Letters From Egypt, 1863 - 1865 by Lucie Duff Gordon

Author:Lucie Duff Gordon [Gordon, Lucie Duff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-10-12T22:00:00+00:00

LETTER XXXIV.

February 12, 1864.

WE are in Ramadán now, and Omar really enjoys a good opportunity of “making his soul.” He fasts and washes vigorously, prays his five times a day, and goes to mosque on Fridays and is quite merry over it, and ready to cook infidels' dinners with exemplary good humour. It is a great merit in Muslims that they are not at all grumpy over their piety. Weather like that of Paradise has set in since five or six days! I sit on my lofty balcony and drink the sweet northerly breeze, and look at the glorious mountain opposite, and think if only you and the children were here, it would be “the best o' life.” The beauty of Egypt grows on one, and I think it far more lovely this year than I did last.

My great friend the Maohn (he is not the názir, who is a fat little pig-eyed Turk) lives in a house which also has a superb view in another direction, and I often go and sit “on the bench,” i. e. the mastabah in front of his house, and do what little talk I can, and see the people come with their grievances. I don't understand much of what goes on, as the patois is broad and doubles the difficulty, or I would send you a Théban police-report; but the Maohn is very pleasant in his manner to them, and they don't seem frightened. We have appointed a very small boy our bowwáb, or porter, or rather he has appointed himself, and his assumption of dignity is quite delicious; he has provided himself with a huge staff, and he behaves like the most tremendous janissary. He is about the size of a child of five, and as sharp as a needle, and possesses the remains of a brown shirt and a ragged kitchen duster as turban. I am very fond of little Ahmad, and like to see him doing tableaux vivants from Murillo, with a plate of broken victuals. The children of this place have become so insufferable about baksheesh, that I have complained to the Maohn, and he will assemble a committee of parents and enforce better manners. It is only here, and just where the English go. When I ride into the little villages, I never hear the word, but am always offered milk to drink; I have taken it two or three times and not offered to pay, and the people always seemed quite pleased.

Yesterday Sheykh Yoosuf came again, the first time since his brother's death; he was evidently deeply affected, but spoke in the usual way, “It is the will of God, we must all die.” I wish you could see Sheykh Yoosuf; I think he is the sweetest creature in look and manner I ever beheld,—so refined and so simple, and with the animal grace of a gazelle. A high-bred Arab is as graceful as an Indian, but quite without the feline Geschmeidigkeit, or the look of dissimulation; the eye is as clear and frank as a child's.

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