted some time before, in a
way more suited to my habits. After the meal,
which was quickly over (for people do not care to
linger over cold water as they would over a cup of
tea), we fell to talking again, and I could not help
reflecting while turning over the leaves of the

78 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

Testament I had with me, what a delightfal thing
it is, that however different we may be in onr cus-
toms — in the bread we eat and our way of partaking
of it — the bread of life is the same for all, and
suits all alike I We may share that bread joyfully
with every fellow believer, or even every one who
shows the least wish or intention of becoming such ;
the differences are but trifles of earth that are to
pass away, but the " one Lord, one faith," are for
ever. Why will not the hungry in soul come to
Jesus to be fed when they hum heard of Him, and
listen to the blessed words He spoke — " I am the
bread of life"?

79

LETTER TIL

WHAT THEY EAT.

In the last letter I told too about bread, bat tod
will Kke some more particiilarS; I think, and aho
something about the other articles chiefly used
as food. Bread is the staff of life as with us ;
it is not here as in many parts of India and China.
where rice takes the place of bread ; they are fond
of rice, and eat more of it than we do, it is part of
the diet of every tolerably comfortable fionily, but it
is not so cheap as to be within the reach of the poor
except on occasions. When, for instance, I have a
honse-cleaning, or any business giving extra fatigue
to the ont-door servants who are called in for the
time to help, they expect a dinner or supper after-
wards, consisting of boiled rice with some melted
butter mixed with it and a little pepper and
salt, and think this a capital meal. But bread is
their daily food, with some relish or other, according
to the season and means. Every family makes its

80 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

own bread ; there is a good deal, indeed, sold in
the streets, chiefly on palm frames carried on a
boy's or woman's head, and '^ cried" about, especially
in the morning and at sunset ; but this is chiefly
used by travellers, or workmen without a regular
home, or on occasion when the home supply is short,
etc. No family above a beggar's will use it con-
stantly and daily. To eat " street bread " is to be
at the last point of discomfort with an Egyptian.
They do not buy the flour but the wheat, and as this
has been threshed by the oxen treading it out upon
the ground, it is always full of bits of earth and
dust (it is said, indeed, that some is put in by fraud
on purpose to increase its weight). The cleaning
of the corn takes up a good deal of the woman's
time, and then it has to be carried, usually on
the head of the housewife, unless she is able to
keep a servant or slave, to the mill; and when
ground, has to be sifted, for the chafl*, not being
separated in the grinding, that and the bran are
sifted out together, which is not a good plan, as
no one can make what we call whole meal bread.
When sifted, the women bring leaven, or sour
dough, which they use instead of barm, or yeast ;
and when it is risen sufficiently, work up their
dough, making it very moist, slack as bakers say,

WHAT THEY EAT. 81

and beating it up much more than we think neces-

saiy ; often they are at it in the middle of the night,

if it is risen so as to be ready, and will spend two

hours in beating and slapping the mass, producing

quite a loud sound with their hands. When finished,

it is made into very small round cakes, or flaps, each

of the size of a small plate ; these are stuck against

the sides of the oven, and baked in less than a

minute each, but so many are needed that the

process takes some time. A hundred loaves of this

size is not too much for a family of two grown

persons aod two children in a week, so it may be

supposed what a business it is to prepare bread

for a large family ; however, the fuel needed for

this sort of bread is not much, as the thin loaves

80 soon get done. This kind of bread, or something

resembling it, is used in Syria also. It is more

easily broken than cut^ and as other food is all

partaken of with the fingers (soup only excepted),

it would not occur to Oriental servants, in laying a

table, to provide a knife for cutting bread. I make

this remark because some persons have a fanciful

idea that there is some special meaning or sign

in our Lord's breaking instead of cutting bread at

the Last Supper, when He gave it to His disciples as

an emblem of Btts body to be soon broken for them

6

82 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

and for us. We know that, literally and accurately
speaking, His body was not broken, but rather cut,
pierced and wounded, and that it is expressly said,
" A bone of Him shall not be broken." The word
evidently means only that He was wounded, and
suffered in the flesh for our transgressions' sake, so
that whether we break or cut a piece of bread in
our celebration of the Lord's Supper is a point of
no importance, any more than is the kind of bread ;
the real essential is that we should remember
our Lord in that holy and comforting service, and
think of all He suffered for us, and that He is
the true Bread that came down from heaven. I
daresay you recollect the Gospel parable where
the man asked his friend to lend him three
loaves of bread, because a traveller was come
to see him and he had no bread in the house
to set before him (Luke xi. 5). Now in many
parts of the East, three loaves is, to this day,
the portion usually placed before a single visitor
when his host wishes to be sure he has enough.
Unless extremely hungry, he would hardly need
more than two of the ordinary loaves, but it
would be thought mean to set less than three
before him, and in a wealthy family they send in
a whole heap of loaves; but our Lord's illustra-

WHAT THEY EAT. 83

tions are, for the most part, relating rather to the
humble classes than to the rich and great ; and
I remember being struck, formerly, with hearing
a lady say to her servant, when another person's
servant had come on some business, "Carry the
man a plate of dinner and three loaves," and I was
often afterwards reminded of the parable.

The Egyptian bread is seldom relished by Euro-
peans, who generally make their own, and in the
cities Greek and French bakers are numerous.
But when cleanly made and quite fresh it is not
to be at all despised ; the disadvantage is that it
is very bad to our taste when stale, and very
quickly gets hard and dry, especially in summer.

The diet of the people is usually frugal as regards
the middle and poorer classes, but they manage
to have a. greater variety than people of similar
means in England, and, I think, in this they are
right, as a change of diet is more wholesome than
to eat almost always the same things. All the
cheaper vegetables are taken, as they come in season,
by all except the very poorest, and very few there
are who cannot obtain cucumbers and melons in
their most plentiful time ; the latter are often sold
in slices, which are to be had for the smallest
coin extant, and are, no doubt, very refreshing to

84 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

weary labourers or ragged boys in the heat. The
lentils so often named in Scripture are a great
article of food in Egypt, and are very superior to
the vegetable of that kind in France, which seems
an inferior species. The Nile boatmen chiefly live
on a thick soup made of lentils, with onions and
hard bread broken up in it. Probably this was
Esau's famous pottage, the lentils being, when
shelled and uncooked, of a bright reddish orange
colour (the text says " that red pottage," meaning
made of red lentils. Jacob was in the act of prepar-
ing it, no doubt). It is very savoury and good, and
a highly nourishing diet. Tomatoes, egg-plants,
black and white, and various gourds are abundant,
as well as many vegetables more familiar to you.
Some of them are made into stew or soup for supper
(with a little meat for those who can aflford it),
others are eaten raw ; and fruit is often eaten with
bread as a meal. At other times, salted curd, or
pickled turnips, etc., are taken as a relish, and the
Egyptian beans are a favourite breakfast with all;
rich and poor alike enjoy this simple and wholesome
dish. The beans require to be slowly cooked in a
great earthen jar, which is usually done by the
seller, who puts it in hot ashes for several hours ;
they are sold in the early morning by plates-full.

WHAT THEY EAT. 86

and seasoned with a little lemon juice and salt and
pepper, and the addition of a morsel of butter
makes them an excellent article of diet.

In winter and early spring, when milk is tolerably
abundant, even in towns, a preparation of milk,
made sour and thick, is very popular, and is sold
in small earthen saucers, making a favourite supper.

The Nile produces a good deal of fish, which the
people living near the river can procure cheaply
enough ; but in the warm season it ought to be
cooked almost as soon as caught. It is inferior,
however, to sea fish.

The allusions to parched corn in Scripture are
frequent, and this is still a favourite dainty in
Egypt as well as in Syria ; but in the present day
maize is oftener used than wheat, for although I
have often seen the reapers eating parched wheat,
which they made by roasting the ears in the
field, I never recollect seeing it sold in the markets,
whereas maize is one of the chief street cries at its
season under the name of "Durra." Probably it
took the place of parched barley or wheat after
its introduction (as is generally supposed, from
America),* the larger grains making it more suitable

* Some still think, however, that it was a native also of the
East. I leave antiqaarians to decide.

86 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

for parching than any other ; but that alluded to
in Scripture must have been either barley or wheat.
"We see there that parched corn was looked on
as a sort of rustic treat, which country folks sent
to their friends ; David's father sends " parched
corn " as well as cheeses to his sons in Saul's
army, and the friend of the prophet Elisha sends
him "full ears of corn in the husk," evidently for
parching; and just so do friends in the East now
send, or bring, a basket full of corn in the husk
for their town relatives to enjoy. In harvest time we
often see the reapers lighting a little fire of chips
or sticks in a field and roasting the ears over it
to prepare this simple but much relished luxury,
and such scenes bring to mind the sweet story
of Ruth and the parched corn that she brought
home from the field to regale her mother-in-law,
"when she had eaten and was suflSced." For
though that history took place in Syria, the ways
and habits are in a great many things the same
in Egypt.

As we might suppose, from the many allusions to
it in Scripture, hutter is very much used in the East.
Some learned men indeed have thought that sour
milk or curds was meant by the word translated
butter ; but I can bear witness to the fact that it is

WHAT THEY EAT. 87

mucli rmre used in cookery both in Egypt and Syria
than in England, — I mean in larger quantities, and
that many of their dishes, otherwise very good, are
made too greasy to suit most English palates. But
they rarely use it as we do on bread ; it is generally
boiled down and clarified, and thus kept in jars.
In the country villages here, they eat it sometimes
on bread in winter, but little is eaten fresh, com-
paratively.

The way they make butter in Egypt would strike
you as curious. A prepared goat skin is half filled
with milk, slightly sour, and then hung to a peg
driven into the wall, or to a post, and a woman,
taking hold of a long string tied to it, pulls it to
and fro with a jerking motion till the butter comes.
She then drains the lumps, but neither washes nor
salts them in general. So, except in quite cold
weather, it soon gets rancid ; but very little is made
in the hot season. In early spring, when the cattle
are fed on clover, is the butter time, and quantities
are then made and clarified for summer use. The
favourite dish, without which no feast would be
complete, and which is the staple in most families
above the poorer class, is rice cooked with this pre-
pared butter, as I observed before. At their festivals,
both Copts and Moslems make cakes, which are

88 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

often 80 ricli with clarified butter as to crumble in
lifting them unless taken with great care. The
peasants cannot afford to make theirs so very rich,
nor (luckily) to make themselves bilious with such
diet very often ; but they do not think it a real
feast in Egypt (or Syria either) unless it be "a
feast oi fat things." Here, again, the Bible allu-
sions are fully carried out.

But while eating articles literally soaking with
butter, I have heard an Oriental in a very dignified
position, who had visited England, speak with al-
most a shudder, of slices of bread and butter which
had been offered him! An Egyptian would not
have been so much surprised, it would only appear
to him a sort of homely, rustic thing, to eat " fresh
butter with bread " as peasants do in spring in his
country ; he came not from Egypt, but Syria.

The quantity consumed is, however, as before
observed, greater than with us, no vegetables being
ever cooked merely with water. Meat is used in
smaller quantities, and generally mixed with vege-
tables, unless on occasions of a feast, when ^ roasted
lamb is sometimes served up, or a large joint. At
weddings a great deal is spent in feasting, as we
shall see when speaking on that subject.

89

LETTER VIII.

SUPERSTITIONS.

You will not be surprised to hear that the Egyp-
tians are fuU of superstitions. Most, if not all
nations, the mass of whom are ignorant, are super-
stitious. In England, when there was less education
than in the present day, numbers of siUy superstitions
prevailed, particularly among country people; and
even some who should have known better, were yet
so foolish as to hold fast to the nonsense they had
been told in their childhood by ignorant persons,
and were afraid to sit down to dinner if thirteen
were present, or of spilling a pinch of salt, meeting
a magpie, and other equally ridiculous things. I
knew a lady who was afraid to change a dress,
accidentally put on the wrong side out, because
it was "ill luck," as she pretended. A wise friend
asked her, " Who is hick ? Is he a god that you
worship him?" She was much vexed, but still
clung to her foUy. K such things are found in a

90 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

professedly Christian country, we cannot wonder
that they should abound here, and they do to a, sad
extent. Not that all alike are under the dominion
of fear that superstition brings. Some are naturally
cheerful, and do not think about the future much ;
others are sensible, and see how foolish these fancies
are; but the greater number, particularly of women,
are complete slaves to superstition, and though they
declare they believe in one God, yet practically they
believe in a great many. The chief of all their
objects of fear, however, is what they call the evil
eye ; more frequently they speak of this unseen
but dreaded power, simply as " the eye." It appears
to mean a sort of envious and grudging feeling on
the part of some person or persons who look at
their child, or property, or anything of value. But
there must be a deeper meaning than this, since,
however unkind the envious neighbour might be,
unless he or she did actual mischief out of spite, no
harm could be conceived to follow from his envy
except to his own wicked heart. But a passing
stranger, who never again sets eyes on the child, or
animal, or whatever it may be, or a neighbour, who is
known never to have lifted a finger against them,
are equally supposed to be the medium of conveying
the injury which they attribute to this terrible power.

SUPERSTITIONS. 91

It seems to me to be just a horrid fiction invented
by the father of Kes in order to draw away people's
minds and hearts from God, for, strangely enough,
though invoking Him frequently on other occasions,
I do not ever recollect hearing them pray to be pro-
tected from this supposed power. No — some odd
and foolish trick or charm is to be used to halk^ as
it were, the evil influence. One of the commonest
is a sooty mark or dab on the forehead of a child.
One often meets a little girl or boy with this mark,
usually one of the richer class ; the mother puts on
this disfiguring sign to divert, as she fancies, the
power of the eye, because of the extraordinary
beauty of the child. I have seen it quite as often
on very common and even plain-featured children as
on pretty ones ; but, of course, every mother thinks
her own something wonderful; it is just because
she happens to be of an anxious temper that she
marks it.

A Coptic mother, who was visiting at my house
the other day, had a little child with her who struck
me as being even more untidy and dirty than was
usual (and I am sorry to say a neat-looking child is
still rather an exception here) ; but the mother
being very well dressed and not poor, the coarse
peasant's frock of rough blue cotton, and the shaggy

92 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

filthy hair, did look singular, and I took occasion,
when she made some remark about his delicacy of
health, to say something in favour of cleanliness,
"especially in such hot weather." "Ahl but do
you know I have lost several " (I think she said four)
" children, and I keep this one coarsely dressed and
dirty on purpose : it is that he may live." I felt
sorely inclined to say. More likely that he may die.
The poor foolish woman continued, pointing to her
boy, who was a small and by no means a very
pretty child, " He is, as you see, so lovely ^ it is best
to keep him tkus,^'* nodding mysteriously to imply
that to make him as unattractive as possible was
the only chance of his escaping the evil eye.

Another, a very pleasant woman, and one not
insensible to the Gospel, dressed her baby in black
from head to foot, even his little cap being of black
calico, because she had lost two or three before, and
a friend assured her that to make him a "little
monk," as she expressed it, and dress him in black
for a term of years, would be a sure means of pre-
serving him. The dear little thing was taken,
however, and the poor mother was candid enough to
confess she had been wrong. She was a professing
Christian like the other, but Moslems equally believe
in the evil eye.

SUPERSTITIONS. 93

A very common defence (or fancied defence)
against their fancied danger of the eye, is to hang
charms around the neck or waist of a child, or tie
them to its little cap.

These charms consist of leather rolls or bags, Oj.
else tin cases, in which are enclosed papers, with
verses of Scripture written by a priest on them if
the child is a Copt, or from the Koran if a Moslem.
Whether really written is doubtful, but they never
open them to ascertain it.

Though oftenest seen on children, they are also
worn by some grown people ; negroes and Nubians,
in particular, are very fond of them, and wear them
tied by a thong of red leather to the arm above the
elbow, where it is easily seen when, for the con-
venience of work, the long sleeve is stripped and tied
back. A Coptic woman, who, having had some little
education and some knowledge of the Bible, should
have known better, was once persuaded by a priest
to let him prepare her a charm against certain
headaches from which she suffered ; whether she
thought they came from the evil ey€, or not, I am
not sure ; the fact was, they were simply bilious
headaches, which strict diet and a few doses of
suitable medicine afterwards cured. However, she
was persuaded to try the charm first, and paid a

94 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

sum she could very iU afford for it: the priest had
no idea of writing a few Words on a strip of paper
for nothing. She was at last convinced by one of
my family that this was a very foolish thing, and
if the paper really was, as it professed to be, a
Psalm of David written out, it could do no possible
good by being applied to the outside of her head.
She agreed to open it, and lol it was no Psalm
at all ; nothing but a few letters without meaning
and some scrib-scrab. She was heartily ashamed,
and, I hope, never used charms again. Our poor
Roman Catholic friends in Ireland often have
similar charms to these, which they call gospels,
a verse of the Gospel being supposed to be written
on them. Those whose eyes have been opened so that
they have received the Gospel in their hearts have
often then opened these paper charms and always
found nothing but a little scrib-scrab ; but it matters
nothing in reality whether the verse of Scripture
is there or not, as when so applied the Bible itself
is, in the sight of the Almighty, no better than a
mere scribble.

I have seen young children so laden with charms
in tin cases that they could scarcely support them
without inconvenience when crawling, or toddling
about ; yet it is seldom one can induce a mother

SUPERSTITIONS. 95

to remove them, so deeply are these superstitions
rooted in the hearts of the people. For a certain
kind of weak eyes, a red coral or bit of cornelian
is hung by a thread from the head so as to dangle
over the eye. I asked what possible good this
could do, when first observing it on a scholar, and
the teacher told me (evidently in doubt as to the
thing herself, but inclined to think it worth trying)
that the red colour of the stone was supposed to
divert the redness from the eye. I think medical
advice is more frequently sought for bad eyes, so
terribly common here, than formerly, but still
many continue to prefer charms and to think that
till seven days have elapsed after being attacked
no one should apply any medicine for ophthalmia,
and in bad cases blindness, either partial or total,
is sometimes the result.

I once called on the mother of a scholar and found
her with one eye tied up, and offered to look at it,
saying that if a simple case, perhaps some of the
eye-water we always kept might be of service. She
refused to lift the covering, and seemed angry
at my request, which was certainly not made from
curiosity, as I saw too many bad eyes in Egypt to
be curious about them, and the sight is a very un-
pleasant one; but she did not understand that

96 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

only sincere kindness could make the offer, and
the teacher who was with me explained that she
thought it was a case of evil eye on hera^ and
that keeping it from anyone's observation for a
certain period was her only chance.

Another still more singular case is that of cover-
ing a baby's face that the eye may not strike it, as
they say. I have often heard of such, and one
occurred in the family of an old servant, who him-
self told me that he had not seen the face of his
little grandchild though it was then some months
old. "You see, my daughter lost several," he
said, "and she fancies it is the evil eye. I tell her
to trust in God, but" (shrugging his shoulders)
"these women, — what is one to do with them?
Her mother, and aunts, and all, will have it
that it is ^ the eye.' " This poor babe had its face
hidden from everyone except its father and mother,
and what was more, from the fresh ae>, by a thick
black handkerchief, till it was a year old ; and
then, you will say, did they at last take it off?
God did it for them. He took the poor infant
away, and I feel no doubt its happy little spirit
sees light in Paradise through the love of Jesus,
though it never saw the light on earth. For the
family, who were Copts, lived in the Coptic quarter

SUPERSTITIONS. 97

of Cairo, and at that time, before the late altera-
tions in some of the streets, it was a place where
the sun could scarcely penetrate, so dark and
narrow were the lanes, and when — if ever — the
child was taken outside the house, it was under
cover of its thick black veil. Still, though in a
miserable, bungling way, it was dedicated to Christ,
and prayed for by the old man; and the arms of
the Saviour reach far^ especially to catch up the
little ones.

Another, and I think a worse, case was one of a
woman, also a professing Christian, and of the same
family, who, after losing two children, sent, on the
arrival of the third, for a sort of witch or "wise
woman " ("foolish woman" would be a more suit-
able name), who came to stay for some weeks in
her house, and every time a visitor called — and in
this country all the female neighbours, friends, and
relatives call on these occasions — this woman per-
formed incantations and burnt incense to dispel the
eflfects of the possible evil eye from some one of
the guests. I would not go to see her, though an
old acquaintance, on hearing this, because it seemed
to be a sort of devil worship, as when I next saw
her, a good while after, I plainly told her.

She tried various other charms, one of which was

7

98 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

disgusting enough, namely, bathing the infant in the
blood of a pig 1 It followed its little brother and
sister, and for aught I know the poor silly mother
may be trying the same experiments on another,
unless the Lord has seen fit to open her eyes, and
teach her to trust in Him.

A very common charm is to hang a stuffed croco-
dile (procured from Upper Egypt, for there are no
crocodiles near Cairo) over the door of a newly-built
house. Sometimes an aloe plant is put up instead.
No doubt one is as useful as the other.

Animals are supposed to be as easily struck as
children ; and indeed, in old times in England, some
people used to fancy that if a cow suddenly ceased
to give milk she was bewitched^ as they expressed
it, and poor old women were accused of this crime,
which they could not commit even if they wished
to do so. We need not then wonder that the poor
Egyptian peasant woman who has a fine cow will
frequently prevent anyone from seeing her. I re-
member one being quite angry when I asked leave
to send my servant to bring the milk she sold us.
"No, no, I don't let any person in while I am
milking," she said. " Why if anyone saw me milk-
ing, my cow would most probably get Hhe eye,' and
give no more. My cow is a very fine one ; I let no

SUPERSTITIONS. 99

one see her that I can help, and always keep the
stable door closed at milking time." Horses ana
camels often have charms hung round their necks
to protect them, as is supposed ; but as it is not
universal, I imagine all do not put trust in this
nonsense.

It is curious how ready people are to take trouble
in the wrong way and the wrong place (not in Egypt
alone, indeed). The worry they give themselves about
these charms I have mentioned, and the trouble and
often cost of getting them, if used in another way,
would really rid them of much evil, or diminish it.
For example, I once was visiting in a respectable
and rather wealthy Mohammedan family : a young
married woman was sitting with me, sister-in-law to
the mistress of the house (two or three brothers often
live in one house when large, as was the case here).
While we were chatting she pulled down some article
to show me off a shelf, and down came a small roll
' of papers which scattered on the sofa, and she began
collecting them carefully.

"Are you learning to write?" I asked, seeing
Arabic characters in rather a disjointed way mixed
with figures, as of sums, on the papers.

" Oh no ; this is a charm for the bugs," she re-
plied. "Our house (like most old ones here) is

100 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

infested, and a sheikh wrote this charm for us. You
see these figures ? — that is because they are many ;
and the letters — I cannot tell what they mean, some
secret thing no doubt" {scrib-scrab again, probably).
We put this in a corner up there, and the creatures,
he said, would all walk away."

" Have they done so ? "

" Well, not yet, it is only three days yet. I fancy
there are fewer, however, already."

" Do you not see that this is because the weather
is become cold, and these plagues are always much
less in that season? The man was tricking you, and
took your money for nothing. How can you fancy
that insects can read when you yourself cannot ? " I
continued, laughing.

She laughed heartily herself, and said, "It is
really foolishness, I do think;" and agreed with me
that the trouble and expense of the charm spent on
white-wash, soap, and brushes, etc., would have done
better.

The popular superstitions do a great deal of harm
in keeping up uncleanly habits. The religion of
Mohammedans commands that they should wash
when they pray, which ought to be five times a day
(not that all keep to this if they are busy, and the
women very rarely pray at all). This custom is of

SUPBRSTITIONS. 101

course better than nothing, and does tend to keep a
certain degree of cleanliness in adult males. But
superstition hinders it where specially needed, which
is with young children. Moslems think it sadly
unlucky to wash a baby at all until it is a year old.
Some of the better sort have broken through this
horrid custom, but as a rule it is kept to very strictly,
and I believe many die from diseases brought on by
dirt alone. Copts are recommended by the old
women of their faith to let baptism be the first
water on the child. They baptize by immersion,
certainly, but no soap is in the ceremony, and it
often has to last a long, long while. A dry wipe
with the mother's hand, or a bit of her dress, is
thought enough, and that only on the face, by too
many who are by no means of the lowest class.
There are exceptions, however, and the spread of
education will, in time, I trust, make the exception
the other way.

The writing down passages from the Koran, then
washing oflF the writing and drinking the water,
is a very favourite charm for various maladies. It
seems as if man's froward heart loved to take things
by contraries, for (supposing words to be ever so
holy) how could words affect the inside of the body?

There are superstitious observances in other coun-

102 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

tries besides this, which seem to have come down
from old pagan times. Many of those in England
came from old worshippers of Odin and Thor in the
Saxon times, although the country wives who prac-
tised them had no idea of imitating pagan ancestors,
and had never heard of the false gods of those days.
So in Egypt there are people who have not the
least idea that they are keeping up observances
which began in the worship of beasts and reptiles,
etc. One of these is singular enough, and first came
under my notice a few years ago. A Coptic lady
sent me a message to say that her little boy was
ailing. (He was more than usually precious, as the
only son she had previously had had died years
before ; her daughter was married, and this little
one was, like most late blossoms, a peculiar treasure
therefore.) She wished to know if I thought it
would be advisable to bring a monkey and keep in
the house, as some neighbours suggested. The
expense is considerable, she said (more than a
guinea, I think), for monkeys come from a distant
part of Africa, and are not found in Egypt. Still,
if it would do good to the boy, she was ready to
spend anything.

" What good could he do ? " I asked the teacher
who brought me this message. " Is the monkey to be

SUPERSTITIONS. 103

cooked and eaten in the form of broth by the
baby, or what is it to do? He is too young to
play with it."

" You don't understand, — it is the Eye^'* said the
woman, mysteriously. " The monkey kept in the
house is thought to draw off the evil influence from
the child to itself."

It is needless to observe that I recommended in
preference that if her child were really iU she should
t^ke him to the best doctor she could find, and pray
for a blessing on his directions.

Now as the monkey was one of the creatures
reverenced by the Egyptians, and the images of
their "monkey god" are extremely numerous in
collections of idols and such curiosities, and that
pictures of him are to be seen on many walls in the
ruined temples, etc., it seems that there is some
indistinct remains of this worship left in the minds
of those who even call themselves Christians, for we
must recollect that the reverence of the heathen for
false gods did not mean that they ever fancied their
deities good or benevolent beings necessarily. Many,
if not most, were revered with what is called " de-
precatory " worship ; that is, they were supposed to
be persuaded or coaxed by reverence and offerings,
incense and other things, and often, as we know.

104 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

even human sacrifices, into letting people alone, and
not doing them mischief. This is the kind of wor-
ship given by idolaters in India and elsewhere to
this day ; and the traces, — faint perhaps, but still
traces, — of this deprecatory worship, remain here
among these superstitions.

I will only relate one more, — there are hundreds,
and many probably that I do not know of, but this
which I am going to tell seems to me quite as clearly
a remains of pagan worship as the monkey.

Persons are said, when failing in health and
spirits without any known cause, and sometimes
when it is clearly a case of illness, but which does
not as quickly yield to remedies as is expected, to
be possessed by an evil spirit. The women, who
seem the chief believers in this, though by no means
the only ones (indeed it may be merely as I see much
more of them that they seem to me to be more
full of these fancies), declare that the only cure is to
make what they call a zikvy a kind of dance, either
sacred or magical, for they have a sort of zikr
which is more of a religious observance at certain
festivals. But the spirit dance is in order to drive
out the bad spirit. The friends and relatives are
assembled, and a grand celebration is made. I can-
not speak of it from having witnessed the ceremony,

SUPERSTITIONS. 1 05

as it seemed from description to be a thing no Chris-
tian ought to meddle with, — invoking of spirits, and
a great deal of that sort of thing.

A young Mohammedan woman came one day to
invite me to a zikr at her house, and said it would
be very amusing. I was surprised, and said so,
asking who was supposed to be possessed.

" I am," she replied.

" But you do not look ill ; what is the matter with
you?"

She said she had been poorly, and no one could
say why, and that she would like the excitement,
and the dance, and feast, etc. And I saw that
these things were her real motive, or at least went
a great way. Still she was prepared to obey the
horrible custom, which she said was to bring a sheep
and kill it in the court, and as soon as a bowl had
been filled with blood they would bring it to her,
and she was to drink it all oflF at once.

"How can you do such a thing, Fatuma?" I
asked.

" Oh, it is custom, I must do it, and then they
will all dance round me, and clap hands, and chant,
and then at last, by the middle of the night, the feast
will be ready, and we shall eat and be merry, and
by the next day I shall be well."

106 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

I would not go, and thought of the words of
the psalm : " Their drink offerings of blood will I
not offer, nor take up their names into my lips"
(Psalm xvi. 4).

107

LETTER IX.

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN EGYPT.

Egypt is full of slaves. A great deal is written
and said now about the hope that the slave traffic
may be stopped, but this is a much more difficult
thing than people in England have generally any
idea of; there are besides the same difficulties
which took so much time and trouble in the days
of those good men who got the slave-trade abolished
in our colonies, other difficulties which I need not
enter on here : it is enough to say that there is
no Wilberforce to labour and pray for years with
his pious friends in the cause of the poor slaves,
so I fear the time is not very near for their emanci-
pation. Meanwhile, at all events, Egypt is full of
them, as I said before ; the cities, in .particular,
are teeming with negro slaves. In America (in
the Southern States, that is), till the late war, and
long ago in our West Indian Islands, field work
was chiefly done by black slaves working in gangs,

'A

108 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

because white men could not work much in the heat
of such climates. But that is not the case here ; field
labour is mostly done by the " children of the soil,"
and though a negro shepherd or herdsman is some-
times seen, the chief employment of slaves is as
domestic servants. People of moderate fortune
keep at least two or three ; and, I am sorry to say.
Christians quite as much as Moslems. Many who
are in a position of life to do their own work keep
a negress (who does it very imperfectly), and do
nothing themselves. Of course the expense is
great ; really more than hiring a servant, because
there is a large sum paid for the woman at first,
and then she has to be fed and clothed, and
being generally very wasteful, she costs a good deal.
A cook or waiter in an European family will often
keep a slave, and let his wife sit idly smoking a
cigar all day, while this poor creature is dawdling
about over the housework, and touching a broom as
if it burnt her fingers. I have known of drago-
men (or travelling servants) who, when on the river
with English families, have actually persuaded
their employers to allow them to make use of their
boat to bring down a slave boy or girl whom they
wanted to purchase, making the pretext that it
was for the good of the said boy or girl rather than

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN EGYPT. 109

for their own convenience. Very likely the child
would be kindly treated (a good many are so, no
doubt, and sometimes even petted when quite
young) ; but still, if slave trafiSc is a wrong thing,
we ought not to encourage it in any way, and
England, as a nation, has decided that it is a
wrong thing.

Not long ago I was on the river for a few days'
excursion, with friends, and we saw several slave
boats on their way to Cairo. One passed quite
close to our boat, and we were painfully interested
to watch the crowd of black faces that peered
curiously at us from the cranon windows of the
cabin in which they were crammed. Most were
young lads of from twelve to fifteen or so; some
girls seemed to be there also, but it was not easy
to distinguish them. Poor things! they smiled
and grinned at us, and seemed quite amused to see
the white strangers looking at them, but we did
not feel in at all a smiling frame of mind ; it made
our blood boil to think of the amount of cruelty
that must have been used for this one boat-load of
human beings to be dragged from their homes and
penned up like cattle to be sold as if they had no
souls. Surely a day of vengeance will come for
these things I

110 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

But to continue my account of the negroes as
they are in the towns. I do not believe that in
general there is near so much bodily misery and
suffering among them as there was among the
American slave gangs when the planter's object
was just to get as much work done as cheap and
as quickly as he could, so that, if not a humane
man, he fed and clothed them very coarsely, and
had them beaten severely if they failed to work as
steadily as he needed, and where instruction was
not only hindered, but even forbidden for slaves in
several of the States. Here, on the contrary, they
are oftener kindly treated than not, although
there is a great deal of cruelty at times, of course.
I say of course because man is not fit to be trusted
with unlimited power as a rule, and, therefore,
unhappily, it is a matter of course that when
numbers have that power it will be frequently
•abused. One of my family once saw a neighbour
of ours, when we lived in a street in Cairo, actually
stamping upon her slave girl, whom she had first
thrown down on the flat roof of the house : it was a
wonder she did not kill the poor creature in her fury.
But those I see are, as a rule, very well fed and
dressed, often wear handsome ornaments, and appear
to be treated with kindness. Thev are not much

SLAVEBT AS IT IS IN BGTPT. Ill

trusted, as the mistresses if they go out visiting for
any length of time usually take the slave with them
if they have only one, and if they have several leave
a member of the family at home, sometimes a mere
child, rather than leave the slaves with the house
in their sole charge. There are a few who have
proved so honest that they are trusted entirely,
and beloved by the family (in which they have
lived usually from early childhood) like one of its
members, but these are very rare exceptions. So
are the cases when slaves have been instructed,
though there is no law against their learning, and
sotne masters have even sent slave boys to school,
if favourites, while in the establishments of the
great some are taught to read even in two or three
languages. But I never heard of a female being
taught, because it is merely to make them useful
to their masters and mistresses, and among the
thousands of negress slaves here none could be
found who were not in a state of utter ignorance.
A so-called Christian mistress once boasted to
me that she had had her slave baptized on purchas-
ing her, " As many of us do," she added. " Oh, yes;
I took care of that I " " And did you teach her
the meianing of the rite?" I asked. The lady
burst out laughing. " Teach a thing like her 1 they

112 LETTERS FROM EGYPT

are as cattle, those slaves 1 " she exclaimed. The
poor woman was serving us with coffee, and heard
every word. I was much pained, but knew that
ignorance had as much to do with it as deliberate
neglect, and that the mistress only knew the name,
not the reality of Christianity. " Did you never
hear the name of Jesus ? " I asked the negress.
" No, lady, never." " How long has she been here
with you ? " I said, turning to the mistress. " Ten
years." "Ten years, and never heard of Jesus,
and yet baptized I why, dear friend, this is wrong.
Do let me speak a little to her?"

" Willingly, but it's no use, I tell you, they are
cattle."

" Yes, we are cattle," echoed the black, meekly.

" Oh no, no, you are not 1 you have souls just as
we have," I said, and went on to explain, much as I
would to a child of three years, the difference be-
tween man and brutes, and the soul that was made
to live in glory, and added that God wanted her to
believe this, "for God loves you," said I.

This seemed greatly to amaze her. She had
often heard God's name, usually when taken in
vain, and had no distinct knowledge of Bim ; if any
at all, it probably was that He did not care about
slaves, one way or another ; and when I told her of

i

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN EGYPT. 113

Jesns the Holy One loving ns, whether white or

black, and dying for our sins, the tears came into

her eyes. I cannot suppose she understood all I

tried to tell her, for the untaught mind is very slow

to take new ideas, and I spoke as a foreigner ; still

something found its way into that poor sou] which

made the tears come forth, and she blessed and

thanked me when I went away. Her mistress went

to Uve with a married daughter afterwards, and I

could not trace her. She fell into difficulties, I

think, and very likely the slave was sold, for this

is the first thing when money is short. But God

knows all about her. We must remember to whom

little is given from him will little be required.

Sometimes a slave runs away from ill-treatment,

and in this case, if a boy or man, he is made a

soldier, or a servant to the army if not able-bodied

enough for fighting : they do not like this, for they

are not accustomed to exposure and hard living, and

a great number of such recruits died two years ago

when the army was being prepared for the war in

Abyssinia.

The women now-a-days are taken by the police^

and sometimes allowed to hire themselves out as

servants on making declaration of ill-treatment ;

but a great number are taken back by their owners,

8

114 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

who have various ways of bribing and persuading
the officials.

I daresay you, who only now and then see a negro
in the streets, fancy that they all look neariy alike,
but in fact they belong to a great variety of tribes,
and are different in feature, though in the same
style. Some are as black as soot, or the blackest of
black ink ; others have a slight reddish-brown shade
on the cheek bones and forehead ; some have toler-
ably straight, though flattened, noses, and large soft
eyes, and a mouth only thick-lipped, but not pro-
truding strongly. Others again (and I own they
are the most numerous) seem hardly to possess a
nose, properly speaking, but only nostrils, and have
the whole lower half of the face and jawbones very
forward and large, while the forehead is retreating
and small ; the eyes generally small in this type,
and the mouth exceedingly large and coarse. I
have been told that these come from Darfur, if
they are large and strongly built especially. I have
seen a negress who was six feet at least, and big in
proportion, and when she shouldered her mistress's
baby, the effect was droll. But a larger number
have the features I have described, with a rather
short figure, and a tendency to grow fat very early:
when well-fed, negresses seem much disposed to

fc

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN BGYPT. 115

stoutness in this conntry. Some are brought from
almost unknown tribes far away in the middle of
Africa, and I have seen specimens who really looked
complete savages, just arrived by boat from the
upper provinces (their own country being very much
beyond that again). The wild, stupefied expression
of face showed these poor creatures to be below
feeling curiosity at the new things that surrounded
them, as they walked after their owner, or the per-
son who was going to sell them — ^half-naked, and
their black skin shining with rancid grease, and
their woolly locks twisted into tight little plaits a few
inches long. It is an undoubted fact that occasion-
ally, though but rarely, a woman from a cannibal
tribe has been brought up to Cairo without the
knowledge of the agent or purchaser. I have heard,
on good authority, of one who devoured her master's
baby. The mother was very foolish to put her child
into the hands of a complete savage.

The people here all believe^ at any rate, that
cannibal tribes exist in the centre of Africa, and
that now and then one "turns up," although it
may be very rare. In general negroes of all tribes
are kind to children, and very fond of them ; and
if a little one is injured, it is a thousand or ten
thousand to one that it was from the slave's

116 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

ignorance and stupidity, and not from a wish to
dine upon it.

But I think you will agree with me that it is a
proof of the tUter badness of the whole system of
slavery, that in spite of the possibility of finding a
new purchase turn out a cannibal, and the certainty
that she will be a completely wild savage, mistresses
almost always prefer buying one of these newly im-
ported negresses to taking one who has been long in
other families, though she will have learned to cook
and wash, etc. This is the best answer to those
who tell us it is better for them to be slaves here
than to stay in their own country, " because," as a
friend once said who had been persuaded by the
dragoman into letting him bring down black boys
to rear up as slaves, "they learn some good, at
least." It seems, however, that they learn stealing,
and a variety of other bad things ; so that a raw
savage is thought preferable by most employers.
Can anything be said in favour of this abominable
system after this fact ?

When, as sometimes happens, several ladies come
to one of our meetings, or even merely as a visit,
and bring slaves, I endeavour to say something
special for these poor women, but those who have
not been brought up in the country know Arabic

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN EGYPT. 117

very imperfectly, and cannot follow enough to get
much good ; others know it well, and have nearly
forgotten their own tongue, indeed.

At our meeting last year (just before going for a
visit to England), an elderly slave woman was so
much affected by what she heard, that while I was
praying, a lady present saw the tears trickling down
her wrinkled black face, and she bent eagerly for-
ward to hear the " good words," as she said.

An instance of the love of Him who is able to
save to the uttermost all who come to Him, through
Christ, happened some years ago, when two nice
little boys attended my school, and, like all our
scholars, had the Bible to study. All do not profit
alike, however, and as children are naturally fall of
play on leaving school, I was much struck with
what I was told of these children reading from the
New Testament to an old negress who had brought
them up and was much attached to them. It seems
this woman was in feeble health, and her great
delight was to listen to what her young favourites
read to her on their return from school, and they
often spent some time by her bed thus employed
instead of playing, which I think showed there was
both love and religious feeling in them. When
after some months the old woman became worse,

118 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

and was evidently near death, some Moslem slaves,
who were her friends, offered to fetch the Mollah,
who is the person somewhat answering to a minister,
though not exactly, and who reads from their Koran
to dying persons. She refased, however ; and when
they urged her strongly, she replied (her master,
who was of the Christian persuasion, overheard it),
" No, no, I want no one but Him whom the boys
tell me about ; the boys' Saviour is my Saviour."
And in that faith the poor slave died. Surely the
Lord accepted the soul which was thus brought to
touch the hem of BKs garment, as it were, by a little
child.

It is a great mistake to suppose that slaves do
more work than free persons ; it is quite ridiculous
to see how many of them are often kept in great
houses here, and how little they do compared with
what (yught to be done, and might be easily done
with a third of the number. I remember once
counting ten women in the kitchen of a rich Coptic
family ; all were negress slaves, and I heard there
were several more beside, men servants ; yet the
kitclien was untidy and dirty, and most of them
were squatting on the ground doing nothing. The
stairs were imperfectly swept, and though the lady
was in a splendidly-fornished room, and dressed, in

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN EGYPT. 119

a beautiful muslin with diamonds and other jewels,
I could not help seeing a pair of ragged old
slippers and an old man's cap peeping from under
a gilded sofa, orange peel and crusts of bread in
a comer, and rubbish dust in little heaps, as if
just kicked out of the way, instead of being cleanly
swept I I do not mean that all are alike, but this
was by no means an exception. They cannot have
the energy which is given by the feeling that one
is earning wages, and that by want of diligence
one may be sent away and be without a livelihood.
Treated like unreasoning creatures, they act like
such, and only try to do as little and eat as much
as they can, and are generally very wastefdl, and
the exceptions only go to prove the rule. Great
numbers never live to see middle age, either from
the climate of Egypt not being hot enough for
those who come from a region still hotter, or else
because they have less power of resisting disease
than persons of lighter colour ; though frequently
having great muscular strength, they soon fall a
prey to epidemic maladies, especially such as small
pox, etc. Fresh troops of these poor people are
therefore constantly being brought into the country,
either stolen from their homes or seized in war,
and the infamous dealers in human flesh aire always

120 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

in fiill employment, though there are no longer
open slave markets to be seen. Large under-
ground places like vaults for merchandise are said
to be made use of for keeping the new arrivals in
till disposed of; others are sold at Khartoum, a
town of importance, and the capital of Nubia,
and thence brought down and re-sold in Cairo or
Alexandria. As a rule (of course not without
exceptions) negroes are inferior in power of mind
to white races, and are not nearly so quick in book
learning ; the girls are not so clever in needlework
and embroidery as Egyptians, but do well in house
work if properly trained. Almost all are naturally
conceited, and therefore are very easily spoiled;
some of the little negroes in great and rich families,
who are much indulged, are perfectly unbearable
from conceit. Slavery does not give a humble
disposition or a right estimate of oneself ; quite the
contrary : it brings out everything that is bad in
man's heart ; but as a race I think conceit is a
prominent and common fault with them. We
must hope that the noble Christian men who are
braving an unhealthy climate, and many dangers
besides, to bring the gospel into the negro's own
country, will find a reward, and that they will
rise rapidly, as those nations can who have the

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN EGYPT. 121

Bible among them. Meanwhile, the best to be
done for the individuals who can be by any means
preed^ but who dwell far from their own land, is,
if they are young enough to learn, to give them a
good but simple education, and fit them to take
an honourable place among the peasants or ar-
tisans of the land, and if girls, to be good, useful,
and respected servants till they marry, unless any
boy or girl should show capacity above the rest,
so as to be fit for the position of teacher, etc.
The remark made by natives here of the negroes
is this : If good they are very good, and if bad very
bad ; and as far as my experience goes I think it
is generally true. There are some slaves from
Abyssinia in Egypt, but they are few compared
to the negroes ; the • Berbers and Nubians (who
are all brown, or coffee-coloured, but not black) are
very numerous in the cities ; they are, however, not
slaves for the most part, but free hired servants..
There are a good many freed negroes, also, who have
been set at liberty (or their fathers) by great men,
either at their death or on some peculiar occasion,
but they are rarely met with in good positions,
being very idle. Besides the black races who dwell
in bondage in Egypt, there are a great many white
slaves; most of these belong to Turks residing

122 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

here, though some belong to Egyptian Moslems.
These are not only purchased to fill the palaces
of the nobles with secondary wives (as their detest-
able custom permits), though this is the principal
object for which the traffic is carried on, but they
are also brought to act as upper servants, and
often half-servant, half-companion to the great
ladies. "You hire ladies'-maids in England, I
believe; we buy ours,'' said a noble lady to me
one day, pointing as she spoke, with a very satis-
fied smile, to a row of young women smartly
dressed, who stood with folded arms at the end of
the large room, doing nothing, but ready to bring
their mistress a light for her cigar, or a glass of
water, or a handkerchief, if wanted. One would
have performed these mild duties alone with ease,
but they like show, and the white slaves generally
stand all in a row when visitors call. They at
other times make clothes for their lady and them-
selves, dust ftirniture, make delicate dishes of
cookery, and receive guests, folding their outer
mantles, etc. But coffee is made by the black
women, and all sorts of rough work also are done
by them, so that the white slave has usually an
easy life, and fares luxuriously every day. Still, it
is the life of a canary-bird rather than of a rational

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN EGYPT. 123

•

being; the cage is gilt, indeed, but it is a cage.
Some of these purchased lady's maids are given
in marriage to favourites of their lady's husband,
and a good-natured mistress is said to ask a slave,
whom she specially approves, if she would like to
be married, as in that case a match shall be found
for her. Others, who have become middle-aged
in one family, and have been brought up in it
from childhood, prefer remaining as they are, and
often act as a sort of matron to train new pur-
chases, and to superintend the negress cooks.

I do not say these women are as a rule unhappy ;
the crying injustice of being bought like cattle
does not strike them, shut up as they are, and
most have been taken too young to recollect and
regret the lost family ; still they have generally a
duU, vacant expression, nnless excited by anything,
and are apt to be very selfish, as one might expect
indeed. There are often quarrels and jealousies,
as is generally the case when a number of women are
shut up together with little to do. And any who
have been old enough to remember a home, what
must it be to them ? Many years ago, a friend took
me to see the family of a wealthy Turk resident
here whom she was acquainted with, and as we
could then only speak a very little Arabic, and no

124 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

Turkish, the master of the house accompanied us
to his wife's apartment to interpret for us, as he
spoke French. The lady was a very sweet-looking
woman, and I do not think could have been un-
kind to her slaves, but one of them looked very
unhappy ; the master called our attention to her,
observing that we ought to look at that girl, whom
he had bought for a present to his wife recently,
"because she is," said he, "so very like some
of your country-women" (he had been both in
France and. in England, it seemed). " She is from
some mountain tribe," he added, " I do not exactly
know from what place, and was taken in battle."
Poor girl I she turned red when pointed at, and
hung down her head for a minute, and then looked
up and tossed it with a haughty air ; yet not really
haughty, rather as if she would say, " I want to be
free, and I ought to be free ! " She seemed about
fifteen, and really was extremely English-looking,
with her light auburn hair, and blue eyes, and tall
figure. I so often thought of her, and wished I
could have helped her in any way. Probably it
was only one case among many.

I cannot say much about the others — ^the num-
bers who are in the miserable plight of being in
a wife's position without her rights or privileges.

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN EGYPT. 125

I need only say that the humblest Eaglish matron
who ever wore a wedding-ring need not wish to
change places with such, though they are covered
with gold and jewels, and waited on like a princess,
which if a favourite is often the case. The hard-
working single woman, who belongs only to God
and herself, holds in reality a higher position than
the richest and fairest of these white slaves, dwell-
ing as in a cage behind the mysterious-looking
curtain that hangs before the entrance to the
female portion of all great houses in the East,
which apartments are called " Hareem," meaning,
the forbidden. This abode is guarded by black
slave men, similar to those alluded to in Scripture
(Daniel and Esther, and other Books). No other
man but the master can go into this part of the
house. Royal personages and wealthy pachas have
immense palaces, where two or three hundred white
slaves reside, and two or three of these expensive
establishments. The law of Mohammedans allows
them four legal wives, but few have more than
two or three, even among great men (the poor^
but one) ; each wife wiU have several white slaves
of her own, so that altogether the number is very
considerable. These poor young women chiefly
come from countries near the Caucasus Mountains

126 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

— Georgia and Circassia. The Circassians, whose
name is familiar to every one from the savage con-
duct of the Circassian irregular troops in the late
war, are a fierce, warlike people, and must have
peculiar hardness about their nature, as for cen-
turies they have (many among them, that is) had
the habit of selling their little daughters to Turkish
slave-dealers. I cannot learn that the other mountain
tribes sell their children, unless driven to despera-
tion in times of grievous famine ; but Circassians
think it as good for their children as for them-
selves, and deliberately part with them in this way.

" We are better off here," said a little Circassian
slave to an English lady I knew. " Our mothers
are very poor, and could only give us hard fare
and bad clothing ; here we have nice food and
pretty dresses and jewels." I thought, on hearing
this remark, "How little, my poor child, do you
know of a mother's love ! " Who that knows it would
think dainty food and jewels worth more, and how
hard must be the heart that sends away her little
one for gold I However I do not suppose all Circas-
sian mothers do so; many children are doubtless
stolen, as they always are from Georgia, it appears.

Both these races are celebrated for good looks ;
not that all Circassian women are beauties. I

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN EGYPT. 127

have seen a great many who had nothing except
a fair skin that was particularly remarkable; but
others are extremely handsome, and the type (or
style of face) resembles the English more than any
other. The Circassian women have in general fine
hair of an auburn or light brown, and grey or
brown eyes, with a white skin; Georgians are
generally dark-eyed, with dark brown hair, but fair
complexion also. They are alike in being naturally
intelligent, but are stupefied by their false and
unnatural position in life, and by idleness and
luxuriant habits. All are brought up as Moham-
medans, of course, and learn Turkish and Arabic
so ea,rly that they forget their own languages.
Some few learn (if they are favourites in the family)
with their little mistresses, in the palaces of great
pachas, who latterly have adopted the custom of
bringing an European teacher to give some instruc-
tion in French and music to their daughters ; they
would in such cases learn to read in Turkish from
a master. But a mere outside teaching — ^where the
heart and soul are left out, and where the instruc-
tion stops altogether at the age when we think
girls are just beginning to profit by what they
learn — does not change or improve the character
much. It is better than nothing; but it is sur-

128 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

prising how few seem to care to keep up the little
they know. The girl I told you of who was glad
her parents had sold her because of the fine clothes
and nice things she obtained, was one of those who
had a little education ; but being able to play a
few tunes on the piano, and read tolerably in two
languages, or even three, does very little good if
the mind is still so uncultivated that there is no
wish for instruction.

The being from infancy deprived of all relations,
all family life, has a very bad effect on the dis-
position. We know that in the case of poor orphans
in England, who are reared in schools, the want
of family and home often hinders their developing
in many ways as well as other young people, and
that "cottage homes" for these little strays are
found to answer better. But the poor little white
slave children have not the wholesome discipline of
a school ; and the hareem life, from what I know
of it, is, I should think, the worst possible training.
Luxurious without comfort, irregular though profuse
in everything, surrounded by women accustomed ta
look out each for herself, and with neither parents,
sister, brother, aunts, or any one belonging to them,
it is no wonder if they are generally selfish and
devoted to dress, eating, and all the lower pleasures.

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN EGYPT. 129

The exceptions must have remarkably amiable dis-
positions, and such there are among them, as I can
testify.

" I never knew what family love meant tiU my
little boy was born, because I never had any one
that belonged to me," said a sweet young woman
to me one day, who is more fortunate than most
white slaves in her lot, being married to a worthy
man, and his sole wife, respected as well as loved.
But she had evidently felt the strange loneliness
of heart of being a solitary one among hundreds
brought up by royalty and petted from a child, .
beautifol and wealthy ; still the heart had yearned
after something, it knew not what ; and when after
her little son's arrival she tasted the joy of mother's
love, she then xmderstood what it was she had been
vaguely longing for. " There are," she said, " so
many hundreds like me, who have never known
parents, brother, or sister, or any relative at all;"
and there was a look in the lovely wistful eyes, as
if she would say, " There is surely something wrong
somewhere ; it ought not to be so /"

I know two white slaves who were purchased
years ago by a rich merchant as wives for his two
sons, and brought here from Constantinople. They

reside in Cairo, and the two little girls of the two

9

130 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

brothers have for some time come to my school,
and I often visit the mothers, who are very pleasant
and gentle in their manners, and so cleanly and
nice in dress and habits that they are a contrast
to some of their neighbours ; for Turkish families,
and those brought up in them, are much more
cleanly than Egyptians; and it is right to' give
credit to everyone for what they deserve.

Well, I one day asked one of my friends if she
could recollect anything about her childhood, or if
she had been too young when sold, as is often the
case. " Oh I I recollect very well," she said, "I was
about so high," holding her hand at the height of
a child of from five to seven years old. "My father
had been killed in some battle, and my . mother
had soon followed him. I was reared by an old
grandmother, from whom I used to hear this. She
was partly blind, and therefore could not, I suppose,
watch me carefully enough. I was at play at our
door one day in the street, and a strange man came
near and held out his hand with some sweetmeats,
which he offered me. Child-like, I accepted them,
and he then said, beckoning me on, that he had
some more and prettier ones just down the street
a little farther. So I went, fearing nothing ; and
as we turned the corner, suddenly he covered my

I

SLAVERY AS rr IS IN EGYPT. 131

face and flung me on a horse and galloped off, and
I recollect no more — I was so frightened. It is
all dark till I see myself again in a great city,
jnst arriving, and afterwards knew that this was
Stambonl (Stamboul is the Turk's name for Con-
stantinople, as I daresay you know). When there,
I was bought by an old Turkish lady, who was
kind enough, and had me taught to sew and
embroider ; but when I was still young she died,
and her heirs sold me with her property, and my
husband's father purchased me. A great many
children in our countries are stolen by means of
sugar-plums," she added ; " it is a common trick ;
there are men who go about on purpose, as I have
heard." She does not know whether her country
is Georgia or Circassia, or some province near these
regions; but her face is like the Georgian style,
being fair, with dark eyes and hair.

We often see men of the Circassian race (who
are Mohammedans) on their way to Mecca as
pilgrims ; they do not stay long in Cairo, as they
go on to Suez to take ship for Arabia (Mecca
being the holy city of the Mohammedans, which
they visit as a religious act, if possible, at least
once in their lives). During the short stay of the
various pilgrims, we see many from distant lands.

132 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

and, as I said, Circassians among them. Many of
these men have a cast of feature and complexion
strongly reminding one of Englishmen, though I
think in general they are shorter in stature than
is usual with well-grown Englishmen. But what
a difference in countenance and expression ! — such
fierce, wild, cruel-looking fellows too many are,
and stalk about the streets With a ferocious look,
which does not make one desire their acquaintance,
and generally a hand is resting on the great belt
they wear, in a suspicious manner, this belt being
literally stuffed with knives, daggers, and pistols
of various kinds. And yet, when we see the
complexion and features so like what we are
accustomed to see at home, how strongly comes
the thought, Who made us to differ? If it were
not for God's grace and an open Bible, we might
be bloodthirsty ruffians like them. There are, alas !
bad and ruffianly men in England as elsewhere to
be found ; but, thank God, we are not a nation of
cut-throats or child-sellers — there is "salt" among
us. But let us beware; if England ever gives up the
Bible, the salt will lose its savour, and then is only
fit to be trodden under foot, as the Scripture says.

Let us pray to be kept by God's power and
mercy from letting go our title-deeds to forgive-

SLAVERY AS IT IS IN EGYPT. 133

ness and eternal life ; and let us also pray for
those who are in bondage, of whatever kind, that
many among them may be gathered into the fold
and made free in Christ ; and let us not forget to
pray that the Lord may soon come again, to receive
the glory of a renewed world and reign Prince of
peace, putting down the oppressor and the tyrant —
when Jerusalem as the centre of the earth is puri-
fied and sanctified — ^when "the streets are full of
boys and giils playing in the streets thereof. '
Oh I then will be no more the cruel steialing of
poor innocent little ones. They may play safely
and fear nothing ; for then shall the " crooked be
made straight and the rough places plain."

134

LETTER X.

THE VILLAGE.

The cultivators of the ground, who, as well as
keepers of cattle, are usually called Fellaheen
(Fellah, the accent on the last syllable, being the
word in the singular) inhabit the villages strewn
over the great plain of Egypt ; a solitary hut or
cottage is not to be seen; all are gathered into
villages, and the " country," as we say in England,
in contrast to town, is by citizens here generally
spoken of as the peasants', or "farmers' country."
The dress and habits are more different from
those of the town than in many other places,
partly because the peasants cling much more to
old ways .The cultivator, even if quite wealthy, has
the same style of garment as the labourers, only
better in quality and more abundant ; and his wife
wears the same ample checked blue mantle, with
its fringed border, as her poorer neighbour, only
that it is good and strong, and bordered with

THE VILLAGE. 135

crimson silk^ and conceals a gold necklace and
earrings within its folds.

The wealthy cultivator does not inhabit a mere
hut such as I described in teUing you of the habi-
tations of the poor. In most of the larger villages
are found from one or two to perhaps eight or
ten houses of a better description, composed of two
courts or yards one within the other, with open
rooms, or rather sheds, just roofed over with rough
beams, or more frequently reeds; in one of these
cattle are housed at night, in another the people
carry on all the work that is not done in the open
court, or if it be so windy as to make a little
shelter desirable.

Shelling beans, husking maize, sifting wheat,
grinding flour, which in the country is usually by
a handmill, and all cooking, is carried on either in
the yard or the sheds, which are sometimes of a
considerable size, in other houses small, accord-
ing to the owner's means. In all a sort of raised
seat is found in one of the sheds, which is called
the salamlik ; this is the room where men guests
are received, they are never taken into the inner
rooms, which belong to the women. On this raised
seat, or ledge^ for it is nothing more than a stone
or. brick ledge, is spread a carpet or mat, when

136 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

guests come, and there they smoke and drink coffee,
and I have seen carpets of great beauty and value
from Persia or Damascus brought out on these
occasions, in houses of a very humble appearance,
and with scarcely any furniture. The inner rooms
are one, two, or three little dens, without windows,
and with low doors, dark and close therefore, used
for sleeping in cold weather, and for keeping any-
thing of value, as they have a lock. From these
receptacles are brought out the carpets mentioned,
which are rolled up carefully, the brass cooking
utensils used on occasion of a feast, and the hard-
stuffed pillows, that answer instead of chairs, being
placed for the guest to lean his back or arm on,
as he sits upon the carpet. In a farmer's house
where I was visiting on the banks of the Nile,
the good woman remarking I must be tired,
having walked some way, obligingly went into her
inner room and fetched a pillow or cushion of a
peculiar shape, covered with the hide of a calf, with
the hair on ; it was extremely comfortable on a
rather cold winter day; it was only stuffed with
straw, and was home-made, but I thought it in-
genious. Most rich farmers' wives have in this
same den a good-sized box painted green, and
ornamented with brass; this is sometimes called

THE VILLAGE. 137

a bride's box, as every country woman brings one
to contain her clothes and little treasures when she
marries, and many contain handsome sets of gold
jewels, though in general these are worn constantly
by the possessor, and not kept for " high days "
only. I do not say I approve of women spending
much on gold and jewels to put on, and it looks very
much out of place to see, as one does in this country,
gold coins hung round the neck when the dress
is both dirty and torn. But we cannot look on it,
as we should in England, as a mere love of finery,
for the jewels are all the woman can lawfully keep
if she be divorced, as the wretched law of the
Moslems allows, for anything or nothing^ so that
but for some of these gold things, many a poor
creature would go forth to starve. The Christian
Egyptian cannot be treated in this way, but if
left a widow, the law permits her husband's
brothers, and father, if living, to take most of the
property, to the exclusion of the children, at least
only allowing them a small share, and the widow
a still smaller. So her necklace is often her only
bank, for whatever is on her person they cannot
touch. I know more than formerly now about
those passages in Scripture speaking of the
^^ cause ^^ of the widow and fatherless, since I

138 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

have learned how such are pushed out of their
little possessions in the East^ and how little the
law protects them.

But to return to the farmers' dwellings. The
country houses, as well as huts of the poor, have
still in most cases the old wooden lock and key,
which, when I first was in Egypt, was the only
one ever seen, except in European houses ; the
hired house in which I lived, in a native quarter,
had a key a foot long, I remember. Now Euro-
pean keys are gradually coming into use, but the
old kind, though very clumsy, have an interest in
our minds, because it is evident they are the keys
alluded to in the Bible, when Isaiah the prophet
says, "The key I will lay on his shoulder;" it
would be almost absurd to think of one of our
little keys laid as a weight on a man's shoulder,
but a great heavy wooden thing might be put there,
as in the East everything is carried either on the
shoulder or head that can by any means be put
there. The wooden key has notches to fit the corres-
ponding ones in the lock, and are very fidgety and
troublesome to open for those not long used to them.

Village dwellings near the river are generally
surrounded by a palm grove, and some have two
or three palms planted in their yards; not unfre-

THE VILLAGE.

139

quently a palm-tree is used as one of the posts
of the doorway. The light shade thus given is
very pleasant in the fine winter weather, of Egypt.
Now and then a house belonging to a great man,
and occupied by his agent (or by his family now
and then for a change), will be seen in a village
distinguished by whitewashed walls and glass
windows ; though these are generally very primitive
inside, and built only of mud brick. A curious
addition to most villages is the Egyptian pigeon-
house, which is quite original. It consists of a
great number of rude earthen pots, built into a
mud wall, in the form of a dame^ or little tower ;
in this the birds make their nests, and it is very
singular to watch them aU coming out of their
jars in a flock, and flying off to seek food, and again
returning at night, and each knowing its own place
" They shall fly as doves to their windows," pro-
bably alluded to some such kind of pigeon-house.
I have already told you about the huts of the
poor people, who of course are the most numerous,
and which resemble those in the suburbs of towns
and inside the towns also, in some quarters. Many
small hamlets consist of nothing but a cluster of
such miserable huts as those, but in the larger vil-
lages there will be usually found some people who

140 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

are well off. A large tree is very often found near
the middle of a village, where the men assemble to
chat of an evening, as is the case in European villages.
The favourite tree is either a sycamore-fig, or a mul-
berry, both of which grow to immense size.

The countryman has plenty to do during the chief
part of the year, and gets through a great deal on
very frugal fare. If taxed only in moderation, and
not allowed to be fleeced by under officials, acting
like the " publicans " or taxgatherers in our Lord's
time in Judea, who robbed the people to fill their
own purses, the peasant would have enough for
his simple wants, and none need suffer, because the
land is so fertile, and brings either two or three
successive crops in a year. Ploughing is done by
oxen or buffaloes, as is the threshing or treading
out of the corn. For this business a man sits in a
sort of wooden chair without legs, and with some
simple machinery under it, which crushes the com
as the oxen draw it about on a space of hard beaten
earth ; the feet of the animals and the machine
together knock out the grains. Winnomng is done
with a shovel, tossing up the corn on a breezy day.
They leave the grain out in heaps till it is sold, the
climate being so dry.

The cattle form a great part of the peasant's

THE VILLAGE. 141

wealth, and are of various kinds. The Egjrptian
cow is large, and capable of working, and both
cows and oxen are nsed in the water-works, etc.
But buffaloes are more numerous, being cheaper
to keep and very strong, besides giving a greater
quantity of mUk, though the butter is not equal
to cow's butter, nor will it keep fresh so long.
The Egyptian buffalo is larger than the cow, and
is rather an unwieldly creature to look at, of a
dark-grey colour, with scanty rough hair on the
skin, and huge horns, and projecting bones on
its back ; but it is generally of a very gentle dis-
position, and is frequently ridden by the children
of its owner when going to and from pasture,
and a buffalo calf is constantly to be seen at the
door of a hut with the baby playing beside it.
In the lower lands the buffalo does particularly
well, as it delights in water, and is seen in the time
of inundation swimming across the canals or the
river (often with a man on its back), or wading in
pools up to its great horns, giving occasional puffs
of satisfaction at the bath. A great many goats
are also kept. There are two or three varieties, but
the conmionest is a kind with rather short hair,
usually brown or chesnut, marked with white, and
many of which are hornless, the he goats almost

142 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

always so. A long-haired goat is not uncommon
however, black or white. Sheep are very often
brown, or white with a black neck and head. Great
flocks of goats and sheep are to be seen on the
banks of the river or by the canals ; in wann
weather they come from a distance to drink, the
pools being then dry, and it is very pretty to see
them resting in the shade of a tree in the heat of
the day, and recalls the words of Scripture in the
Song of Solomon, where the Church of Christ is
represented under the figure of a shepherd's bride
seeking the bridegroom, — " Tell me, thou whom
my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou
makest thy flock to rest at noon."

The arable land is not in Egypt divided by hedges,
as in England ; measurement is the only thing to
decide the limits of the different fields, though of
course trees, canals, etc., serve as landmarks to the
eye. The measurement is made by a reed of a
certain length, and in writing of deeds and leases
it is always said so many " reed lengths." I was
struck years ago by first seeing a man measuring
ground in this way ; he had a long smooth reed of
the kind before described in his hand, and laid it
down and lifted it up, making a running leap with
great dexterity, and thus went on springing from

144 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

little hamlet, with occasionally a tent of ragged
goats' hair, though these last more properly belong
to the wandering Bedouins. I have often visited
colonies of this kind; one visit which had much
interest connected with it was in the winter of 1877.
The Nile overflow had been very low that autumn,
and much distress was the consequence, especially
on some of the districts depending only on the riverr
flow for watering. This was the case with the poor
little colony of Bedouins. Their land was usually
just sufficient to provide corn for their bread, and
fodder for their few goats and camels, but not a
single ear of wheat would grow for want of the
water, and they had only existed by selling from
time to time a goat or a camel, and living on the
com bought with its price as long as they could.
As to clothes, all they had were in rags, and several
of the children had none at all. The reed enclosures^
with three or four tiny round mud huts, were all
their habitations — five or six families I think there
were. We bought some eggs of the poor women,
and paid a little extra to help them, — the more
willingly that they did not clamour for money as
so many do in the villages where Europeans are
often seen. I do not think these poor Bedouins
had ever seen a visitor in their miserable little

^

THE VILLAGE. 145

abode before ; they were greatly surprised evidently,
but very civilly asked us, not to " come in " exactly —
for unless we crawled on hands and knees we could
not have done so — ^but to sit down in their enclo-
sure of reeds, which kept off a little of the high
wind and the clouds of dust which it brought, and
one kindly offered her husband's goats' hair cloak
^s a seat ; but it was not inviting, and with many
thanks I said I preferred the sand. The men of the
company were going to join some companions in an
expedition for selling one of their remaining goats,
and some of our party had gone on to a much
larger village a little way off, so that I was left
alone with the women, about six of whom, with a
few children, sat in a circle round me, and after a
little talk in order to introduce the subject and
make friends with them, I asked if they would
listen while I read something out of God's Word.
"You know how to read, then?" asked an old
woman; "but your book is, I suppose, in Frank
language ? " (meaning some European tongue).
"No, it is Arabic." "Well, that is wonderful,"
said she; " read and let us hear." I was in my
turn surprised to. find so much intelligence and
intellect in women whose outward appearance was

so low and wretched. The little that peeped above

10

THE VILLAGE. 143

measure to measure quickly, yet as it seemed ac-
curately. Another man accompanied him, walking
behind, — at a much slower pace, however. Perhaps
you may recollect, in the measuring of Ezekiel's
temple (in the fortieth chapter of Ezekiel), the reed
of six cubits long and the height and breadth of
different parts being said to be "one reed." So this
is one among the many things that remain un-
changed from the old days. A yet more interesting
reference is to that verse in Revelation where John
says the angel that talked with him " had a golden
reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and
the wall thereof" (Rev. xxi. 18).

Those villages which are near the desert have
usually a fence of these same reeds upon the side
exposed to the high winds and drifting sand of the
desert, which would injure the crops. Some Be-
douin families, descendants of the wandering Arab
tribes who had land given them to induce them to
settle, by Government, a good many years ago, make
huts of reeds, sometimes a sort of square "wigwam,'*
sometimes a mere inclosure, without any roof, and
in these poor abodes they actually live, except for
a short time in winter, when they sleep in the little
round mud hovels with a hole for a door, of which
a few added to the reed dwellings make up their

148 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

beautiful green clover; in early spring the same^
with its white flowers ; in summer, chopped straw,
in huge panniers of netting slung over camels'
backs, or in boats piled up with the same, if on the
river side. These men are generally fine and sturdy
looking; their swarthy complexions, which do not
suit European dress, look very well in their own
white turbans, with great mantles of either white
or brown, or of a dark blackish-purple colour,
hanging over their shoulders, and their feet bare.
Sometimes you see a man carrying a pair of nice red
or yellow leather shoes over his shoulder by a string,
to put on when he is in the market with his friends,
but he walks better barefoot when he has some
distance to come.

While he is busy with the sheep and goats, the
com and maize and red lentils, the fodder and the
calves, etc., his wife and daughters have joined the
crowd of countrywomen who are chattering, as
women are apt to do at market in any country.
They have put on their best clothes, if not too poor,
as are very many, to possess any but the ragged
blue garment and veil they wear. Those who can,
however, appear in flowing veils of thin black
muslin, or sometimes, though not so often, in light

blue, with dark purple or blue dress, hanging loose

THE VILLAGE* 149

without belt or sash, and with long wide sleeves,
which, thrown back, display the massive silver
bracelets, and the necklace of gold coins, or curious
gold ornaments shaped like little fish (often very
old, having come down from mother to daughter),
or gold and coral beads. Some have, instead, a
circle of plain bright silver, as thick as a woman's
little finger, round the neck. Some wear — ^what is
never seen in the city, unless on a countrywoman
passing by — a nose ring. In some villages they
are very much worn ; in others, only here and there
a woman wiU wear one. This ornament, which to
our taste is not becoming, and must be exceedingly
inconvenient, one would suppose, is of great antiquity,
and appears formerly to have been worn in Pales-
tine, though now not often met with there.

The dark blue of the dress is from the durableness
of the indigo dye, which makes it more suitable for
those who work in the fields than the gay prints
worn in the cities. Many of the peasant women
still wear strong native linen, instead of cotton,
dyed of a purplish or deep blue colour ; and most,
who can afford it, have a long crimson silk cord,
with large tassels, fastened to the plaits of their hair,
hanging down behind ; it does not seem of any use,

but they like it, and I must say it is both prettier to

150 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

look at, and mucli more cleanly, than the detestable
bunches of false hair which many yonng women wore
not so long ago, or than a good many articles of tawdry
vulgar finery on which money is wasted among us.

Almost every woman comes into market with a
load on her head of some kind, — either a pitcher of
sour milk, or a skin of the same, with lumps of
butter in it, or a basket of eggs or fowls, cheese or
dates, leeks or onions, or any vegetables in season.
There is little except provisions of a conmion kind,
cattle, etc., and a few coloured prints, and pieces of
unbleached calico, thread, etc., sold in the market ;
scarcely anything of show or luxury, unless it be a
few tiny looking-glasses, and clumsy combs, and red
handkerchiefs in a comer. It is only of late years
that a few plates and dishes are occasionally found
in the houses of the wealthier farmers ; the coarse
red pottery of the country, made in a sort of pan,
being the only earthen vessels in most village
dwellings, and even these not numerous.

I recollect being once oflTered some bread and milk
in a pan of this kind by a friendly peasant woman,
who was quite hurt that I should not eat with her
(when paying a rather early visit). It was on the
banks of the Nile, in a large village. She was very
well off for cows and goats, etc., but had not such

THE VILLAGE. 151

a thing as a cup or bowl in her honse, nor pan of
moderate size, only the huge one which the family
sat round and ate from together at supper, I suppose.
I picked out a morsel or two to gratify her, but
thought it an odd way of taking bread and milk,
with neither spoon nor cup.

I used to wonder in those early days how they
drank, till I saw them lift a pitcher of considerable
weight (though much smaller than that carried on
the head to brinff water) ^nA.pour the draught from
a height into their throats. I tried to do the same,
but early habit being wanting, I only succeeded in
watering my clothes plentifully, without getting
more than a drop or two in the right direction.

The countrywomen are by no means as carefully
veiled as the townspeople, and a great many of the
poorer ones have no face-covering at all ; but if
they have to speak to a man, most will draw the
muslin veil across the mouth and nose, holdmg it
with one hand, or in the teeth, if both hands are
busy weighing cheese or dates. Those who are in
what they think proper full dress, have the black
face-veil I described before, but you see very few of
these in the villages. They are freer in their ways,
and less afraid of mixing with men in the way of
business than townspeople ; but still keep much

152 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

more distant than is thought necessary in Euro-
pean countries.

Though Egyptians are naturally good-natured,
and very hospitable, it is impossible for any stranger
to get a lodging in a village,* because the habits of
the people do not allow the women of the family to
see or admit any one. If a friend comes to see a
villager, he is received in the room I described as
the salamlik, if in a rich peasant's house ; if not,
under a tree, where a carpet or mat is spread. A
lady can, however, gain an entrance much more
easily, of course, and though in soTtie villages (either
from the bigoted character of the people, or from
their shdkk, or head man, being of a superstitious
nature, and disliking Christians), it would be very
difficult to get on friendly terms, yet these I have
found to be few compared with those in which I
was received with friendly and cordial kindness.

Many years ago I was with a little party on the
river in a Nile boat, and we were delayed by bad
winds. Being short of bread, we landed at a small
village, and tried to purchase some of the very un-
tempting flaps of dark native sour bread, for hunger
is glad of even the humblest fare. But not one would

* Unless in a Sheikh's house occasionally, as that may possibly
contain several rooms.

THE VILLAGE!. 153

sell a single loaf. "We bake for ourselveS;" one
sulky old woman said, " and have none for strangers."
" But we wiU pay you well ; see, here is money," said
one of the gentlemen, shaking a purse ; and knowing
that money is very scarce in these places, we expected
success. But no, the feeling evidently was that
there was some ill luck in letting Christians get
their bread. " We have none ; we don't sell," was
the only reply, and we returned to our boat, and had
to defer our breakfast till late in the afternoon,
when we reached Cairo.

Very diflferent was the reception we found in
another village (several years afterwards), when
visiting on the banks of the Nile, and happened
to find the good woman of a house at which we
caUed engaged in baking. We were quite unknown
to her, but she politely asked me and the lady
who accompanied me to come in and rest, while
the gentleman of the party had to go with the
master of the house, a respectable countryman, to
the outer court, where the men's seat was prepared
for him by spreading a carpet. We apologized
for coming in where the women were so busy, but
said we should like to see how they did it, if not
troublesome. The woman begged us to stay "all
day," as she said, and entreated us to eat as much of

154 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

her hot bread as we liked. We were not in want
of any, bnt tasted it to please her, with thanks for
her civility. You would have been amused to see
the process. This was dourra, or maize bread, which
is often used when the store of wheat is finished.
It is more troublesome to make by far, because the
maize flour has scarcely any gluten in it, that is,
it will not stick together, as the children say,
without great difficulty and being much worked.
In America, I believe, they mix a portion of com-
mon flour with it, and thus make pretty good
bread, but here they were using it because they
had no other flour ; so the plan was to let it rise
with leaven (or sour dough) very high indeed, till
an extremely light moist sponge ; the vessel this
woman had was as big as a washing tub, and was
brimming over with the dough, which was too sour
for our taste, but they relish it so. One woman took
up a small piece and threw lightly on a well floured
wooden shovel or spade, with a short handle, and
then cleverly shook it till the soft dough became
a very thin flat cake ; she then quickly shoved it
on to another spade, held by the baker, who was
squatting at the oven door, and who popped it into
the heated place, and pulled out the cake within,
handing it to a third, who laid it on a heap of

THE VILLAGE. 155

large thin pancake-lite loaves beside her. Their rapid
action was very amusing to watch ; I never saw
anything done more nimbly and handily, but with
all their quickness, it was a long process. They
said maize would not do in any other way ; as they
chiefly lived on bread, and there were several growing
lads in the family, this huge quantity would only
last three or four days, the mother told me!

The village houses never have any sort of garden
around them ; if a farmer has a garden at all,
it is a patch of vegetables at some little distance,
under the palm grove, or adjoining his cornfield
or other crops. There are beautiful gardens be-
longing to the great men in some parts of the
country, but the poor people have not yet learnt
to see that when they live near the water (for
otherwise certainly the expense would make it im-
possible for a poor man), a few flowers and pot-
herbs cost nothing but a little trouble. It is
merely ignorance, for they all like flowers, especially
sweet-scented ones, and if water, as I said, is near,
plants will grow very rapidly in such a climate.
I hope in time they may learn to improve their
dwellings, both within and without, and not to
mind a little trouble for the sake of a great deal
of comfort, and some innocent pleasure.

156

LETTER XI.

TOWN LIFE.

Thb Egyptians are naturally ingenious in handi-
craft, but fonnerly seem to have carried their
manufactures to greater perfection, especially con-
sidering the want of implements in old times.
In some respects they have lost undoubtedly ; the
beautiful wood-carving, for which they were so
famous, is lost as an art ; no one living can do
it now in the old style. Formerly, wooden lattices,
carved in a variety of patterns, and most in-
geniously, were used instead of glass windows,
which are of course more convenient in some
respects, but on account of the glare of the sun,
wooden blinds of some sort are quite necessary, and
the old carvings are very imperfectly supplied by
modem Turkish blinds or Italian shutters* The
fine linen of Egypt, so famous of old, has now
disappeared, and only a coarse kind, worn by
peasants, is made, good in its way, but by no

TOWN LIFB. 157

means choice ; the handlooms cannot compete with
the steam of Europe, and both cotton and linen
from Europe are procured more cheaply than they
can make them. The coarse kind I allude to keeps
its steady sale up, however, because the peasant
women prefer what is lasting, and it wears three
times as long as any of our manufactured goods
of a similar style. They also weave some silk for
the same reason ; those who want a good quality
that will wear long prefer the native kind to the
cheaper fabrics of France. Their silk is dear,
but very lasting, and of a beautiful pattern ; the
native ladies hardly ever use it now, but the trades-
men, merchants, and wealthier artizans use it for
their kaftaTis and waistcoats.

Though the old custom of selling every kind of
article, as well as making them, in special quarters,
each for itself, is a good deal broken in upon by
the introduction of European shops for mixed goods,
still it keeps up for all native goods, and is the
general custom of the cities in Egypt, as in most
if not all Eastern cities. These quarters, composed
of one, two, or three streets, as may be, are called
" sooks," translated market, but they do not answer
at all to our market ; they use the word more viridely
in fact. My servant will tell me, " The market for

158 LETTBKS FROM EGYPT.

vegetables is over," just as one in England might
say ; but lie will add, "Shall I go to the brass market
for those pans ? " or " to the shoe market for the
red shoes for the school girls ? " Europeans often
call them bazaars, and natives, also, indeed under-
stand the word, but it is, I believe, an Indian one,
meaning the same as " sook," merely a place where
goods are displayed. English ladies now give the
name to a fancy sale for charitable purposes, but
the original signification was widely different. There
are in Cairo two or three shoe quarters, consisting
of narrow streets lined with small den-like shops,
occupying the ground-floor of large houses (used
as dwelling houses). In these dens, amidst dozens
of red and yellow native shoes of various kinds,
the owner, with sometimes an assistant, sits cross-
legged stitching away, and receiving his occasional
customers. They are Jmt occasional, except at the
festival times, and then a great business is done.
Every artizan in town, and every peasant in the
village for miles round, comes to buy a new pair
of shoes "for the feast," and every boy and girl
above the position of a beggar expects this treat,
though they may often go barefoot, when this pair
is worn out, till the feast comes round again.
Being much cheaper than European shoes, the man

TOWN LIFE. 159

must be poor indeed who cannot afford his chil-
dren at least the commonest kind. They are hard
bargainers, however, and as the system of fixed
price does not yet prevail, a good deal of time is
often spent over a small thing.

** By your eyes it is too dear," says a sturdy, bronze-
faced country-man, balancing on his labour-hardened
hand a pretty little pair of red pointed shoes, suited
to the small delicate feet of a little Egyptian of
some two or three years.

" Dear I on the contrary, they are too cheap ;
only it is for the feast, I should otherwise ask
more," replies the turbaned shoemaker, pulling his
thread out of a great pair of stout yellow slippers
with very thick soles (meant for peasant's wear).

"Six piastres for these little things, and not
strong either! I will give three and a half."

" May God open " (answering to " God forbid I
should do so"), replies the man of shoes, taking the
pair out of the other's hand, and hanging it on a
hook before him.

"As I promised my little Ayusha, and they are
just her size," says the poor man, looking tenderly
at them, and speaking half to himself, half to the
tradesman, "come, say four, and I will have
them."

160 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

" By the Prophet it is not possible — ^no, it is
finished ; four indeed! "

The peasant jerks his mantle over his shoulder,
and turns away ; then looks back and says, " Four
and a half — I am going away."

"Well, I am giving them away, hut for your
sake — ^there I " and the bargain is concluded.

I give the conversation as I heard it last winter ;
I was buying something near, and could not help
listening, and the man, with the true Egyptian love
of sympathy, turned to me to exhibit them. I hope
Ayusha was pleased.

The saddlers' quarter is at least as important as
the shoemakers', donkey saddles in particular being
an article of constant use here. Formerly, when
only two or three carriages were to be found in all
Cairo, every one rode everywhere on donkeys. They
answered completely to cabs, etc., and had the
advantage of being very cheap, and of being able
to go into narrow streets impassable for carriages.
Now many of these narrow streets have been
widened, and many more carriages are used; still
the donkey is a very useful helper for the town,
and in the country is the usual mode of conveyance
along the narrow cross roads.

The native saddle is made of red leather with a

TOWN LIFE. 161

curious hump, stuffed with straw, in front, and the

bridles and head-fittings are adorned with tassels

of coloured cotton, wool, or even silk, so that they

are very gay affairs when new. The horse furniture

and saddle are still more so ; they are covered with

cloth or velvet, and have (when made for great

men) a beautiful fringe of gold or silver, and

cases for pistols at the side.

Then we have the sugar-market, where not only

sugar, but dried fruit and other groceries are sold ;

the scent market, in a quarter so narrow that

scarcely even a single donkey can pass, and where

the air is heavy with the rich odour of frankincense

and myrrh, and various Arabian scents much prized

in the harems; and the gold and silver market,

where the native bracelets and necklaces are made,

and where also gold thread and wire and silver

spangles, etc., for embroidery are sold^ by weight.

Silk for this purpose is found in a quarter close

by, and you would be amused to see the seller

winding the fine silk on his bare foot, holding it

with the toe, while he dexterously winds the needed

quantity, and then weighs it in his pretty little

brass scales. From these delicate articles we come

to much coarser ones — ^the makers of wooden combs,

wooden pegs, etc. ; then to the workers in palm

11

162 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

frames for cageS; hampers, and a great many other
things ; then the street of the sieve-makers, where
every family sifts its own flour for bread : sieves
are a very important household article. Then we
have the brass quarter, where the quantities of
brazen vessels in use, and for which Cairo is
famous — ^from the immense pan used by washer-
women, and the caldron which would easily boil
a lamb whole if needed, down to the pretty little
brass coffee-pot used by the shopman for his single
cup of coffee. The din in this quarter is deafening,
and I am sure all who live near it must early lose
their hearing.

It would be too tedious to go through all the

various trades ; but I must mention one more which

is peculiar to Egypt, and used to puzzle me when

a stranger here. A whole street was occupied by

men, each in his den, with a very simple machine^

which assisted him in twisting long ropes of crimson

silk and large tassels of the same, with a little

black and white sometimes worked up with it.

At last I found these were merely an ornament

but an indispensable one in their eyes, for the

countrywomen, as before described. When muflSied

in their mantles, of course it is hidden. I suppose

the good woman is happy in knowing it is there.

TOWN LIFE. 163

even if little displayed ; and we must allow that
in civilised Europe women will persist in wearing
articles quite as useless and muck more troublesome
—such as chignons, trains, high-heeled shoes, and
others.

A great many tobacco shops are found scattered
through the town, not in a special quarter, the
people being much given to smoke. As a rule,
their tobacco is less unwholesome than that used
in Europe by far, being mflder in quality. The
peasants do not go about smoking all day as in
Germany and many other countries ; they only
take a smoke while resting, usually from a long
cherry stick pipe, handed from one to the other,
or a water-pipe made of a cocoa-nut (of which
numbers are brought from India), and a reed; the
smoke is passed through the water by this means,
and elderly men especially seem to enjoy this
luxury. The wealthy have the same thing, but
made of glass, and with a coloured tube of great
length, that winds round the bowl. Paper cigars
are also in great use, and are now seen more
frequently than the long pipe, or chibouk, as it
was called, which older ladies still however prefer.
In the harems the ladies smoke a great deal,
and I think it injures their health. Even women

164 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

of a hombler class often smoke cigars a great deal,
but you seldom see comitrywomen smoke, and they
are the healthiest of the population. I cannot
make out that these inveterate smokers are ever
the better for it, and certainly they waste both
money and time ; but this last is not yet valued
as it ought to be here.

Formerly each district of the city had an arched
doorway to the chief of the narrow little streets of
the quarter, and a huge massive wooden door, which
was locked after a certain hour at night ; and if
by a rare chance I had been to see friends, and
was returning after ten o'clock, my servant had
to arouse the doorkeeper, who was asleep on a
bench beside this great door, and get him to un-
lock it ; often a quarter of an hour was spent in
waking him up and waiting by persons who returned
late.

Many of these doors are now taken away in the
making of the new streets, and the largest thorough-
fares in the city (though only these) are lighted
now with gas. Formerly we had to take a lamp
if going out even the shortest distance after sunset ;
but even now it is needful if going to a wedding,
for instance, or any visit to a native family out of
the broad highway.

TOWN LIFE. 165

The little old-fashioned lamps were of prepared
paper or calico, made to fold up flat and go in a
man's pocket, a piece of wax taper being carried
with them. These are still found, but glass lanterns
are more conmion with persons of the better sort,
who generally make a servant (or slave-boy if they
are natives) walk in front carrying it. In the
narrow lanes of a great part of the city, where
rubbish is always found, and where the half-wild
dogs are crouching about among the dust-h^aps,
and stones encumber the path, it is necessary to
pick the way very carefolly if walking at night,
and the lamp is usually held as low as possible,
in order to throw light on the path for a few steps
before the person walking. This is no doubt an
old custom. Formerly, when no gas was found in
Egypt, I used to watch from my window in the
city passengers returning home in the short winter
evenings, and each one carrying his lantern, or his
servant, if a rich man, holding it before his feet,
and think of the comparison in the Psalm, " Thy
word is a light unto my feet and a lantern to my
paihr Just light for the way, step by step, is all
we are to expect as the little lantern throws its ray
on the rough footpath I

I will try to give you a glance, as it were, at

166 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

some little daily scenes of city life before ending
this letter, and the simplest way will be just to
note down the things as they passed before me in
a morning ride through part of the town at an
early hour in summer. The chief difference in
winter would be that the hour would be ten instead
of seven, and that the articles brought from the
country, vegetables and fruit, would be different,
and the passers-by more muffled up, and the old
folks sitting in sunny corners of their dusty lanes
instead of choosing the shade of the old crumbling
walls as in hot weather. But life in Egjrpt is
always out-door life, at every season of the year ;
it is only a storm of wind, or the dust winds occa-
sionally blowing, or the far rarer shower of rain,
that sends the people indoors. And I suppose this
is the proper life for health, as the children in the
grand harems, where they are rarely out of doors,
are generally pale and feeble, while those who live
out, especially the country ones, are generally active
and strong; in spite of rags and dirt they have
the advantage of those who have hardly any fresh
air and sunshine.

My house is just outside the city wall, and the
larger one I built for the school is only divided by
the playground and my garden. As I passed through

TOWN LIFE. 167

the gate, a nmnber of the earlier scholars (boys)
were already arrived, and some were playing, some
looking over their lessons, others buying pieces of
sweetmeat to eat with their bread for breakfa^,
the seller of these sticky dainties, with, his standi
being just within the door, and very busy driving
bargains with little fellows, who wanted as much
6s possible for their small coin. Many arrive as
soon as the gate is opened, which is soon after
sunrise, and spend a pleasant couple of hours in
the shade of a nice mulberry tree, and two or three
others, planted on purpose for them in the play-
ground. Leaving this happy group I ride down
an open and wide road, with a few good houses,
chiefly belonging to Syrian and Jewish families,
but with a good deal of waste land waiting to be
built on, and occupied for the time by a few little
sheds for small traders in red handkerchiefs,
conmion eatables, cigars, etc. A man is pruning
the trees which shade this road, and ragged boys
and girls are eagerly seizing the boughs and leaves
as they fall and carrying them off as fodder for
their parents' goats, several of which are already
enjoying the treat, their pretty spotted kids frisk-
ing about them. The donkey's head is now turning.
We must leave the broadway and enter a narrow

168 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

lane for a short cut into the city. In a moment
we are in a purely native quarter — ^mud-brick huts,
or half-ruined houses, occupied by the poor, a few
middle-class dwellings mingled with them ; a
negress, with a yellow handkerchief on her head,
peeps out from one of these ; a mistress in very
slight garments, evidently not of the active house-
wife style, and but half awake, from another ; but
with the chief part of the inhabitants of this
quarter all their life is out of doors. There sits a
woman winding thread under the shade of a tree
planted in her neighbour's yard. She has a pretty
little twirligig of a machine, simply but cleverly'
made of the ever useful reedi she is winding for
the weavers ; her children are playing in the dust-
heaps near her. A little farther a girl is driving
her father's goats into their stable, and a whole
row of blue-robed old cronies are squatted at the
edge of the narrow path (road it can hardly be
called) doing nothing but enjoy the air and gossip.
Not a man is to be seen; they are all away at work,
except a stray Jew pedler, who stops to try and
coax the women to buy some of his flimsy gay
calicoes, and one or two peasants with vegetables
from the country, and laden asses, hurrying along
to the markets. Another lane out of this has

TOWN LIFE. 169

rather higher pretensions : here are shops, though
of a very humble kind ; the "Attar," or seller of
drugs and spices, sitting in his den, a thin red-
covered book in one hand and a string of beads
in the other, for it is yet early for business, and
he is making his devotions while at leisure, reading
extracts from the Koran and reciting prayers ; it
is conscientious as far as it goes certainly, and the
poor man knows no better, but he is probably ex-
tremely self-righteous, as Moslem devotees always
are (nor they alone indeed). Beside him is a dealer
in cheap, common haberdashery, chiefly from
Europe. Then a melon-seller, busy purchasing his
stock from a countryman ; then a Greek, who
sells red earthern pans, which adorn his door in
numbers; and various eatables, as dry fish, oil,
etc., within.

Now we leave all these and turn down a very
short, but very narrow lane, with some rather
curious-looking, but large, houses on each side,
and scarcely any windows. They are the old style,
and all the windows open on the inner court, as
if they turned their backs to the street ; it is so
narrow here that I have to squeeze close to the
wall to let a great camel pass; a young lad sits
on his hump merrily playing on a reed pipe as he

170 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

rides slowly along ; if the tune is monotonous it is
not disagreeable^ and it is pleasant to see liim
cheerful. A little girl, with a pan of some curious
mess, in which oil has a share, on her head, passes
next, and so close that I hold my skirt for fear of
a drop of the mixture reaching it ; then a dust-
man, with his basket of rubbish on his shoulder,
and his musical cry (strangely enough some of
the least pleasant of the street callings are often
announced by very good voices), and a half tune,
which sounds really pretty. We reach the open-
ing in safety, and get into sunshine and space
again. The tailor who sits at the corner on his
board does not seem to find the quarters as unplea-
sant as we should; like nearly everyone he is out
of doors, board and all, and a beautiful cat and
kitten seated on it, for company, beside him. (In
general, cats are both liked and kindly treated in

Egypt.)

We now enter a wide thoroughfare, called the
" new street," several nests of old huts and ruined
houses having some years ago been pulled down to
make it. Here we see carriages, some with Euro-
peans, others with natives of the land, driving by;
asses in plenty, from the rough-coated country don-
key, with his load of bright red tomatoes, or black

TOWN LIFE. 171

egg-plants from the country, to the sleek white ass
of the true Mecca breed, with that equally sleek-
looking merchant on his back, clad in a beautiful
dark purple gibbeh, or long robe, displaying a spot-
less white kaftan in front, and a goodly turban,
which protects him well from the sun. Here are
shabby-looking European shops (the smallest East-
ern shop, poor as it may be, never has a shabby look,
as the second and third-rate Europeans have), with
slatternly women, and unwashed shopboys, sweeping
out their shops or drinking their coffee at the door ;
then we come to an open space, where several streets
branch off, a plot of garden being in the centre, and
great houses of the wealthy, hotels, and public build-
ings appear. On one side is the public garden, once
a swamp, then reclaimed by the famous Mohammed
Alee, and planted with fine trees, and hedges of rose
and myrtle ; it was a somewhat damp and unhealthy,
though very pretty wild garden, half way between
a garden and a wilderness, in fact. Then it was
let to French and Greek coffee-house keepers, and
became for a few years a den of thieves, and almost
impassable; finally, they have made it, as nearly
as they could, into a French public garden, well
guarded and kept, and planted in too formal or trim
a style to suit the country exactly ; but it will, as

172 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

the trees grow larger, and the gardeners get off
their guard a little, be sufficiently luxuriant by-and-
by, no doubt !

But busy people in the morning have nothing to
do with the Ezbekeeh, as this park is called ; they
are hastening to the various markets, either to buy
or to sell, and the clerks to their offices. We pass
the entrance to what is called the European market,
and go through the numerous shops of modern
luxuries, and European garments (of which the
greater part are kept by Jews, though also some by
various nationalities), and enter a quarter chiefly
inhabited by Syrian sUk merchants, whose goods
make a beautiful display, with their delicate colours
and rare embroidery.

Then, after passing a noisy row of copper and brass
makers, we reach the great cotton market, where,
besides a good many really native articles, such as
peasants, etc., use, there is an abundant display of
Manchester cottons and prints, the latter such as
you might live years in Manchester and never see,
unless you visited the warerooms of a manufacturer
who had dealings with Egypt. For every country
has its tastes, and the canary colour, which is a
special favourite here for girls, and suits their jet-
black hair and eyes, would not suit flaxen-headed

TOWN LIFE. 173

English lasses at all; nor the orange and white
stripe, which is another favourite, besides a variety
of singular patterns, such as black stags galloping
on a pink ground, or green herons stalking over an
imaginary river of buff itiuslin, etc.

These little details are not for gentlemen, you
know, but some of my old friends (and all little
girls), I feel sure, like to hear about dress patterns
and such humble matters, and I want to entertain
them by telling what I see, great or little. We can
leave the prints and the bead necklaces, and all the
finery, now, for here is a little narrow, very narrow
lane, only just room for one donkey (if I meet
another one must get down and back out I) and we
are now in a very different quarter : paper, ink,
pens; those large bundles of dark glossy reeds
hanging from the top of the little den are reed
pens, the only kind with which the Arabic language
can be properly written ; and those little slabs of
wood, painted white or red, are for children to
learn upon, the alphabet being written on it by the
master. They are very pretty, but get soUed so
soon by dirty little fingers that we prefer cards, or
better still, my great favourite, the black board and
white chalk, used much in my school.

Opposite the paper and ink stores is the scent

174 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

market, which tells its own tale; the passion for
sweet scents is so strong here, that they will some-
times burn a piece of fragrant incense, and pass a
tumbler over the smoke, and then fill with sugar
. and water, and this sherbet is thought delicious : I
cannot say I enjoy drinking incense, though the
smell is pleasant. There are scents here from
Arabia which are never met with in England,
and some also the name of which has an interest
for us, such as the frankincense and myrrh, prized
now as they were the day when they were* part of
the offerings brought to the infant Saviour by the
wise men.

But we must leave the scent market, with its
sweet odours, and the bustling cotton marts, and
hasten back before the summer sun has become
too powerful. These few little observations do not
go very far, indeed, to show you the city and
its inhabitants, but may give some idea, at least
And what is said about Cairo applies, more or
less, to all the cities of Egypt,, only those that
are seaports have more Europeans, and are less
characteristic than Cairo ; while the smaller towns
and villages again are, of course, more simply,
thoroughly national in th,eir ways than any of the
great cities.

TOWN LIFE. 175

And what about the " great mixed multitude "
of foreigners ? I said in a former letter I would
tell you a little about them ; it can be, however,
only a very little, for, living and working among
the " children of the soil," I do not know nearly
so much about the strangers. For the most part, I
am sorry to say, there can be no doubt that they do
more harm than good. I am not, of course, speaking
of the small number of respectable Europeans who
are residents for business in the great cities, and
who, for, the most part, only spend some years here
and have no intention of residing always in Egypt.
I mean by the mixed multitude the people settled
here, some of them bom in Egypt, others come over
recently, and consisting chiefly of Greeks, French,
Italians, Grermans, and Maltese. Some are respect-
able and wealthy persons, and they have all their
own places of worship, and their Consuls to manage
their affairs ; but a great many are not respectabk,
and only settled here because they could not get
on at home in their country, and not a few, I fear,
who dared not return, because they have not a
good character where they came from. These set a
sad example to natives of Egypt; drinking, and
all sorts of bad ways, are common among them,
and, alas, have been learned by those who knew

176 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

little that was good, yet (especially as regards
strong drink) did not know these things. Theatres
were first brought here by French and Italians,
and have done much mischief; also many kinds
of gambling, for the devil's agents are more
numerous, if not more active, than those of Christ.
There are not so many of our own countrymen;
still there are a good many, and among them, I am
ashamed to say, some who do harm. 1 hear terribly
wicked words in broken English sometimes from
poor donkey boys, who think it quite clever to be able
to swear in English : who but Englishmen could have
taught them this ? And I have seen Englishmen
sitting at a little table at the door of a provision
shop, with two or three Egyptians drinking with
them ; — sad sight for missionaries, who leave their
country, not for gain like others, but to try and
spread the truth, when they see the efforts made
in the wrong direction, and especially if made by
their own people. Few English reside here more
than a term of years, and though each must leave
his mark for good or bad, he affects the country,
or town, less either way than if dwelling all his
life here, and leaving a family to live after him.
This is more the case with the other foreigners
I spoke of^ many of whom have never been out

TOWN LIFE. J 77

of Egypt at all. In general they have managed
to lose what was good in European ways and
habits, and to keep what signified very little (such
as dress, etc.), or what was actually bad ; and sp
with Eastern ways : they adopt just what might
be let alone with advantage, and learn nothing
of the really good things belonging to the Eastern
nature or customs.

Their children grow up speaking the vulgar
Arabic in addition to their own tongue, and clever in
using all sorts of bad words, and in picking up gossip
of the worst kind. They seem to lose the European
horror of harem life, polygamy, etc., and that with-
out the childish ignorance of the poor women of the
country. I have had some in my school of these
" Levantine " girls, as they are called, and generally
found it scarcely possible to do them lasting good :
the home influences were so contrary to all I wished
to teach. An Arab school is not the thing for such
children ; they need a good Christian school, where
only European languages were taught, under a pious
and very strict Christian lady. At present there is
nothing of the kind. I am speaking of free, or
nearly free, schools, as many of these families are
poor, and even those who gain well in their business

squander all their earnings in such a foolish way

12

178 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

that there is nothing left to pay for proper school-
ing for their little ones. There are convents,
where some girls of various nations are received,
but they do not teach the Grospel there, and in
many cases nothing at all except a few prayers
to the Virgin and Saints, and a little sewing. A
young woman of mixed race, whose widowed
mother paid sixteen shillings a month — ^by hard
work — for her schooling at a French convent, spent
some years there, and came the other day to entreat
me to write her a letter. She could not write, nor
even read, in any language, though speaking several.
The " good sisters," as they were called, had taught
her nothing but prayers, as I said before.

Some of the Italians settled here are very bad
indeed. I met, once, a woman, still young and
handsome, at a railway station on the desert, who
actually used the little Arabic she knew in trying
to teach the poor peasant women (wives to the
workmen who lived there) that " there was no Grod,
and that when we die we turn to dust and never rise,
and that man had no soul : it was all nonsense ! " I
heard the wretch, myself, on one occasion, and was
told it was a common style of talk with her.

I just waited till she was out of the room, for I
saw she had been drinking enough to excite her,

TOWN LIFE. 179

and I wished to avoid a noise, etc.; then I began to
talk to the poor woman she had addressed, and
told her not to listen to this child of Satan, who
wanted to believe there was no God because her
own vile life went against His holy laws, and I
warned her, of course, against listening to such
terrible falsehoods. Alas, it is by no means the
only time I have found foreigners deliberately
trying to poison the minds of ignorant people, and
to drag them, as it were, with themselves to
perdition.

Ah! when will God's servants be roused to a
sense of their great responsibility, and be as active
for good as Satan's servants for evil?

Besides these Europeans, there are a large num-
ber of Syrians and Armenians settled here, some
of whom hold important situations, and are much re-
spected. There are also a large body of Jews, some
from Europe, speaking the language of the country
they came from, besides others, what are called
Arabic Jews, who, having been here for centuries,
speak only Arabic, and resemble in dress and some
other things the people of the country. There are
also, as I said before, many Turks resident here,
but they are almost all either Gt)vernment officials
or wealthy Pashas.

180

LETTER XIL

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH.

You will, no doubt, like to hear something of the
way in which the three events of such great
importance in every country are celebrated in
Egypt : marriages, births, and deaths. Every
Bible student is aware that the festivals and the
rejoicing at a marriage in the East in old times were
much greater than even with us, though a wedding
is always a "stir" in the quietest place. And
like most of their customs this remains much as
formerly, the only changes being such as change
of religion would of necessity bring. As I before
observed, in speaking about food, a father in the
humbler classes of life often spends on a wedding
feast for his son far more than he can afford, and
is made poorer for years in some cases. The habits
and ceremonies in aU Eastern countries have great
resemblance, even where not exactly the same,
and we are constantly reminded in these matters

THE HOUSE OF HIBTH. 181

of Scriptural allusions, though the accounts given
of marriages there are not in Egypt. I cannot help
thinking that it was the Mohammedan faith which
brought in the custom of marrying girls while very
young, often mere children, although the Copts
do the same, but they have adopted a great many
ways from their Mohammedan conquerors, and this
may, perhaps, be one. At any rate, among the
Jews it is evident, from various notices in the Old
Testament, that the brides were young women,
and not little girls, as they generally are here (not
always, but in the greater number). For instance,
Rebekah is asked by her brothers what she chooses
to do, and her whole conduct is that of a person
arrived at what we call years of discretion ; and
Moses says of the daughters of Zelophehad, " Let
them marry to whom they think best," etc. Here
twelve and thirteen are the usual ages, and it is
very conmion to see brides of ten, or even younger ;
they are a little forwarder, indeed, than children
in the north, but only a year or two, and are really
more childish in mind, from being without any
education, than those who have been through the
classes of a good infant school. Of course, it
follows that the poor little things are not fit to
"guide the house," as St. Paul says the young

182 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

women ought to do. Even a peasant's household^
where so little is to be done, cannot be left to a
mere child; so the young couple live, at least for
some time, with the husband's parents, and in
most cases till the old people die. The mother-
in-law is generally disliked by her daughter-in-law,
and tyrannises over her ; the happiest homes seem,
with a few bright exceptions, those in which the
old lady has been removed by death, or that the
husband's business was such as to oblige hiTn to
live at a distance. The authority given to a
mother-in-law is absolute : she can prevent her
daughter-in-law from going out, and can, if a poor
woman, beat and ill-use her as she likes, without
interference. In the case of a powerful family
belonging to the girl, this would not be tolerated,
but life may be made very unhappy without blows.
The degree of submission expected may be xmder-
stood by the fact that if any lady (even one married
several years, and whose husband may be kind
and reasonable) wishes to visit me, she cannot do
so, if she has a mother-in-law alive, unless she
can obtain leave, just as if she were still a chUd.
Israelitish matrons must have had much more
freedom, as we see by the cases of the Shunamite and
of Abigail, and others ; and although the law of

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. 183

Moses allowed, " for the hardness of their hearts,"
both divorce and polygamy, we may well believe
neither were practised as commonly as they are
now in the East, or women could not have held
the position which they evidently did hold.

But we have not yet described the festivities
which usher in this life of doubtful happiness for
the young people. Nothing more plainly shows
the importance of a wedding and the rejoicings
on the occasion of one, than the ordinary expres-
sion in speaking of it here ; they do not say, in
common talk, a wedding^ but a rejoicing \ even a
baby will be saluted by, " To your rejoicing," which
used to puzzle me sore at first, till I discovered it
meant. May you be spared to have a wedding
festivity by-and-by! They will say, "There is a
rejoicing at such a one's next week," meaning his
son or daughter is to be married.

When the parents have decided that they wish
their son to marry (which in rich families is generally
when he is still young, from seventeen to twenty, and
sometimes younger, though this is not universal),
they begin to look for a bride for him. The mother
sets her female relatives to enquire among the neigh-
bours, and an old woman, who lives by the business,
acts as agent between the parties. In many families

184 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

a relative is destined for the young man from
cliildhood, but if this is not the case the bride-
hunting goes on as I say. The young people have
no voice in the matter at all, nor are they allowed
to He(i each other till the knot is tied. The Coptic
Egyptians follow the Moslems in this custom, and
th(^y are more to be blamed for it, because they do
look on marriage as a sacred tie, and a lasting
one, instead of letting it be broken for any trifle,
as the law of Mohammed permits; and certainly
it siHuns worse to bind two persons to each other,
when it is an irrevocable tie, without letting them
8(ic and know something, at least, of one another.
Much (quarrelling and many very unhappy xmions
are tlie conseciuence of this foolish plan.

As soon as the affair is fixed between the two
sets of parents, the marriage is generally hurried on
as ({uickly as possible ; if the family is wealthy,
a few weeks are spent in turning the house upside
down ; with the poor, a few days to make a dress
or too and prepare a feast is all that is needed.
But with the rich, not a room is left out ; white-
washing and cleaning^ making up of beds and sofas,
and many such things, generally long wanted but
which wore put off till the occasion of the grand
festival, are now done with as much speed as

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. l85

Eastern .workmen can be got to put into their
business. Meanwhile, women are seen running
about, in pattens of wood, over the newly-washed
floors; sewing women, seated in corners, making
new dresses for every member of the family, down
to th'S baby. Negress slaves, looking as if basted
freshly with oil, from their unwonted exertions (they
are apt to be very fat), are scouring pans, and popping
from one room to another, for anything or nothing.
The tinman sits in the court below with a pile of
brass vessels which he is whitening inside, for the
feast will require a great amount of cooking ; and
the master of the house has to order in great
quantities of rice, sugar, clarified butter, and other
articles, according to his means. All these details
are seen alike in Christian and Moslem houses : it
is chiefly when the ceremony comes that there is
any difference in the arrangements. In poorer
families the same goes on, only on a small scale,
and as a rule you may say that every one spends
more than is prudent on these occasions.

I am not going to give you every minute detail
of the ceremonies of weddings, which would take
too long and be tiresome, but the general plan is
this : there are three days' feasting and rejoicing,
the day 8 being given to receiving visits, men and

186 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

women separately, with pipes or cigars, and coffee
for refreshments, and sitting on sofas if rich, on
mats at the door if poor, and chatting. On the
second day the bride is conducted to the bath by
her mother and aunts, etc., in a sort of triumphal
procession, and the women give a sort of shrill
cry of joy, peculiar to the East, and used as a sign
of great rejoicing, as they go along ; one often hears
it in the street, and sees a party of closely-veiled
figures, some with baskets on their heads, containing
bridal gifts, etc. The bride is, of course, decked
in her new attire ; if she is very rich she wears
a new dress several times in the course of the three
days, but in ordinary families a rich brocaded silk
of gay colour is worn all the time, and she is laden
with jewels ; if not able to purchase all, her family
borrow, and even hire, diamonds, rubies, and gold
ornaments. Her fingers are covered with rings,
and bunches of gilt tinsel paper are fixed at the
sides of her head, the eye-brows painted in a black
stripe, and she is ordered to close her eyes, or, at
all events, to look down all the time, as she sits on
a divan or sofa, and receives silently the salutations
of the various female friends, for speaking is not
allowed: she looks more like an idiot than a rational
being. When she goes out for the processions,

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. 187

one to the bath and the other to her new home,
she is covered from head to foot with a large red
Cashmere shawl, entirely hiding the face, not even
the eyes appearing.

This is absolutely essential for an Eastern bride,
so that the prints and pictures we see sometimes
representing "an Eastern wedding procession,"
with the bride peeping out of her canopy and
smiling at her friends, is totally incorrect, and
ridiculous to those who have seen the real thing ;
but we shall be very glad when they learn that it
is not necessary to hide their faces. A Coptic bride
does not wear red as constantly as a Moslem
one does ; I have seen one in red, and another in
white.

Musicians and singers form a necessary part of
weddings. Where they can afford it, great sums
are given to obtain celebrated female singers,
though to European taste the Arab music is very
monotonous indeed. The singing, in a rude simple
way, of peasant girls at work in the cotton fields,
or Nile boatmen with the plash of their oars, is
' often very pleasing, as they have an ear for time,
and sometimes very sweet voices, though apt to
sing through their noses. But the more famous
singers don't seem to us much better, and have

188 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

not the open air to take off the nasal tone, nor the
water as an accompaniment, and the being all in
unison with no treble and bass, tires the cultivated
ear very much after a while. They delight in it
themselves, however, and applaud with sighs
and exclamations of satisfaction. The singers are
placed upstairs, but the windows open so that the
men below can share the treat. Poorer people
have a drum and reed pipe, at least, and seem to
take great pleasure in them.

The whole day, or rather days, are given up to
receiving guests and making merry ; but the night
is the grand time, the second especially, called
the night of Henna. Henna is a certain tree, whose
leaves, dried and pounded, are sold in quantities
to dye the fingers of women, and sometimes their
toes also, as they are usually barefoot in summer.
Even if wealthy, it is only quite of late years that
stockings are getting to be more worn. The bride
is expected to have her hands dyed, both fingers
and palms, and a paste, made of henna leaves with
water, is prepared, and a great lump put in her
hand. This was, at least, the old custom, every
guest sticking on it a bit of money, and the collec-
tion thus made was for the female singers, the
woman who dressed the bride's hair and attended

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. 189

Iter at the bath, etc.; whether all was given in
this way I am not sure. The hands and feet of
the bride were, after the supper — ^which at a very
late hour followed the ceremony — tied up with paste
and left till morning, when they would be of a dark
orange hue, which remains for several weeks, and
only wears off by degrees. On the last day a
Moslem bride is conducted through the streets in
procession to the bridegroom's house, a canopy
of red or pink being carried over her head, and
her mother and female relatives walking beside
and in front of her, while the men of her family
and friends follow, and little boys with incense,
and bridesmaids, who are generally quite little crea-
tures, and all dressed in red^ make the train a
very lively one. It is always by day, and in sum-
mer the walk must be hot work, for they seem
to go the longest circuit possible on purpose, and
walk very slowly, often stopping to let the music
which accompanies them be heard, and often men
playing antics with sticks — ^pretending to fight, and
jumping about — go before them. This is the real
pld Egyptian wedding procession, but quite of late
years it is seen only among the humbler classes,
as carriages having been introduced and become
;nimierous, wealthy persons always now hire several

190 LETTERS FROM EGYPT*

for weddings, and stretch a red shawl over the
top of one to show the red canopy. Of course it
is much less original when all the train are packed
up in carriages ; and the peasant wedding is there-
fore more curious and amusing. The prettiest is,
however, a country wedding, when, as is often the
case, the bride's family come from some distance
riding on camels. This is quite a picture to look
at: two or three of these tall creatures, with a
rude frame of wood fixed on their humps, upon
which four women are seated — often a baby or
two beside — and the rest either walking or on
donkeys. The peasant bride and her mother or
sister will usually wear a mantle of gay striped
silk of a strong, soft texture, woven here, and which
looks striking, as the others are all in their usual
dark purple, or black mantles.

The bridegroom's family, whether rich or poor,
Copt or Moslem, have their part of rejoicing and
feasting fully as much and even more ; for a S(Mi'd
wedding is made more of than a daughter's, though
both are considered great occasions. But they
have their triumph separately, and only meet on
the third and last day of the festival, when the
feast is prepared at the house of the bridegroom,
and the bride's father and friends partake below,

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. 191

while she and the female friends have their sapper
in an upper chamber. There is no wedding cake
as in England, but all the favourite dishes are
prepared, according to the means of the family.
Many are extremely good, as the famous roast
(or rather baked) lamb, stuffed with rice, nuts,
pistachios, and other things, and which every Euro-
pean who has tasted it approves. Some of their
dishes are less to our taste, from the great amount
of butter and grease used in them. The poorer
people think more of quantity, and serve up boiled
mutton and fowls, rice, etc., in heaps to their
friends.

The sweet dishes are chiefly rice boiled with
milk and a great deal of sugar, starch boUed and
sweetened (this most Europeans think very in-
sipid, and like a sick person's diet, but they enjoy
it much here), pastry or pancakes, with much
butter and some honey or sugar poured over, and a
sort of vermicelli, fried and eaten with sugar ; fruit,
such as is in season (oranges, melons, etc.), generally
is offered at some part of the feast, and water is
the only drink; but sherbet, or sweet syrup and
water, is handed round on the arrival of the guests.
The house, and even a great part of the street,
is always lit up at night with chandeliets and

192 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

lamps, if in town or a large village, and little red
and green flags ornament the walls, while a sort
of canopy of embroidered stuff or cotton is spread
from house to house near the door of the one where
the festival is held. The men guests are always
too numerous to be accommodated within, and
numbers sit outside drinking coffee and smoking,
chatting, and listening to the music.

The only legal part of the Moslem wedding is
a contract made by the fathers or guardians before
a judge quite privately, no guests being present,
only the needful witnesses. Certain chapters of
the Koran are read, I believe, by a Mollah, who
answers in some respects to a priest, though not
by any means in all. The bridegroom is expected
to go to the Mosque before his wedding, and some-
times has a train of friends to accompany him in
procession. As to the bride, religion seems not
to enter into her share of the wedding at all, and
there are no mutual vows of love before God as
with us.

With Copts of course it is different ; they have
a very long religious ceremony, sometimes at the
church, but sometimes, in Cairo, the whole is
performed by the Patriarch, and several priests
who assist, at the house of the bridegroom. The

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. 193

prayers are in Coptic, and psalms are chanted in
this now dead language, none of the hearers under-
standing a word ; but some portions of Scripture
and exhortations are read in Arabic. At one part
of the ceremony crowns of gold (or gilding) are
placed on the heads of bride and groom, and at
another an embroidered silk shawl is thrown over
both their heads as they sit on a sofa together.
It is a very long affair, as is the case in the Greek
Church, which the Coptic resembles very much.
The Coptic procession is at night, or late in the
evening, and looks very pretty when it is a walk-
ing procession, aU lighted up with torches. There
are evening processions also at Moslem weddings,
but the bride is not with them ; hers is always at
mid-day or the afternoon. I have seen very pretty-
looking processions of a bridegroom and his friends
by night going through the streets, each holding a
bunch of flowers and green sprigs, with a lighted
taper fixed in the middle. They all wear their
richest dresses and turbans ; the bridegroom in red-
striped vest and crimson outer robe usually ; and
the effect, as they march slowly along chanting
with the light in their hands, is very curious and
picturesque. It is to be hoped that those who

have adopted European dress have given up pro-

13

194 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

cessions ; for men in our garb certainly do not
show well in such sort of things, and the mixture
of East and West is sometimes very incongruous,
or as one might say in homely language, two
sides that do not match.

At last all is over, and the families must, I
think, be glad to rest, especially the mother, after
the din of native music, talking, saluting, attend-
ing to guests, cooking, and all the fatigue. For
three nights, mother, aunts, and sisters, have only
snatched a little sleep on a sofa in some corner by
turns ! When the wedding is in summer, it t^ an
exhausting affair, though the people of the country
do not feel the heat as we do ; but the rooms are
crammed to suffocation, and however large, have
too many guests for comfort, and many of the
middle-class houses have rooms quite too small for
such a climate, the modem ones especially: old
Egyptian houses, on the contrary, have usually two
or three very large rooms, and several little ones
only used for sleeping, or keeping stores, etc.

The crowd of women is increased by their almost
aU bringing their slaves with them, as well as
all their children, little and big, so that, in spite
of open windows, the faces of most (if it be
a summer wedding) are trickling with moisture.

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. 195

The men who sit outside are better off in this
respect.

The grand day is at length at an end, and the
family resmne ordinary life, though a bride's friends
usually call on her after a few days, if not of the
labouring class, who cannot afford to sit stuck up
in fine clothes, doing nothing aU day.

"And how is your daughter ? " I said to a Moslem
lady, in very good worldly circumstances, who had
recently been to pay a visit to a married daughter
whose wedding took place about two months before.
" Well, I thank you, she kisses your hand," replied
the parent, giving a sigh, and looking far from
cheerftd. "I hope she is happy." "So-so, the
man is not better than most, he is obstinate" (has
tk hard head was the expression used). "Is her
mother-in-law kind ?" " Hum, not very ; and then
Ids sisters are also there," shrugging her shoulders :
"she is not happy, and she does not like their
cookery 1 " I could not help thinking of " a dinner
of herbs, where love is."

There are more cheering instances, certainly. I
know one young woman whose mother-in-law and
sister are extremely fond of her, but they seem (for
I know them but little) to be very amiable them-
selves, and the young wife is of a particularly lively

196 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

temper, and easy to please. The greater number
that I see do not appear happy; sometimes con-
tent because they make the best of what is; but
few are happy in the real sense of the word, and I
know many cases of terrible misery, — not, observe,
from husbands of the lowest and worst of the
people, — such are to be found, alas ! in every coun-
try, — ^but where they are of the respectable classes,
and well considered : for example, a very sweet young
giri was lately married to a man who was very well
known to have beaten his first wife till she died
from the injuries, and to have bribed those who
ought to have punished him, yet he found no diffi-
culty in obtaining a third wife (the second he had
divorced), and that from a respectable family.

Then there is the long train of wretchedness
which polygamy brings. "How is your hand so
hurt ? " I asked a poor woman once, whose hand I
was binding up for her, at her request. " My hus-
band did it with a stick ; he was beating me," she
answered. "What for?" She held up three
fingers of the other hand in reply, and then said,
" There are three of us."

I frequently hear sad domestic histories, which
show the misery produced by this custom* We
know, that although allowed in barbarous times of

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. 197

old, it never was productive of comfort and peace,
but quite the contrary; and so it is now, and
always will be. A few there are, who, not from
poverty, but from their own conscience and sense,
will only have one wife, and surely a blessing
will attend them for this. But they are still quite
exceptions.

Among native Christians, of course, polygamy is
not allowed ; but the early marriage of the girls,
and the undue power given to the mother-in-law,
and the want of previous acquaintance, all combine
with ignorance to make happy marriages not very
common among them either. If they could only
learn (but too many neglect it, with us, who have
an open Bible, and can read it), " The woman that
feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." How
diflferent might things be.

When the family begins there is generally much
joy, for children are earnestly desired and dearly
loved in the East ; but there is less of external re*
joicing than with us, as there is (among Moslems)
no ceremony answering to baptism with us, and we
must always bear in mind, in speaking of Egypt,
that though a very important portion of the nation,
the Copts, or native Christians, are a very small
part, numerically, of the nation : they agree with

198 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

their Moslem neighbours in letting the terror of
that unseen evil, " the eye," about which I told you
in a former letter, spoil much of the young mother's
comfort, as well as of the female relatives, who, of

■

course, cluster about her on this occasion. There is
a sort of suppressed happiness, and a fear of shming
satisfaction, on every face when one goes to pay the
customary visit of congratulation to a neighbour
when a first-born is given to the household. Not
unfrequently, the grandmother and aunts will pre-
tend it is a girl when really a boy, for several days,
because " the eye " is more likely to strike one of
the nobler sex, though girls are by no means
supposed to be secure from its influence. They are
very fond, in general, of their little girls, but prize
boys very much more, and are quite unhappy if
Providence deny a son, although there may be no
inheritance for him but rags I

I once knew a young woman whose husband, quite
early in their married life, divorced her, for no reason
but her baby being a girl. She told me this while
showing me an uncommonly pretty and vigorous-
looking little thing of six months old, and said she
had to go back to her mother, as he would not sup-
port her. I must add, in fairness, that her husband
was a bad character ; he was a stonecutter, and was

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH, 199

afterwards detected in stealing, and banished ; but
the fact of the young wife and the baby-girl shows
the kind of feeling prevailing with many.

A far more respectable man, a butcher, well-to-do
in his line, has a nice daughter at my school, but
this girl has had in succession no less than four
stepmothers. All were divorced for the same cause,
that they had only daughters, and it appeared as if
God punished him by denying his wish — ^to this
date he has no boy.

But to return to the newly-arrived baby. When
going to visit the mother, which it is considered quite
unkind not to do — if it be a first especially — the
neighbours and relatives all put on an air almost
of mystery, and the new mother is not forward to
display her treasure ; on the contrary, it is very
often hidden away in a corner and covered up.

"How is the bridegroom?" you may say, this
being the term applied to a baby-boy, in politeness.
" God preserve him."

"He kisses your hand, we thank God," replies
the mother, or rather, in the case of a very young
person, the grandmother, for the poor little creature
hardly knows what to make of her new honours,
and is so tutored and commanded by the old woman
that she seems like a puppet. The female guests

200 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

are always curious, of course, and slyly peep to see
the little one in his nook, and at last one summons
courage to lift the handkerchief from his face, but
she must not say, " What a fine boy I " or " What
pretty eyes I " or " How like he is to his mother I "
etc. She turns to another friend, and observes, "An
ugly little thing I " " He is very brown " (a fair
skin is from its rarity admired), says the next;
" Not in the least nice 1 " adds a third, nodding
sagely. The last remark is apt to be too true, as
he is not clean, and his eyes have been daubed with
a mixture of oil, salt, and onion juice, with a view
to strengthen them (by trying what they can en-
dure, I presume), so that the poor lamb is not very
nice certainly, unless he belongs to an exceptional
mother. There are a few such. One I know re-
fused to let her baby's eyes be meddled with, and
persisted in washing them and its body with pure
water, and is rewarded by the healthy appearance
of her dear pretty little girl ; but then she was not
a young mother — she had a great tall girl at my
school for years, and her little Zanuba was a late
blossom. The youthful mother is so completely
ruled by the mother-in-law that she cannot free
herself from these absurd customs.

While these polite little observations are being

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. 201

made^ the slave, if they have one, and if not, a
female relative, presents, instead of the usual little
cups of coffee, a drink, made for the occasion, of hot
water with spice and sugar, and chopped ntits float-
ing in it. The friends generally bring some small
present, especially a muslin handkerchief, to throw
over the baby's head, or a piece of coloured print or
silk, etc., according to means.

The Moslem babe is named without any special
ceremony. They have a great variety of names, the
meaning of which is thought more of than with
us, who merely choose a name as sounding weU
or belonging to a friend or relation. The prime
favourites with boys are names which have some
reference to their Prophet, either to his supposed
titles and attributes, or those of his relations, Mo-
hanmied himself being of course the commonest
of all. Some names have a pretty and poetical
meaning, as, " Servant of the Light " (Abdel Noor),
" Servant of the Lofty One," etc. Hassan, Hosseen,
Alee, and Ahmed, are the most frequent, however,
being names of the Prophets' friends and relations,
and answer to our John, Tom, and William, etc.
Girls are very often called after the prophet's
daughter and wives, Zeynab, Aysha (or in Egypt
Aywsha, the u being diminutive), and Fatmeh or

202 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

Fatemia. These are the commonest, but they have
a great variety of names, some of which are very
pretty both in sound and meaning. A girl is always
supposed to have a name implying something
pleasant, " the sweet," " the pretty," " the gentle,"
" the clever," " the gazelle " (this animal being
celebrated for its beauty and gentleness), '^the
flower," " the jasmine," " the tuberose," etc., or
again, "the princess," "the queen."

I must here tell you of a curious superstition
about names, especially, I think, girls' names. We
sometimes get a little scholar, or meet a girl among
acquaintances, who has a very uncouth and clumsy
name, such as " Mother of Mohanmied," " Mother
of Goodness," " Mother of the Lofty One." They
do not admire this sort of name at all, but give it
in the hope that Grod will be induced by this to
spare the child, the mother having lost several
before her I

" Why did you choose so ugly a name ? " I asked
a Bedouin woman at the Pyramids ; not one of the
poor little colonist Bedouins in wigwams, but a fine?
strong, handsome woman, living in a stone hut, and
well off in her way. She had a very pretty little
girl of a year old on her lap, and told me she
was called Um el Kheyr^ " Mother of Goodness."

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. 203

" I know it is ugly," said she, "but I want her to
live."

" How will an ugly name make her live ? "

" Why, you see, I had two sweet girls before her,
and called them Fatmeh and Zanuba, and they both
died, so I called this one by the name of Mother
of Goodness, so that God perhaps will spare her;"
and the poor dear thing looked at me so piteously
that I felt tears come in my eyes. I tried to show
her that it was not a name that God cared for, but
that she must pray to Him to keep her darling if
He saw fit, and spent some time talking with her,
and reading some passages of the Gospel to show
how God is love, I have not been able to find her
since, but she declared that she saw things dif-
ferently, and would trust only in God in future.
May the seed cast on the waters be blessed for
His name's sake 1

The Copts have a curious superstition about
names, different from this. They light three wax
candles, or tapers, and give each a name, a saint's
name being always at least one of the three, and
the one that is last in going out is the child's name.
The patron saint of Copts is St. George. This
name, which they call Gergas, is therefore the com-
monest among them. Many names, however, are

204 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

common both to Copts and Moslems, as some of
the patriarchs' names, Abraham, etc., but Ishmael
is only used by Moslems, because they think the
son of Hagar was Abraham's promised seed, thus
strangely perverting the Scripture narrative. Many
foreign (e.^., Greek) names are in use among Copts,
from the saints they venerate being Greeks ; others
will choose Italian names if they belong to the
small division of Copts who have joined the Eoman
Catholic Church. But the Arab names suit better
in general with the language. They baptize their
children in infancy generally at the church, and by
immersion ; the ceremony is very nearly the same
as in the Greek Church.

205

LETTER XIII.

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING.

" Man is as a flower of the field, which to-day is,
and to-morrow is cast into the oven." While one
house is fuU of joy and merriment, the next is
plunged in woe, " because man goeth to his long
home, and the mourners go about the streets"
(Eccles. xii. 5).

This is true, literally, in the East, where mourning
is so public and so local. K one is walking or
riding, and meets a funeral procession, it is not a
silent black troop as in Europe, but a long train
of Mollahs chanting, and numbers of women utter-
ing at intervals the most piercing shrieks and
cries, so that all down the street the sounds of woe
are heard. When I lived in a narrow street of the
city, I used to realize the awful woe that fell on
this very land on the death of the first-born — " And
there was a great cry in Egypt," — for sometimes

206 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

in the silence of night a sudden cry in one of the
houses near would rouse me from sleep, and the
cry would be followed by others, shrieks and wild
lamentations, and sounds as of women beating on
their breasts and nearly beside themselves, and
many a prayer has gone up for those poor sorrow-
laden creatures, who could not say of those they
wept for, "We know they are with Jesus." Of
course there are families where there is not very
deep affection, as in the not rare case of an un-
kind husband, but the crying and screaming, if
not so heartfelt, would go on just the same, because
it is a custom^ and the household are assisted in
its performance by hired women, who are always
sent for on such occasions. This was evidently
the custom also among the Jews : " Call hither the
mourning women that they may come — ^let them
make haste and take up a wailing for us, that our
eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids
gush out with waters" (Jeremiah ix. 17, 18).
These professed mourners, by their doleful chants,
in which they praise the departed, and bring
forward everything likely to affect the firiends,
excite them to more violent grief, and when th^
are for a moment calmer from actual exhaustion,
and are sitting quiet, they set them off again, till

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 207

it is a wonder the poor wives and mothers are not
completely worn out.

There is no word like that of a Christian friend
OT minister, who points the afficted upwards, to
where Jesus the Captain of our Salvation is making
ready the many mansions, where His servants hope
one day to rest from sorrow with Him and with
those who have "departed this life in His faith
and fear ; " no one to say " darkness may endure for
a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Nothing
more convinces me of the very small degree of
comfort which the Moslem faith affords than the
absence of any consolation to the bereaved. Their
book tells of future state, indeed, but at the time
of a funeral the females of a family especially
are left utterly without a word of comfort; the
chanting women lament the past^ but I never heard
that they had a word to say about the future,
!!tfany Moslems die in great peace and calmness,
but some may have a ray of light sent in some
way we do not know ; others, numhers^ I fear, are
in a state of false peace, and resting on sand,
though they know it not. A man may die in a com-
fortable security that he leaves his children a good
farm, not knowing that there is a flaw in the title
deeds ; such is the case of all, in whatever country

208 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

and whatever religion they profess, whose hope of
future happiness is not resting on the promise of
God as given in His revealed Word.

Jesns said, " I am the resurrection and the life,"
" I am the way," and again, " I am the door.'^^ If
there were any other resurrection, any other way,
any other door, would He who is truth and love
have said these words so plain that none can
mistake them?

"My little one is gone, and where?'''* cried a
weeping mother one day to me, stretching out her
arms with a gesture that said a great deal more
than words could do. How I thanked God that
I could say (as I dared not have said in most
cases) that I felt sure her little daughter was with
the Lord Jesus, for that she loved and believed
in Him truly, and that He had doubtless received
her in His arms above. She had been a little
scholar in my school from four years old up to near
eleven, and I had taught her to repeat the first
text when she could but lisp the holy words. Very
early she had shown that interest in Scripture, and
by actions proved, that she really believed the
gospel. This is years ago; I have often visited
the mother, but though she knows what her child
believed, she as yet remains stubborn in unbelief,

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 209

and tries to put away the thought of the future.
However, I do not despair, and still hope she may
one day follow where the dear child is gone
before.

Another scholar, who died at the age of sixteen^
as nearly as we can tell, was a firm believer in
the gospel ; I used daily to read to her in her
illness, which was not very long, and always found
her trusting fully in the merits and blood of Christ,
in the midst of great weakness and suffering. " Do
ask that He may take me soonP'' she said one
day, with childlike confidence of going to the Lord
straight, and she gave me repeated assurances that
she had no fear in death, and knew she was for-
given.

I was reminded strongly of Jairus's daughter

when I saw this dear girl surrounded by the women

" wailing and weeping and making a noise," exciting

the poor mother's grief by piteous laments. "I

thought to have decked thee for a marriage feast

one day, my daughter," cried one, "and now must

J deck thee for the grave — so young, and so

good? Ah I my daughter, — ah black day I my woe,

my sorrow ! " then a chorus of shrieks interrupted

her. In the midst of this tumult, robed as for a

bridal, in red, and adorned with jewels, lay the

14

210 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

calm, peaceful wasted face of her whose happy

spirit had fled where she would never again hear

sounds of woe I The last words she had heard on

earth had been the words of the twenty-third Psalm,

which I repeated to her : " And I shall dwell in the

house of the Lord for ever." I repeated them twice,

adding, " For ever^ my daughter, — ^for ever with the

Lord." I had seen her eye follow me, though no

longer able to speak ; but the women thought she

would linger some hours yet, and had not therefore

brought a MoUah to read or recite prayers, as ther

do very frequently, if not always, with departing

persons of respectable families. I had, however,

scarcely reached the end of the street, when a girl

ran after me saying, " She is gone I " I returned,

and found the scene I have just described, and

could not but say in my heart, "The damsel is

not dead, but sleepeth." We have reason to hope

that the effect produced by her life and death—

but the former especially — ^has not been lost in

her family.

You will naturally ask what the men are about
during these noisy lamentations. They leave the
outcries mostly to the women, and walk silently in
the funeral procession. This takes place within
twelve hours after decease, which is only right in

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 211

such a climate.* Moslems use a bier covered with
a red cloth, and a raised piece of wood at the head,
also covered with a red shawl, has the turban (if
a man) of the dead fixed to it ; if a woman, the
female head-dress of little gold coins, fastened to
black silk cords hanging from a small red cap,
takes the place of the manly turban. This cap and
coin ornament is now going out of use a good deal,
but is generally displayed at a funeral ; probably
one is hired for the occasion in many cases. They,
i.e. the Moslems, bury without a coffin, and dressed
in their best clothes ; in very rich families, a per-
son is sometimes buried with silk garments and
jewels of value — a very bad custom, as robberies

of tombs, in spite of the superstitious dread of
evil spirits, etc., do sometimes take place.

The family and friends, more or less, according
to circumstances, accompany the funeral; in the
case of a Sheikh, or any great man, flags are
carried, and incense borne by boys from the Moslem
school, and an immense number of men follow the
train, but in ordinary burials, flags, etc., are dis-
pensed with. Men are taken to the Mosque, how-

* Sometimes, however, they do not wait half the aUotted
time, and risk bnrjing people alive. A carpenter told me latelj
an old Copt was jnst going to be fixed in his coffin, when he
Bpoke, and proved, of course, to be alive.

212 LETTERS FROM EGYPT^

ever, and certain prayers and passages of the Koran
recited, after which they proceed to the cemetery
(children, and even women, unless of distinguished
family, are taken straight to the burial place, and
no special religious ceremony performed). The
MoUahs and some boys with the men friends go
first, chanting, and the women follow with hand-
kerchiefs, generally blue ones, in their hands, which
they twist into a kind of rope, and pull as they
walk, sometimes brandishing them over their heads ;
it seems to me to be a sort of imitation of the old
custom of rending the garments ; Egyptians some-
times tear their clothes still (not only in grief, but
in anger), but it is not a regular part of funeral
observance, and I fancy the neighbours have no
idea of sacrificing their clothes as well as their
time. They are called on so often, being expected
to attend the funeral of the most distant relation
or friend, if within reach of a walk, as well as of
neighbours, that it loses a great deal of the poorer
women's time, and if they really tore their clothes,
they would always be in rags I

The chanting is chiefly about Mohammed, the
apostle of God, as they say, and the men's voices
are often fine-sounding and pleasing, though we
should like different words. It is interrupted by

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 1218^

the cries of the hired women from behind^ and
occasionally by bursts of genuine grief from the
relations, as " Oh my brother," " Oh my son," " Oh
sister, sister !" reminding one forcibly of the words
of Jeremiah in denouncing the wicked king Jehoia-
kim, "They shall not lament for him, saying, ah
my brother, or ah sister, ah Lord, or ah his glory !'

On their return, the friends sit for some time
with the bereaved family, only men and women
apart as usual, and the women meet to cry every
week on a certain day till forty days are past.

It is odd to hear the women crying periodically
in this way till these days are ended, and not un-
frequently to be told as soon as they are finished
that the husband (if it be the case of a wife who
is taken) is already looking for a bride, and will
soon prepare for the wedding.

A mother does not forget so soon, but she tries
to banish what she has so little comfort under. I
knew one (doubtless she was one among many) who
went the long and fatiguing pilgrimage to Mecca,*
a journey partly by sea and partly riding on a camel
through burning deserts, — no light affair for a
woman of at least sixty years old ; yet she did it,

* Mecca is the holy city of the Moslems, and it is thought a
pious act to visit it.

214 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

and as she confessed to me, more for the sake of
the entire change than for religious motives : pro-
bably both had some share in her mind. Yet she
might have taken some better comfort, for her son,
whose death was so heavy a trial to her, had not
died without leaving some cause to hope that he
found peace. They had sent to me in the idea that
I could give some bodily remedy, and when I found
the poor lad (he was about eighteen) was already
past this, and that to urge them to call a doctor
would be useless, as already mortification in his
back had begun, — I asked leave to read to him, and
for several days tried to bring before him a few
simple texts, especially this, " Behold the Lamb of
God which taketh away the sins of the world." I
tried to explain it as clearly as I could, and we
prayed for him at home. He listened earnestly,
and used to say, " Read, read I " when the women
neighbours, bigoted and ignorant, tried to hinder
me, and rudely told me no one wanted books there.
After a few days, in which the suffering lessened,
so that he had but little pain, he suddenly had a
fit of internal spasms of some sort. The neighbour
who told me said he had just been telling her that
" the lady had been reading him such sweet words,
such good words ; " the pain there stopped him,

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 215

and he went on groaning for awhile, then looked
up, exclaimed, " Lord, make me to follow Thee ! "
and expired.

The mother and sister, etc., had just returned
from the funeral when I went. I found all the
women — at least fifty in number — seated on mats
in the narrow lane where they lived, which was
not a thoroughfare. I sat down beside the poor
woman, and after expressions of sympathy offered
to read her a few words of God's own comfort, as
I told her, out of the Book.

"Yes, yes, read me the book my son loved,"
said she, and listened with quieter tears while I
read in a low voice, close to her ear, some verses
suited for the case, and easy to understand. But
presently a great rough-looking woman near us
got sight of the book, and said, rudely, " Gro away,
you and your Christian book ; we want no books,
we want to cry ! " I tried to pacify her with the
spft answer that turneth away wrath, but with no
great success. She gave a nudge, as I thought,
to the hired mourners, who set up a louder chant
than before, and echoes of howling and shrill crying
nearly deafened me. Then suddenly pausing, the
If ailing woman said, in her usual voice, " I am not
going to cry any more unless you give me some-

216 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

thing," and a brown wrinkled hand was held ouf,
and several put small coins into it — not much, for
it was a poor district.

I did not approve of paid laments ; nevertheless,
not to offend them, as it was not a sinful though
a silly custom, I put in a trifle of about the value,
of threepence, and then rose to take leave. Cer-
tainly it was the first time I had ever been actually
sitting on the ground in a street before, but as I
remarked, it was not a thoroughfare, and there
were neither vehicles nor passers-by. The scene
was singular, the women rocking to and fro with
their blue handkerchiefs, wailing and sobbing ; and
then those who came only for kindness, getting
tired, would turn to one another and begin to
whisper gossip.

It was not unlike an Irish wake, only the worst
parts of those wakes (which I hope will soon be
entirely things of the past) are wanting in an
Egyptian funeral celebration ; no strong drink is
produced, and no mixing of young people for games
and amusements : it is a wailing time and nothing
else with them.

A very singular custom is observed in some
families, both Moslems and Copts, at the decease
of a chief person, as the master of the house, or a

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 217

grown-up son, etc. ; this is a kind of dance held
by the women and their friends, who all assemble
in the best room of the house, and dance in a circle,
with a curious little jumping motion, slapping their
own faces at the same time. They carry on this
till they become perfectly exhausted, and return
home with cheeks swelled, and painful and violent
headaches for the remainder of the day; the slapping
is sometimes observed without the dance, and in
that case they merely sit on the floor rocking
themselves, and beating their faces, alternating this
exercise with groans and tears. The dance is said
to be more frequent in Upper Egypt, but it is per-
formed here very often, and in highly-respectable
families.

The Coptic burial ceremonies are, of course,
different from the Moslems, and resemble those of
the Greek Church, but what we may call the
domestic ceremonies are very nearly the same.

The great Moslem cemetery of Cairo is on the
borders of the desert, where is abundance of space
for the purpose. Every Friday women may be seen
going to visit the tombs of some dead relative, not
that they go every week, but Friday is the " visiting
day" for the tombs. A little girl came to ask
leave to be absent from school one Friday, because

218 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

her mother was going to take her to visit hw
grandmother. I happened to ask where she lived,
and was amazed to hear the grandmother was dead
years ago ; " We are going to her tomb," the child
at last explained. At the " Great" and "Lesser"
festivals, as the two principal Mohammedan feasts
are called, the visiting the tombs of their rela-
tives is a necessary part of the proceedings. The
Lesser feast, which comes first, has most of this
visiting ; it is customary then for the people to go
very early, often at daybreak, carrying branches of
palm and myrtle trees, and sometimes " hebbuk," or
sweet basil; these green boughs are laid on the
tombs, and certain prayers recited by the sheikhs,
or the men themselves if they are able. Every
one is in his best and gayest clothes, and the
scene is extremely pretty, — ^the road crowded with
men, women, and children, all clean, and in lively-r
coloured garments, carrying then- boughs, and some-
times flowers, and hastening along in the early
sunshine. It seems anything but a sorrowful day,
— sweetmeat and fruit-sellers are in numbers, every
one brings bread, etc., and they eat and drink
and are merry. The solemnity of a cemetery does
not hinder the great swings, which are always
erected in the neighbourhood, and where not only

T^E HOUSE OF MOUBNINa. - 219

children but grown men delight in swinging. It is
queer to us, but it is only Christians (I mean by
that real believers in Christ, as the " Author and
Finisher " of our faith, the A and the Z, the begin-
ning and the end) — ^it is only such who can under-
stand solemnity joined to cheerfulness (I think so
at least), and who can feel the link between sorrow
and joy — the tear and smile meeting as they hold
jsweet converse about the blessed ones who are gone
before. With the people here (as alas ! with many
others), if they think at all of those they have lost,
until time has, as it must, deadened the feeling — it
is with bitter, often with angry grief. Then they
try to forget, as soon as the violence of sorrow has
worn itself out, because their views of the future
cannot satisfy the higher part of our nature. Many
of the women have so vague and dim a notion
about the soul, that they have been said to believe
women have no souls. This is not part of the
Moslem religion however, though many among
peasant females will say, " Really I don't know if
we have any souls, or what they are ; " but a
woman who has any claim to being "religious,"
and has learnt some prayers out of their book by
heart, will always tell you she believes the fiaithful
go to Paradise. This is not the Paradise spoken

220 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

of in the Bible ; we hear Eden, where our first
parents lived before the fall, spoken of as Paradise^
although not in the Scriptures, where the only
mention of Paradise is in the Gospel of Luke,
when our Saviour tells the repentant thief that he
should be with Him " to-day in Paradise," and
again in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians^
and in the book of Revelation, where it is said
that the tree of life is in the midst of the " Paradise
of God." It is doubtless this mention of the tree
of life that made people give the name of Paradise
to Eden, where we first hear of the tree of life;
But there sin and Satan entered, and in the Paradise
where the Lord Jesus is with His redeemed neither
of these can come ; little as we are told, we may
be sure it is a glorious place, where souls, released
from the burden of these infirm bodies, will rest
with their Saviour, awaiting a yet more entire and
perfect glory, when, after the resurrection, their
sanctified bodies will clothe the souls, and so shall
they be, as the Apostle says, for ever with the Lord4
Very diflferent is the Paradise which is invented
by man ; the descriptions of the Mohanmiedan place
of happiness are of the earth, earthy indeed, — coarse
sensual enjoyments, eating and drinking constantly^
without becoming ill from excess, having a multi-

THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 221

tude of wives, and many other details, some qnite
absurd, as the gigantic size they expect to attain, etc.,
all show a childish and unspiritual idea of happi-
ness. When we compare these descriptions with the
few but glorious words granted to us by God of the
tme abode of the blessed, the diflference is — -just
what we might expect between God's words and
man's. " God Himself shall be with them ; " there
shall be. no more sorrow nor pain, — God Himself
wiping away tears from their eyes ; then the voices
of harpers, harping with their golden harpsT—the
white robes clean and pure (showing that all sin
is washed away), — ^why, every word is weighted with
glory, if one may dare to use such an expression I
Then those few but precious words in ThessalonianSj,
about being caught up to meet the Lord in the
air together — all who loved and were one in Him
on earth, to be together with Him in happiness
■:— "for ever with the Lord" — what can equal that?
Ah I my friends, let us thank God for His gospel,
and accept it for ourselves, and then let all who
have accepted it help me to pray for the poor
Egyptians, who have only a false peace to delude
their souls, and who sorrow over their dear ones
as they that have no hope!

222

LETTER XIV.

NILB TRIPS.

No doubt you have often heard of travellers who
visit Egypt " going on the Nile," but as it is not
very likely you will go yourselves, you may like to
have a better idea of what it means than you can
get by that rather indistinct description of the jour-
ney 1 In one of my earlier letters, I told you that
many remains of the old Egyptian pagan temples,
and of the buildings raised by their kings in old
times for memorials of their greatness, were still
to be seen. The finest of these are at a distance
from Cairo, but near the river ; many persons who
are interested in ancient things go to visit these
curious ruins, and what makes their attraction
much greater, is the mild winter climate, which
suits many delicate people. So, some for pleasure,
and some for health, a great many travellers go
every winter up the river. There are small-sized
steamers where parties can be taken up at less

NILE TRIPS. 223

expense than separate boats, but wealthy families
usually prefer the comfort of these last. The
private boats are sailing boats, and are called
generally by the Arab name Dahabeeyeh (mispro-
nounced in various ways by the new arrivals).
They are large enough to contain a cabin for eating
and sitting in, and some little sleeping berths,
more or less, as may be. A native captain (often
a Nubian) and seven or eight men, manage the
boat, which has a large sail, of the shape of a bird's
wing, and they are very clever in taking this sail
down quickly in change of weather, which is need-
ful on the Nile, where are many dangerous currents,
but, with a steady captain, it is extremely rare to
meet with accident.

The travellers take provisions and everything
they want, but can buy fowls, eggs, milk, and
sometimes a lamb, as they go along. The voyage
to Luxor, where some of the chief ruins are found,
takes three or four weeks, and those who go as far
as into Nubia must be absent, going and coming, for
more than two months. My personal experience
of Nile voyages is nothing like this, being only
short trips on one of the smaller boats, hired for a
fortnight, or even less, and only going a short dis-
tance. But as I and my friends go for the sake of

224 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

bringing the gospel to some of the villages on the
river, our employment is so deeply interesting that
no ruined temples could delight us so much, for
man is a ruin himself, ruined by sin and Satan,
and only the knowledge of a Saviour can raise him
out of that ruined condition. It is only scattered
seed, of course, that can be spread in short visits
like these, but we have cause to hope that some is
not lost.

I have a number of old journals, letters, and
rough notes, made at different times of these
voyages, and I will make a few short extracts fron;i
some of them, to give you some idea of the places
and the work.

One fine, bright, breezy winter day, more like
May in England, or something between May and
October, Mr. Shakoor and his brother were seated
on the deck of our boat, a well-filled bag of books
and tracts beside them, which they were sorting,
pausing now and then to look at the fair scenes
through which we passed, as our white-winged
boat skimmed cheerily along the river ; and the
ladies of the party, having settled their tiny
cabins, sat also on deck, noting all they saw. The
banks are not green in general, nor flowery, — ^the
Inundation prevents that, me^king a fresh bank

NILE TRIPS. 225

every year, — ^and yet there is a great deal of beauty ;
the clear air and brilliant sun make everything
beautiful, in fact, and the groups of palms are a
delight to the eye. Fields of bright green clover
and young corn reach as far as eye can see on
one side, on the other a range of cliflFs, sometimes
high, sometimes low, barren, and dry; but their
yellow and white rocks take wonderful colours, in
the sunset especially. Little villages dot the coast,
some all among palm-trees, others with only a few
standing up like sentinels among the low mud
dwellings; here and there a little grove of gum-
arabic trees grow near the river on a raised pathway,
and as the sky grows red with the evening light, and
the sun sinks behind golden clouds, troops of peasants
are seen on this same high pathway, driving their
buffaloes and cows from the pasture, and shep-
herds with large flocks of goats. It is customary
(and is safest) to moor the boats at night, so we
draw up to shore, and are soon made fast to a peg
driven into the earth. A number of men, wrapped
in mantles of brown goats' hair, or wool, are seated
on the bank ; one or two are still at their evening
prayers, kneeling and touching the ground with
their heads, then standing, then kneeling again,

and all the while repeating the Moslem form of

15

226 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

prayer. They mean well, poor men, and we re-
spect their honest wish to do what they fancy
pleases God, but that is not prayer in the right
sense of the word. One of the missionaries is now
seated on the bank beside some of them, and after
friendly salutations and kind remarks, begins to
enquire if any can read, and, by degrees, gets into
a very interesting conversation. Meantime, I am
watching the women who come to draw water.
Sunset is not a leisure time for them, as it is with
the cultivators of the soil ; they have to draw water
for supper, and are in great haste. It is pretty to
see how nimbly their bare feet descend the steep
bank, and how rapidly they lower the immense jars
from their heads, tuck the loose dress round their
legs, wade into the stream, wash the jar or pitcher,
then fill, and haul it to shore, and then help each
other to hoist it on the head again, and walk up
the bank with firm, quick steps : no time to listen
to strangers now, but my turn will come to-morrow.
It gets dark quickly in Egypt, and when the
moon is up it is apt to be cold at this time of year;
so we retreat to our cabin for tea, and then have
family worship, in which earnest prayer is made
that the Lord's word may be blessed to some of
these poor souls.

NILE TRIPS. 227

Well wrapped in my cloak, I am on deck as
soon as the sun is up, indeed, have been trying
to paint its gorgeous colours in my sketch-book
from the cabin window, before the dazzling flood
of light burst from the long line of gold-edged
clouds, and made the calm waters shine and
shimmer, so that I could no longer gaze steadily
at them. We call to the servant to give us break-
fast quickly, as we want to go on land, and soon
we are speeding up the bank and entering a grove of
palm-trees, which surround the large mud village,
which has, we are told, a thousand inhabitants.
The green com looks lovely, growing under the light
shade of the palms, but the heaps of dust and
rubbish which are in and around the village are
neither pretty nor savoury. A good many of the
peasants have already come from their early morn-
ing work, and are taking a rest, some eating a piece
of dry bread as they sit in the sun, with their backs
against a low mud wall, some smoking from a long
pipe handed round among them ; one or two are
spinning the brown wool of their sheep with a
simple distaff, made of two little sticks, and a
spindle which dances about as they twist the
thread. The missionaries exchange a look, as if
to say, "Here is our work," and soon are in con-

228 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

versation with a group of peasants ; then they are
invited to the house of one of the chief men, and
before long are seated in a large sort of shed, with
about thirty or more men in white turbans and
goats' hair mantles squatted around, listening with
faces of wonder and attention to the words of Him
who spoke as never yet man spake. Like the seed
scattered by the sower, much may fall on the way-
side, or among thorns, but not all, though till the
last day we rnay not perhaps know which fell on
good ground.

Meanwhile Mrs. Shakoor and I are seeking for
the women ; they are dawdling about at the doors
of their huts, doing nothing for the most part. The
water was fetched at sunrise, and it is now nearly
ten o'clock, they have nothing therefore to do.
Breakfast was a piece of bread and perhaps some
milk or curds, taken whenever they felt hungry;
the children had crawled off the mats where they
slept when they chose, and no dressing and washing
was performed except that each peasant woman
washed hands and feet in the Nile when drawing
water (for in this point they are cleaner than
townspeople of the same class). Their heads look
as if it were months since they had seen a comb,
and the children are mostly in rags, but look

NILE TRIPS. 229,

healthier than those in Cairo, for the air of the
Nile is very fine.

After a little chat about their babies, and other
matters likely to interest them, we get a little
opening for the " Book," which of course is with us.

Circumstances after a time prevented our going
on these Nile trips for several years, but in the
month of February, 1878, my sister accompanied me,
with Mrs. Shakoor's brother * and sister on a short,
but as it proved deeply-interesting voyage. To my
great delight time had not taken away all recollec-
tion of former visits ; on the contrary, I was recog-
nized by several persons in different villages, and
most affectionate inquiries made as to why for so
long a time we had not come. We had, at one
village especially, little meetings nearly all day,
and our tracts and gospels were eagerly asked for
by those who could read. These were chiefly young
men or boys ; to the women we read and talked, and
tried to make them understand a little at least of
the love of God in Christ.

A great deal depends, humanly speaking, on the
sheikh of a village, as respects the treatment of
strangers ; the sheikhs here have a great degree of

♦ Mr. Na8eef , the present director of the boys* school, and lay
missionary.

230 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

power, which seems to be partly religious and partly
legal. K men are to be taken as a conscript for the
army, it is to the sheikh of his village that the Gov"
ernment officers apply, and if anything goes wrong
in a place, it is the sheikh who is to a great degree
considered responsible. When religious festivals
take place, the sheikhs meet and take the chief part
in them, and if they are, as is very often the case,
bigoted and ill-disposed to Christians, the feeling
of aU the yUlage is bad, and surly repUes and cold
looks are apt to meet our efforts to get a friendly
reception. K, however, the sheikh be kind-hearted
and easy, and still more if he be an intelligent, well-
disposed man, we can quickly get listeners to our
Master's message. Of course I do not mean that
everything turns on one man, but he may be a great
hindrance or a great help from his position. At
one very large village, or rather a cluster of villages
very near each other, we have several times met
with kind and cheering receptions, and on my last
visit, when I introduced my younger companions,
who had not been on the river before, to some of
my former village friends, the way in which all
were welcomed was very pleasant. The sheikh,
man of considerable intelligence, urged us to come
to his house, and sat in the "salamlik," or outer

NILE TRIPS. 231

room reserved for men, with Mr. Naseef and a few
friends, conversing on the subject of religion, and
bringing forward his objections and difficulties in
a friendly spirit, while I went to the court, with
two or three little dens opening into it; this
answered to a harem, and here Miss Naseef and
I were received by his wife and mother ; the wife
was busy churning butter in a skin, but came for-
ward very cordially to salute us, and then continued
her occupation, while we conversed with the old
mother, a bright, intelligent-looking person, who, in
spite of her advanced years, had the year before
made the long and fatiguing journey to Mecca. The
pilgrimage is made partly on the Eed Sea, which is
said to be generally very rough, and partly on camel-
back, over burning plains of sand, and to a native
Egyptian, used to a quiet life among the palm-trees
and clover-fields near the river, it must have been
a most trying expedition. But the poor old dame
was in earnest^ and really thought it would please
Grod and cleanse her from sin to visit what they
think such a holy place. It would not have been
wise to say anything to hurt her feelings about
pilgrimages in a first visit (for though I had
formerly seen the sheikh, I had not known his
mother), but we read and talked with her, and tried

232 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

to show something of the plan of salvation through
the atonement of the Saviour. When we took leave,
the sheikh accompanied ns great part of the way^
and when we were returned to our boat, after several
more visits in other parts of the village, he sent his
little son to ask for the copy of St. John's Gospel
which he had been promised, and the chUd evidently
had been told to take the greatest care of the book,
for he trotted off holding it tightly to his breast
with both his little hands.

Nearly all our store of books and tracts were
taken at this place, and we did not leave without a
promise, if the Lord should permit, to come again
next year.

But we are not always so well received. At
another village we found great hindrances. While
Mr. Naseef was gone to find the master of the little
native school (a young man who gave instructions
in reading and writing, their Koran being the only
book used), his sister and I, in spite of an incon-
veniently high wind, tried to get up an acquaintance
with some of the troop of women and girls who
were loitering about; except one or two, who, from
the noise like dapping which proceeded from their
dwellings, were engaged, we knew, in bread making,
none seemed to be at all busy, and though many

KILE TRIPS. 233

were very dirty and untidy, we saw many intelligent
faces, as well as some very pretty ones, although
that was of no consequence, as our business was with
the inside. Some answered civilly, others stared
and laughed rather rudely, others were silent, and
looked sullen. At last one invited us to sit in an
open court, where there was a raised seat or ledge
of stone and mud against a wall, which somewhat
sheltered us from the wind. A good number now
assembled to hear what these strange ladies had to
say, and what they wanted, which we were very
glad to explain. I observed that they seemed to
have fine corn land and beautiful date-trees in their
place. " Oh, yes," said one woman, " and fine
goats — ^look 1 " pointing to a fiock just going to the
pasture. " You have then most of you bread
enough, but if you had none, and were nearly
starving, and I had a basketful of loaves in my
hand, would not you think me very hard-hearted
if I did not give you some ? and do not you think
I would give it ? " " Yes, certainly," said one,
clapping me on the shoulder. " Well, I could only
ofer it, — if you refused I could not make you eat
it, but hungry people are always glad of bread.
But there is another kind of hunger, which we some-
times do not know when we have it If we know

234 LETTERS TROM EGYPT.

scarcely anything of God, and do not know how
to please Him, nor where our souls can go when
we die, then we are like starving people, only that
it is the soul and not the body that wants food."

Then, after a few more simple words of explana-
tion, I asked Miss Naseef, the lady who was with
me, and who used to teach in my school in Cairo;
to read a simple story from the gospel, which she
did, but it was hardly finished when we began to
be annoyed by some boys, who had joined the women,
and, getting on the seat behind us, began leaning
on our shoulders, which was disagreeable, as they
were in " filthy garments," but what was worse they
quarrelled and pushed each other, and talked loud, so
that we could scarcely get a hearing any longer, and
one of the men seemed inclined to speak very rudely.

Some of them were scholars in the little Moham-
medan school, but manners were not taught there ;
indeed, a couple of hours early in the day was all
the time they spent in school, we were told. More
women pressed into the court now to see what was
going on, and, to our dismay, some men with them.
The men and women mix more freely and are more
simple in their ways in the country villages than
in town, but to teach a mixed party is hardly pos-
sible — ^the women will never answer any question

NILE TRIPS. 235

if men are present^ and the men ask hard questions,
or such as are evidently only put to try and puzzle
or annoy the lady ; so at least it was in this place,
where the sheikh was doubtless a very stiff and
bigoted man. One of the men brought a great
book, old and yellow, and written all by hand,
and said, "K you want to read, read that — there
is a really good book." I replied I was not ac-
customed to that character (which is very unlike
the printed books, and requires special study), and
besides that, I only came to speak to the women,
for whom the plain simple words of God's own
Book, of which I had with me a portion, called
the gospel, was more suitable.

" Ah ha," said one of them, rudely, "your book I
— does it say if it is a sin or not to eat pig's flesh ? "

I told him as shortly as possible that Moses'
law forbad this food to the Jews, who were to be
separate not in that only, but many things, from
all other people, but that the Gospel left people
free about their food, and spoke of the spiritual
matters, which are of more importance, adding that
we begged they would permit us to read about the
love of God, His mercy, and His truth, rather than
to engage in talk " which our friends here cannot
enter into." " Yes, yes," said the man who had

236 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

brought the book, in a very rough manner, and
with a contemptuous smile, " read to the women,
they are donkeys," and he turned away, A great
many of the women, afraid of offending him (he
was, I afterwards found, one of the chief men of
the village), rose and went away.

We decided it was best to break up the assembly,
and said we would go, as they did not care for God's
word, but if any did we would read to them in the
fields quietly ; then pushing our way through the
crowd, we got into an open cornfield not far off,
and sat down under a beautiful palm-tree. Several
young girls had followed us, and a few children,
and one of the women. We made a circle here,
and all promised to be quiet if we would read to
them, and we had a very pleasant time with the
young people. One girl especially interested us,
her extreme intelligence was shown by the expres-
sion of her face. She was a sweet-looking girl,
and seemed really glad to hear the new things we
told of the Great and All-wise God condescending
to love poor sinners, and sending His holy One to
die for them. One of the boys also showed a good
deal of intelligence in his answers to the questions
we put to him. What surprised us a good deal
was to perceive that two or three of the men who

NILE TKIPS. 237

had so troubled us had followed at a distance, and
remained within earshot, but behind the group we
were reading to, without uttering a word or in any
way troubling us. Perhaps some day we may find
that a little seed has fallen on good ground even
in that village, which is marked in my journal
as, " People bigoted and inclined to be rude."

Sometimes it is disappointing not to be able to
find again some person who appeared to have been
really touched and anxious to know more about
Jesus. There was one such case, a widow woman,
who had shown a remarkable sense of sin (I say
remarkable, because, hard as it is everywhere to get
the heart of man to acknowledge its sinfulness, it
is hardest of all among Mohanmiedans). I sought
for that woman vainly three years running, and
never could trace where she had gone. There was
also a very interesting Bedouin woman, who once
had a long talk with me, and was deeply moved.
She said — I well remember her words and the tear
glistening in her bright black eye as she spoke, —
" I am going away — ^we Bedouins move from place
to place, and it may be years perhaps before I come
to this spot again. How shall I recollect what you
tell me ? " adding, " Why did no one ever tell me
this before?"

238 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

I need hardly say I promised to pray for her, and
begged her to ask of Grod light for her soul and
pardon for her sins. Still it was a difficult case,
never to be in the way of hearing anything of that
gospel which in one hour could only be put very im-
perfectly before her. These, and many, many more
such, are cases for very earnest prayer and much faith.

I will now tell you one blessed instance in which
the seed was found again, not by the sower indeed,
but by his companion in the work. Many years
ago, the elder Mr. Shakoor was on the banks of
the Nile engaged in distributing books among the
Copts (or native Christians), for the higher up the
Nile the more numerous are the Copts, to a certain
distance. He was asked for books by a young man
who told him he liked reading very much, and
found but few books in his village, and had come
some considerable way to get books, hearing "a
strange gentleman was selling books at the river."
He had seen, and perhaps partly read, a New Testa-
ment, but knew little about it, and cared less. He
would have liked worldly books better, and though
he bought a New Testament and listened to the
earnest words spoken to him by that dear servant
of the Lord, he paid little attention ; at least they
soon passed out of his mind, because spiritual things

NILE TRIPS. 239

had no interest for him. He examined his purchase
at home, but found it was printed differently from
the old Copt Bible he had seen, which had no para-
graphs or spaces between the printed portions, as
our books and modern Arabic ones have. So he
foolishly fancied it was an imperfect copy, and
actually threw it in the bottom of an old box, and
soon forgot all about it. Years passed away, and
at length the Copt heard some friends speaking of
the Bible, and how they had procured it at the
mission of the Americans at Luxor, and some one
spoke of it as a different but better-printed edition
than the old Coptic one. Then his forgotten Testa-
ment came into the man's mind, and with that
remembrance the unknown friend who had so af-
fectionately urged him to read it. He hastened
to seek in his old chest, and found it safe. The
words despised at the time came back to him, amd
he now began the study of God's word in earnest ;
it was blessed to his soul, and one day, when
visiting Cairo, he came to our book-shop and learned
how the sower of the seed had been called to " go
up higher," where no doubt they will one day meet.
Meantime he told the surviving brother that this
precious book was his constant companion and the
guide of his life 1 > i /

240

LETTEE XV.

ABOUT THE SCHOOL.

It is now time I should tell you something in
order about the school which has been alluded to
so often in my letters. I kept it for the end be-
cause I wished you first to know a little about
the sort of people for whose children it was set
up, as, without this, details of schools are very dry
reading, and however glad we may be that the
poor children are taught well, yet if we know
nothing about the nation from which they come,
and their ways and habits, etc., we can feel very
little interest. Some of you may possibly have
read one or both of two little books I wrote some
years back, to give accounts of what I saw of the
people, as well as of my endeavour to help them
with education ; but as many, no doubt, have not
met with these, I will, at the risk of repeating
some things already known, give you just a slight
sketch of the beginning. I came for change of

ABOUT THE SCHOOL. 241

air when in poor health (but not by any means an
actual invalid) many years ago, meaning to spend
five or six months ; and I thought I might start a
school for poor girls in Cairo; a beloved relative
had kindly accompanied me, and a valued maid-
servant made up the party. We took a small
house in a native quarter in order to try and get
scholars among the poor, and especially Moslems ;
although warned by aU friends that Moslem girls
never would come to a Christian, I resolved at
least to try, asking the Lord for a blessing. A
worthy Syrian woman was found, whose daughter,
only thirteen, could read fairly ; she herself could
read pretty well in the Gospels, and both could
sew. The whole of their rather large family was
squeezed into the house to save them house-rent.
We then began to make our arrangements, and
look for pupils ; first we tried through the
native servants, but I was ignorant of the ways of
Egypt, or should never have supposed that a man
could have any power to bring girls. Many, many
difficulties were in the path indeed, among which
was my small knowledge of Arabic, and my good
matron knew about as much of English, and her little
daughter the same. We got on very well however ;

she and I went out to look for our scholars in the

16

242 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

lanes near the house. The poor women we spoke
to had never, many of them, seen an European, for
Cairo was not so full of strangers as now, and they
(if foreigners) kept more to particular quarters-
In the lanes just around my new dwelling were
numbers of poor houses, and a little further a
collection of actual huts, built against the old wall
of the city, and with narrow paths between them ;
the only thoroughfare was the street, which went
lengthways, and into which these little paths
evened. The occupants of these places seldom left
home except on a visit to the tombs, or on a
wedding procession, etc., and if they ever saw
a "frangee," as they called Europeans, it was at
a distance, riding a donkey, or in a carriage ; as to
one talking to them, and going among them to ask
if they would send their little girls to school, it
was quite a new idea. Several ran away, and the
children were terrified, and cried, and hid, them-
selves, and at the good matron's advice I left the
European straw hat at the house, and put a scarf
over the head, so as to resemble more nearly what
they were used to in dress. NoWj such a pro-
ceeding would be absurd, they are used enough to
hats of all kinds, and many Syrian and Greek
girls have taken to wear then, and even some few

ABOUT THE SCHOOL. 243

Copts ; but I am writing of things fully eighteen
years ago. Som6 of the women were friendly,
others sullen, being bigoted Moslems, and disliking
Christians ; others laughed, and said, ^^ Teach girls
indeed! let them make bread: what more need they
know ? " A few said, " Teach sewing if you will, this
is very good; let books alone." A few at last
agreed to try, and after two ^r three days all was
prepared in a very simple way at the house, and
a few scholars came. My cousin was ill with a
low fever, and could not help me, but my excellent
jnaid brought the needles and thread, and though
only possessing a few Arabic words, made the most
of these, and was a great assistance those first
days, with her bright face and cheerful manners,
ramming thimbles on fingers quite new to them,
and cutting bits of calico to be stitched, etc. I
opened school with the Lord's prayer, and then
I and my little teacher taught texts, and the
matron kept order, or tried to do so, for she had
never kept school, and the wild hut children were
very hard to keep quiet. By little and little a few
more respectable ones came, and helped the others,
as they knew what sitting still and doing as they
were told meant^ at. least ; after a month's labours,
my cousin was well again, and often gave us a

244 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

helping hand, and the number of scholars gradually
rose to twenty, more sometimes, seldom less.

I will not repeat all the ups and downs of that

four months* work ; when the middle of May came,

my cousin and I left, and the school was placed

under another lady, as I did not then see that Grod

intended me to live and work here, and family affaiirs

made it hard to be at such a distance. But the

poor matron's health failed, and she had to go,

the lady was inexperienced in the East, and

ignorant of the laaguage, and moreover had no

one near who took a real interest in the work, so

she closed the school and returned to England,

and then I decided to go out and " stick to it," as

the boys say ; so that autumn found me (this time

alone, except for my faithful maid) in my old

quarters ; luckily the lease was not out, and I

opened the house, and the children were soon found

again, and were wild with joy at my return.

' I found a teacher who was half Italian, half

Syrian, and as I spoke Italian I could easily explain

things to her. She was much cleverer than my

good matron and her little girl, but then they were

Protestants, and she was of the Greek Church, and

knew next to nothing of the Bible ; so I had to

teach the Scripture daily myself, and to study

ABOUT THE SCHOOL. 245

Arabic very hard to keep ahead of my scholars.
The excellent Christian missionary, Mr. Mansoor
Shakoor * (from Syria, but working in Egjrpt, mider
an English Society), had made my acquaintance
that winter, and kindly gave me Arabic lessons,
and besides this, he came whenever he could to
examine the children and keep the teacher up to
her business. So we got on nicely, and even when
I was obliged to go to Europe for the summer,
the school kept up tolerably under the teachers,
though I found much to reform on my return n6xt
autumn. By Mr. Shakoor's advice I engaged his
brother, also a missionary teacher, to leave Syria
and come as my agent to Cairo, to manage the
business of the house with the landlord, and many
other matters, and also to teach the Grospel to any
among men or boys who could be persuaded to
hear.

By degrees the work enlarged from this time,
and after a while the elder Mr. Shakoor gave
up his other situation and joined me, and the two-
Christian brothers, with one spirit and one heart,
laboured for the Lord, — opened meetings for young
men, distributed Bibles, visited the sick, and at

♦ The same alluded to as a fellow-worker in the last chapter,
whose wife was my adopted daughter.

246 LETTERS FBOM BGTPT.

Imst amnged a hojs" sdiooL This was not essy,
becaose we had scaroely funds to pay its expenses.
I had carried on the work at my own expense
with only a Teiy small amoont of assistance from
friends who were interested in it, and the yearly
aom I conld dispose of did not allow of such an
addition. - We tried, however, b^inning by having
the boys in a lower room in the house I occupied,
the girls being already in an upper room, and Grod
sent help, so that by-and-by we moved the boys to
a larger house, and then again to another, till at
last I was enabled to build a large school-house
(with some assistance from Christian friends) on a
plot of land presented to me by the Kiedive, on
which I also built a dwelling-house.

Many years of struggles and work had passed by
this time, and we had had reason to praise the Lord
for letting the little blade of corn grow and bring
fruit and increase. Instead of twenty or thirty
children, they came in fifties, and then in hundreds,
and our rooms were ftdl.

A younger brother, and afterwards other rela-
tives, had come to join the Shakoors in their work,
and by teaching in school left them more free for
mission work with adults. The circle of labourers
had one interest and one desire among them^ and I

ABOUT THE SCHOOL 247

was no longer alone in a strange land. A young re-
lative of my first friend and helper, Mansoor Shakoor,
had been spared by her parents at his earnest re-
quest to be an adopted daughter to me, and share
my home and labours, and from an early age she
gave herself to serve the Lord by trying to do good
among the girls and women of Egypt.

Before the new school-house was built, this young
lady and Mr. Shakoor were married, and the cares
of a family prevented her going among the women
as formerly, but much can be done at home, both
by example and a word in season, and we had now
quite an establishment of teachers and pupils, and
old pupils and their relations coming to see us.
In the evening the two missionaries took ti^rns in
holding meetings, and in winter (our best season,
as I told you before) we made little voyages on the
river, to bring the gospel to some of the many vil-
lages on the coast, as related in the last letter.

Our work was prospering in many respects, though
the bigotry of the people was the cause of frequent
disappointment and much hindrance. Still God's
word was preached as a testimony to many, and
sorrie listened gladly. The year that the building
which with so much trouble we had at length
finished was opened, was the year of sorrow to the

248 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

Cairo mission ; the elder Mr. Shakoor was called
above, after a severe illness of more than two
months. Faith can sometimes hear the Lord's
welcome to the "good and faithful servant," but
alas I too often faith even seems dimmed by tears.
Yet God mercifully continued to uphold the work,
as well as to support the bereaved.

A few years later, and the second brother, Mr.
Joseph, was called away, like the first, having
scarcely reached middle age, and leaving also a
widow and little ones, who returned to Syria after
his death.

Two years previous to this second blow, we had
opened a branch school for boys in the ancient
though decayed city of Damietta, on the coast of
the Mediterranean, where one of the mouths of the
Nile pours its waters into that sea. Mr. Joseph
Shakoor had gone there to make the arrangements,
as it was from an earnest request made to him from
a few respectable inhabitants that the idea of open-
ing a school there arose.

He started the work and took much interest in
it, and his cousin, who had joined our little band
seme time before, was deputed to superintend the
work in this untrodden field (for no missionary had
ever taught God's Word there before). The school

ABOUT THE SCHOOL. 249

is still doing well there, but the preaching, eto
was suspended for a time, except during the occa-
sional short visits of the missionary, as on the death
of Mr. J. Shakoor he was obliged to come to Cairo.
But a missionary will, by God's help, soon be placed
there.

Yoa must not suppose that all who come to learn
profit as fully as we wish, or that the children are
open professors of Christianity. It would not be
wise to make them, or even urge them, to come
out. while things are as they are in this country;
the persecution any Mohammedan is sure to undergo
if he is baptized a Christian would very likely
frighten children into recanting, and they would
be removed entirely from Gospel influence, while
too weak to stand unassisted and alone. But their
belief in the Gospel is not interfered with in
general; they are left to do and think much as
they like, and the degree of freedom often surprises
me, and is cause of thanksgiving. In early days I
had often dust thrown at me when visiting in the
lanes, and many bad words and curses. These are
now very, very rare, and though there is much intense
bigotry still, there are yet small loopholes for light
here and there, and the best and largest of these
(indeed it is not a small loophole !) is the softening

250 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

of the prejudice against education, and what is^
most wonderfiil, education by a Christian is still
prized, and much more than formerly. Far from
having to go and hunt for scholars, I am obliged
to refuse taking more till there is space, large a^
our rooms are.

You would be pleased if you could see the gate
of the school-house at twelve o'clock, when the bell
rings, and out come the boys pouring in streams,
all full of glee, some with books under their arms,
others running to the fruit or sweetmeat seller at
the door, others in little groups sitting under a
beautiful mulberry tree (planted the second year
of the building of the great school-house), and
others under a vine trellis, where a bench is pro-
vided, all enjoying the dinners they have brought,
or which their mothers have sent. The greater
number are poor boys still, but several are rich,
and these have their meal brought by a black
slave or a hired servant, in a covered dish. A few
who live near go home to eat. About three hun-
dred may usually be seen, this being the average
attendance. The girls number two hundred ; many
more are on the books, but they are oftener kept
away in cases of illness in the house — ^new babies'
arrivals, and other causes.

ABOUT THE SCHOOL. 251

The girls have their playground quite separate^
and on the other side of the house ; their school-
room is upstairs, and the staircase is separate also.
They have a number of teachers, the younger ones
being all trained girls brought up by ourselves.
One of the very best of these is sister to the dear
girl whose blessed death I told you about, and I
trust she has the same blessed hope. Though past
the ridiculously early age at which girls are usually
married, she is still a happy young teacher with
us, and her mother says she will not let her Zeynab
marry unless to a really good and respectable man,
if she can find such.

The young lady who is over the school, and directs
these young teachers, has been in England herself
(though a native of Syria), and has seen English
schools, and many of the good works going on in
London, and tells the 'women here about them.
You would like to see her seated in the school-room,
with the whole school assembled in the morning,
sitting quite still and in perfect order, listening
while she reads a short portion of Scripture, and
tries by questions to ascertain that all know what
it is about, and to make the elder ones explain by
their answers to the younger.

All ages, from fourteen to four or five, are there.

252 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

and every sort of garment, from the muslin dress
and handsome necklace of the wealthy child to the
coarse calico loose frock, the only article of the
poorest. But we discourage finery in school, and
much less in the way of jewels, etc., are seen than
was the case some time ago, even rich mothers
being now persuaded that plain coloured prints, or
clean white in summer, are more suitable for the
place and occupation, and the cleanliness enforced
in all is now so thoroughly established that only a
new comer now appears with face or hair or frock
in an unpleasant state. Formerly I had the utmost
trouble to get clean faces, and many mothers re-
fused to give clean dresses, from fear of the evil
eye ; but this, among scholars at least, is now dis-
appearing, and the fresh clean look of the young
assembly never fails to strike our visitors with
pleasure.

Some of the very poorest receive a calico frock
in winter, and need it very much, for several are
orphans, and others children of widows, or worse—
of poor women divorced, and obliged to labour for
themselves and little ones. K the child is a boy,
the father always keeps it, but a girl, unless he is
particularly fond of her, or wants her to wait on
the new wife, is generally on the poor mother's

ABOUT THE SCHOOL. 253

hands. We think a few yards of calico well be-
stowed on such, and only wish we had more to give.

They are taught, after the Scripture (which is
made the first object of all), some hymns, and
the simplest part of arithmetic and geography,
6.nd some knowledge of English to the head class.

After school is dismissed, the pupil teachers
generally stay half-an-hour later in the summer
evenings to enjoy strolling in my garden, or sitting
under a tree with their work. Sometimes a young
married scholar (from the Syrians, who are not
so closely shut up as Egyptians) joins them, and
they always come on Sunday for our Arabic service
in the school-house. All these are sweet, promising
girls, and their mothers, most of whom are widows,
are very proud of them.

But even among much younger ones we have
scholars whose answers in Scripture are very
good for their age, and down to the least every
child who has been here for a month knows that
Jesus Christ is the Saviour of sinners, and by Him
alone we can hope for an entrance to heaven.

Many of the mothers of the children come to
see the school and the teachers, and hear what is
taught ; some come to my little weekly women's
meetings, though Eastern women dislike regularity

264 LETTBBS FROM EGYPT.

and order so mach that it is hard to get any of
them to come steadily every week; yet more or
less are there, and by degrees we hope to induce
them to be steady attendants. Some days eighteen,
or twenty, and even as many as forty, wUl appear,
at others only three or four ; but usually at least
seven or eight women will come, some Christians
and some Moslems, and I read and pray with them,
and try to explain tiie reading in a simple, cheerful
manner, and to show how blessed a thing it is to
believe in Jesus.

I visit many of them at their homes, and Mrs.
Shakoor still more, for that is the part of the work
she especially undertakes, and many of the Moham-
medan women, whose children or relations^ children
attend school, have heard the gospel from her, and
welcome her when she goes to see them, and Copts
and Syrians as well.

Thus the school has opened doors which might
never have been opened for the gospel without it,
for Egyptians are shy of receiving total strangers
without some reason, and having their girls under
our care was of course the best of reasons. That
curtain which in Mohammedan families of the
better class hangs before the entrances to the
women's apartments is not so easily raised for

ABOUT THE SCHOOL. 255

foreign visitors as might be supposed ; even ladies
do not gain admission into many of them. We are
let in, however, at once, as soon as known.

Not long ago I went to a house where the mistress
is a bigoted woman, whom I often hear muttering
sentences she has learnt by heart (for she cannot
read) of the Koran, and telling beads, which is not
common among women, few of whom know much of
their own religion, or perform the stated Moslem
prayers as men do ; yet this lady sends her little girl
to the school (though they live at some distance),
and not only receives us affectionately, but when I
visited her lately she asked me if I had " that book "
in my pocket, as if so she wished I would read a
bit ! I had the book, and very gladly complied with
her request ; she said, turning to a lady older than
herself, who was a cousin, I believe, who was staying
with her, " My girl reads quite nicely in that book
now — yes, she is clever indeed."

I should make my letter too long were I to tell of
the various openings made in different families by
scholars, some very hopeful, others Uke a tiny chink
in a closed door, just enough to let in a single ray
of light; but we have cause to thank God and
persevere, and say, as His people so often can
say, " Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."

256 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.

I must before leaving this subject give you a
little picture, which I think will please you : it is
our Sunday-school in holiday time. In tlie latter
part of summer the teachers require a little rest ;
the parents of the scholars by no means like it,
as the children are on their hands, and boys get
into mischief ; however, it cannot be helped for a
little while. But I assembled as many as I could
of the girls during the holidays on Sunday for a
little meeting, something between a Sunday-school
and regular service. Only a few out of the number
came, but we knew those came from their own free
will — from thirty to forty girls and the pupil
teachers, and a few women ; on the occasion I am
describing here, in all thirty-two, made quite a
group in the vine-covered arbour where I assembled
them. After all the salutations were over, I opened
with a short prayer, and then read the 16th of Acts,
pausing for a question now and then, and at the
end making a few remarks ; some of the girls
answered very intelligently, and all appeared in-
terested. Then we had a hymn, and another
prayer, and I then dismissed the assembly to refresh
themselves in the garden, while I heard the verses
learnt by the home-girls.* It was a pretty sight to

* Some orphans I am bringing up in. the house.

ABOUT THE SCHOOL. 257

observe the pnpil teachers, tall girls of fifteen, with
their modest quiet manners and bright faces, and to
hear their replies to questions about the chapter,
and to remember how they used to come to my
school when quite little toddlers ; the women too
seemed so calmly happy as they sat under the willow
tree, and talked with the matron while enjoying the
fresh air, for they all lived in narrow lanes, which
are in August quite suffocating, and the sun being
nearly set, my shady garden was delightful to them.
I thought how I wished they could know by blessed
experience what it is to be able to say of the
Lord Jesus, " I sat down under His shadow with
great delight." f May that time come for them,
and for you too, if you do not yet know it.

t Solomon's Song, Chapter xi. 3,

17

258

LETTER XVI

CONCLUSION.

And now, my dear friends, I must bid you ferewell.
I shall not think my trouble wasted if some of you
have learned in reading these pages to feel a greater
interest in Egypt than you ever did before, and, I
hope, to feel also some interest in the people, and to
ask the Lord to gather out of them a band of true
believers, and to hasten that blessed time when
Egypt shall be a third with Israel and Assyria (see
Isaiah xix.). We cannot understand fully the con-
nection between our poor imperfect prayers and the
plans of our Heavenly Father, but He has told us
to pray not only for ourselves, but for others, and
not only for individuals, but also for nations, and
therefore I may boldly ask for your prayers both for
the people of Egypt and for my little mission
among them in particular. You know God's
telegraph wire never breaks : no fear that the
humblest petition sent up from an honest believing

CONCLUSION. 259

heart will fail to reach the Lord, and to be in some
way answered, not perhaps for long, not in the
expected way very likely, but not lost. Let us then
join in praying that the bread cast upon the waters
may be found after many days, that the little ones
whom I am trying to train up to know the Saviour
may become His true disciples, and that He who is
the " Dayspring from on high " may givQ light to
them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
to guide their feet into the way of peace..

FINIS,

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I.