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helped to catch the poor people, and I know also a young Turk who stood by while Fadl Pasha had the men laid down by ten at a time, and chopped with the pioneers axes. He quite admired the affair (though a very good-natured young fellow), and expressed a desire to do likewise. The lowest computation of men, women, and children killed, is sixteen hundred M. M- reckons it at above

two thousand.

"I have seen with my eyes a second boatload of prisoners. I wish fervently the Viceroy knew the deep exasperation which his subordinates are causing. I do not like to repeat all that I hear. What must it be, to force from all the most influential men and the most devout Muslims such a sentiment as this? We are Muslims, but we should thank

God to send Europeans to govern us.' The

feeling is against the Turks, and not against Christians.

"A Coptic friend of mine here has lost all his uncle's family at Gow. All were shot down, Copt and Arab alike.

"As to Hajji Sultan, who lies in chains at Kiné a better man never lived, nor one more liberal to Christians. Copts ate of his bread as freely as Muslims. He lies there because he is distantly related by marriage to Ahmadet-Teiyib; or, to give the real reason, because he is wealthy, and some enemy covets his goods. All this could be confirmed to you by M. M." (pp 369-70.)

Let us compare the record of the rebellion of forty (not thirty) years ago fomented by Ahmad-Et-Teiyib's grandfather; it is taken from the "Encyclopædia Britannica," article Egypt :

is changed, and certainly some newspaper correspondents and holiday tourists write accounts all couleur de rose of the It has been said of London that one-half improvements going on in the country. of its population knows not how the other half lives. The same may be said with tenfold force of the European residents and travelers in Egypt. Every one who has lived among the Egyptians has remarked the almost entire ignorance of the real state of things displayed by those who looked on them from without, and has been amazed at the information imparted to the British people by "our own correspondent." That matters remain pretty much as they have been for years past is sufficiently proved by these Letters.

Unfortunately, English travelers have not helped to lighten the poor Fellah's load of trouble. It has been too much the fashion to despise him in common with all "niggers;" and ill as he has frequently behaved he has rarely been encouraged to do better. The remedy for all difficulty in Egypt is the stick, only because the Turks set an example of using it. A traveler goes up the Nile entirely ignorant of the language of the people, in the hands of a dragoman, himself generally ruined by contact with Europeans; and he sees everything through the medium of this man. Is an Englishman insulted? no punishment is too severe for the unhappy delinquent. To take one instance from many that have come to our own knowledge: a distinguished traveler was walking with a favorite dog on the bank of the river; the dog was shot by a Fellah, and the man taken before the nearest governor. "Shall I sentence him to the galleys?" was the inquiry. The Eng

"In 1824, a native rebellion of a religious character broke out in upper Egypt, headed by one Ahmad, a native of Ed-Salimeeyeh, a village situate a few miles above Thebes. He proclaimed himself a prophet, and was soon followed by between 20,000 and 30,000 insurgeants, mostly peasants; but some, deserters from the Nizam, for that force was yet in a half-organized state, and in part declared for the impostor. The insurrection was crushed by Mohammed 'Alee, and about one-lishman recoiled from so severe a punfourth of Ahmad's followers perished, but he himself escaped and was never after heard of. Few of these unfortunates possessed any other weapon than the long staff (nebboot) of the Egyptian peasant; still they offered an ob

stinate resistance, and the combat resembled a massacre."

The accounts of the two transactions are very similar, except that the rising of last winter was contemptible in point of numbers. Both were put down with Turkish barbarity.

We shall doubtless be told that all this

ishment, and the man received five hundred blows of a palm-stick on his feet. He was doubtless carried away, his feet swollen to shapeless masses, incapacitating him from doing any work for the support of himself or his family for the next six months. We heard this incident related with singular obtuseness of feeling by the person concerned in it. Again, to illustrate our meaning by an instance of comparatively small moment, travelers always carry guns, and seem to think that every bird that flies is fair game.

The number of pigeons destroyed annually under the walls of their dovecotes, and thrown into the river as carrion, is almost incredible. We are willing to believe that generally this is done in ignorance of their being private property. Lady Duff Gordon says:

"I am just called away by some poor men who want me to speak to the English travelers about shooting their pigeons. It is very thoughtless, but it is in great measure the fault of the servants and dragomans, who think they must not venture to tell their masters that pigeons are private property; I have a great mind to put a notice on the wall of my house about it. Here, where there are never less than eight or ten boats lying for full three months, the loss to the Fellaheen is serious, and our Consul, Mustafa Agha, is afraid to say anything. I have given my neighbors permission to call the pigeons mine, as they roost in flocks on my roof; and to go out and say that the Sitt objects to her poultry being shot,-especially as I have had them shot off my balcony as they sat there." (p. 184.)

The root of the whole evil is the entire want of sympathy between Europeans and Easterns; and until they know each other better the evil will not be removed. Hence the Egyptian is as prejudiced (to say the least) as the European. The so-called rebellion of last winter stirred up bad blood enough between the government and the governed; it is scarcely to be wondered at that the Frank should come in for his share :

"The worst thing is that every one believes

that the Europeans aid and abet, and all declare that the Copts were spared to please the Frangees. Mind, I am not telling you facts; I only repeat what the people are saying. One Mohammad, a most respectable, quiet young man, sat before me on the floor the other day, and told me the horrible details he had heard from those who had come up the river. Thou knowest, O our lady, that

we are a people of peace in this place: and

behold, now, if one madman should come, and a few idle fellows go out to the Mountain (desert) with him, Efendeena will send his soldiers to destroy the place, and spoil our poor little girls, and hang us: is that right, O lady? And Ahmad-el-Berberee saw Europeans with hats in the steamer with Efendeena and the soldiers. Truly, in all the world none are miserable like us Arabs. The Turks beat us, and the Europeans hate us and say quite right.' By God, we had better lay our heads in the dust (die), and let the strangers take our land and grow cotton for

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themselves. As for me, I am tired of this miserable life, and of fearing for my poor little girls.", Mohammad was really eloquent, and when he threw his melayeh over his face and sobbed, I am not ashamed to say that I cried too.

"I know very well that Mohammad was not quite wrong in what he says of the Europeans. I know the cruel old platitudes about governing Orientals by fear; I know all about the stick' and 'vigor,' and all that. But I sit among the people,' and I know too that Mohammad feels just the same as John Smith or Tom Brown would feel in his place, and that men who were exasperated against the rioters in the beginning are now in much the same humor as free-born Britons might be under similar circumstances." (p. 184.)

We have doubtless ourselves much to blame for the estimate which Easterns have formed of our national character; the more so, that they give us full credit for every virtue the exercise of which we allow them to see; but forbearance, temper, and consideration for men belonging to the less civilized race of mankind, are not often among those virtues, and we are afraid that an arrogant and overbearing spirit is sometimes exhibited by Englishmen in the East, which may one day cost them dear. We would fain believe that the days of injustice to other nations, whether of act or thought, are passing away. Not very long ago, we regarded the French and the Germans as we now regard the Indians and the Egyptians. The steamboat and the railway, those great missionaries of civilization, are wearing down our island belt of prejudice, and with better acquaintance we are beginning to learn that other people, black as well as white, are men of like passions with ourselves. A harder lesson is to be more than tolerant, to treat "barbarians," "savages," as you would treat a countryman, remembering that you lose nothing by the act, and he gains all. It was this kindly sympathy which made the authoress so many friends among the Egyptians :

"I often feel quite hurt at the way in which the people here thank me for what the poor at home would turn up their noses at. I think hardly a dragoman has been up the river since Er-Rasheedee died, but has come to thank me as warmly as if I had done himself some great service, and many to give me some little present. While the man was ill, numbers of the Fellaheen brought eggs, pig

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eons, &c.,-even a turkey; and food is worth money now, not as it used to be (e. g.. butter is three shillings a pound). I am quite weary, too, of hearing. Of all the Frangee, I never saw one like thee!' Was no one ever at all humane before? For, remember, I give no money, only a little physic and civility." (pp. 363, 354.)

The story of Er-Rasheedee, here alluded to, illustrates our point. He was an old dragoman, left at Thebes, by his employer (who was wealthy and traveled with a doctor) because he fell ill; and paid his bare wages, with six pounds to take him back to Cairo. The authoress received him into her house. A little later, she writes:

"I have left my letter a long while. You will not wonder, for after some ten days' fever my poor guest, Mohammad Er-Rasheedee, died to-day. Two Prussian doctors gave me help for the last four days, but went last night. He sank to sleep quietly at noon, with his hand in mine. A good old Muslim sat at his head on one side, and I on the other. Omar stood at his head, and his black slave-boy Kheyr, at his feet. We had laid his face towards the Kibleh, and I spoke to him to see if he were conscious, and when he nodded, the three Muslims chanted the Islamee, 'La Ilà,' &c., &c., till I closed his eyes. The 'respectable men' came in by degrees, took an inventory of his property, which they delivered to me, and washed the body; and within an hour and a half we all went out to the burial-place; I following among a troop of women who joined us, to wail for the brother who had died far from his place.' The scene, as we turned in between the broken colossi and pylones of the temple to go to the mosque, was overpowering. After the prayer in the mosque we went out to the graveyard,-Muslims and Copts helping to carry the dead, and my Frankish hat in the midst of the veiled women; all so familiar and yet so strange!

"After the burial the Imàm, Sheykh Abd-elWaris, came and kissed me on the shoulders; and the Shereef, a man of eighty, laid his hands on my shoulders and said:Fear not, my daughter, neither all the days of thy life, nor at the hour of thy death, for God leadeth thee in the right way (sirat mustakeem)." I kissed the old man's hand, and turned to go, but numbers of men came and said, a thousand thanks, O our sister, for what thou hast done for one among us!' and a great deal more. Now the solemn chanting of the Fikees, and the clear voice of the boy reciting the Koran in the room where the man died, are ringing through the house. They will pass the night in prayer, and to-morrow there will be the prayer of deliverance in the mosque. Poor Kheyr has just crept in here

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66

was buried on the first day of Ramadan, in the place where they bury strangers, on the site of a former Coptic church. Archdeacon Moore read the service; Omar and I spread my flag over the bier, and Copts and Muslims helped to carry the poor stranger.

"It was a most impressive sight: the party of Europeans-all strangers to the dead, but all deeply moved; the group of black-robed and turbaned Copts, the sailors from the boats, the gaily dressed dragomans, several brownshirted Fellaheen, and the thick crowd of children-all the little Abab'deh stark naked, and all behaving so well; the expression on their little faces touched me most of all. As Muslims, Omar and the boatmen laid him down in the grave; while the English prayer was read the sun went down in a glorious flood of light over the distant bend of the Nile. Had he a mother? he was young!' said an Abab'deh woman to me, with tears in her eyes, and pressing my hand in sympathy for that poor far-off mother of such a different race." (pp. 331, 332.)

We must let the authoress say one word more "of prejudice," and then pass on to more pleasing topics illustrative of life in the East:

"A curious instance of the affinity of the British mind for prejudice is the way in which every Englishman I have seen scorns the Eastern Christians; and it is droll enough, that sinners like Mr. Kinglake and me should be the only people to feel the tie of 'the common faith' (vide ‘Eōthen'). A very pious Scotch gentleman wondered that I could think of entering a Copt's house, adding, that they were the publicans (tax-gatherers) of this country,-which is true. I felt inclined to mention that better company than he or I had dined with publicans, and even sinners. The Copts are evidently the ancient Egyptians,-the slightly aquiline nose and long eye are the very same as those in the profiles on the tombs and temples, and also like the very earliest Byzantine pictures. Du reste, the face is handsome, but generally sallow and rather inclined to puffness, and the figure wants the grace of the Arab; nor has any Copt the thorough-bred distingué look of the

meanest man or woman of good Arab blood. Their feet are the long-toed, flattish foot of the Egyptian statue, while the Arab foot is classically perfect, and you could put your hand under the instep. The beauty of the Abab'deh, black, naked, and shaggy-haired, is quite marvelous; I never saw such delicate limbs and features, or such eyes and teeth." (pp. 59, 60.)

Lady Mary Wortley Montague said, in one of her Letters, that if it were the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed. True, above all other countries, of Egypt and Nubia, where, save the mark, the faces are generally ugly. The figures of the girls, the exquisite forms of their arms and hands and feet, are such as are rarely to be seen in Europe-were costume to allow of their display:

"It is worth while going to Nubia to see the girls. Up to twelve or thirteen, they are neatly dressed in a bead necklace, and a leather fringe, four inches wide, round their loins; and anything so absolutely perfect as their shapes, or so sweetly innocent as they look, can not be conceived. The women are dressed in drapery, like Greek statues, and their forms are as perfect; they have hard, bold faces, but very handsome hair, plaited like the Egyptian sculptures and soaked with castor-oil. The color of the skin is rich sepiabrown, as of velvet with the pile; very dark, and the red blood glowing through it,-unlike negro color in any degree. My pilot's little girl came in the dress mentioned above, carrying a present of cooked fish on her head, and some fresh eggs; she was four years old, and so clever! I gave her captain's biscuit and some figs; and the little pet sat with her little legs tucked under her, and ate it so daintily; she was very long over it, and when she had done, she carefully wrapped up some more biscuit in a little rag of a veil, to take home. I longed to steal her, she was such a darling. One girl of thirteen was so lovely, that even the greatest prude must, I think, have forgiven her sweet, pure beauty." (pp. 52, 53.)

Her Theban home the authoress loves best, and from it she writes most. She was fortunate in dwelling among the people of the villages that dot the site of the City of a Hundred Gates. They boast their Arabian descent, and retain much of the courage, magnanimity, and hospitality attributed to the high-born Arab. Exposed to frequent raids from the adjacent deserts, they have maintained their warlike powers by too com

mon feuds among themselves, and thus, while it has been not unusual for a blood feud to exist between El-Uksur and ElGurneh, they have at least preserved themselves from the degeneracy of the Fellah of Middle and Lower Egypt. And they have been fortunate in their early association with Europeans. The names elers, before "tourists" were known, are of many of the golden age of Nile travremembered among them as household

words.

The most interesting of these Letters are certainly those written from this place during the authoress's long residence there, from January to October, 1864, when she remained among the people long after the last Frank boat had turned down stream, and during all the burning summer. She had before visited the place in 1862, and after attempting to live in more northern latitudes, was driven southwards again by the state of her health. Her frank style and her pictorial power enable her readers to live with her over again those Theban nine months. We must content ourselves here with introducing her sketch of her quarters, and with an illustration taken here and there from the many pages that follow descriptive of daily life among the Egyp

tians.

"I have such a big, rambling house," she says, "all over the top of the temple of Khem; how I wish I had you and the children to fill it! We had twenty Fellahs to clean the dust of three years' accumulation, and my room looks quite handsome with carpets and a divan. The view all round

my house is magnificent on every side; across the Nile in front, facing N. W., and over a splendid expanse of green and a range of distant orange-buff hills to the S. E., where I have a spacious covered terrace. It is rough and dusty in the extreme, but it will be very pleasant. The house is very large,

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it has good thick walls, the comfort of which we feel to-day, for it blows a hurricane, but in-doors it is not at all cold. I have glass windows and doors to some of the rooms; it

is a lovely dwelling. Two funny little owls, as big as my fist, live in the wall under my window, and come and peep in, walking on tiptoe and looking inquisitive, like the owls in the hieroglyphics, and barking at me like young puppies; and a splendid horus (the sacred hawk) frequents my lofty balcony. Another of my contemplar gods I sacrilegiously killed last night-a whip snake. Omar is rather in consternation, for fear it should

be the snake of the house;' for Islam has not dethroned the 'Dii Lares et tutelares.'"

In this rough Oriental dwelling, the authoress settled down to get health, and learn Arabic under the guidance of one Sheykh Yoosuf, who, in common with his fellow-villagers, did his best to help her to pass her otherwise lonely banishment. The climate of Thebes, until the hot winds commenced, seems to have suited her complaint, and though she writes occasionally now of cold and now of heat, she was almost daily riding about the plain. Here are two thoroughly Eastern sketches:

"We have had a week of piercing winds, and I have been obliged to stay in bed. Today was fine again, and I mounted old Mustafa's cob pony and jogged over his farm with him, and lunched on delicious sour cream and fateereh at a neighboring village, to the great delight of the fellaheen. It was more biblical than ever; the people were all relations of Mustafa's, and to see Seedee Omar, the head of the household, and the young men coming in from the field, and the flocks and herds and camels and asses, was like a beautiful dream. All these people are of good blood, and a sort of 'roll of Battle' is kept for the genealogies of the noble Arabs who came in with Amr, the first Arab conqueror and lieutenant of Omar. Not one of these brown men who do not own a second shirt, would give his brown daughter to the greatest Turkish Pasha.' (pp. 167, 168.)

ness, and a few other gentlemen, who all sat down round us, after kissing the hand of the old sheykh. Every one talked; in fact, it was a soirée in honor of the dead sheykh. A party of men sat at the further end of the place, with their faces to the kibleh, and played on a darabukkeh (sort of small drum stretched over an earthen-ware funnel, which gives a peculiar sound), a tamborine without bells, and little tinkling cymbals (seggal), fitting on thumb and finger (crotales), and chanted songs in honor of Mohammad, and verses from the Psalms of David. Every now and then, one of our party left off talking, and old sheykh sent for coffee and gave me the prayed a little, or counted his beads. The first cup,-a wonderful concession; at last, the Nazir proposed a Fat'hah for me, which the whole group round me repeated aloud, and then each said to me:-'Our Lord God bless the, and give thee health and peace, to thee and thy family, and take thee back safe to thy master and thy children;' every one adding, 'Ameen' and giving the salam with the hand. I returned it and said, 'Our Lord reward thee and all people of kindness to strangers,' which was considered a very proper answer." (pp. 169-71.)

And here is a pen-and-ink portrait of Sheykh Yoosuf:

;

"I want to photograph Yoosuf for you the feelings and prejudices and ideas of a cul tivated Arab, as I get at them little by little are curious beyond compare. It won't do to generalize from one man, of course, but even one gives some very new ideas. The most striking thing is the sweetness and delicacy of feeling, the horror of hurting any one (this must be individual, of course; it is too good to be general). I apologized to him two days ago for inadvertently answering the 'Salám aleykum,' which he, of course, said to Omar on coming in, and which is sacramental to Muslims. Yoosuf blushed crimson, touched my hand and kissed his own, and looked quite unhappy.

"Yesterday, I rode over to Karnac with Mustafa's Sais running by my side! glorious hot sun and delicious air. To hear the Sais chatter away, his tongue running as fast as his feet. made me deeply envious of his lungs. Mustafa joined me, and pressed me to go to visit the sheykh's tomb, for the benefit of my health, as he and Sheykh Yoosuf wished to say a Fat'hah for me; but I must not drink wine that day. I made a little difficulty on Yesterday evening he walked in, and the score of difference of religion, but Sheykh startled me by a 'Salám aleykee,' addressed Yoosuf, who came up, said he presumed I to me; he had evidently been thinking it over, worshiped God, and not stones, and that sin--whether he ought to say it to me, and came cere prayers were good anywhere. Clearly the bigotry would have been on my side if I had refused any longer, so in the evening I went with Mustafa.

"It was a very curious sight: the little dome illuminated with as much oil as the mosque could afford, over the tombs of Abu1-Hajjaj and his three sons. A magnificent old man, like Father Abraham himself, dressed in white, sat on a carpet at the foot of the tomb; he was the head of the family of Abu1-Hajjaj. He made me sit by him, and was extremely polite. Then came the Nazir, the Kadee, a Turk traveling on government busi

to the conclusion that it was not wrong; 'Surely it is well for all the creatures of God to speak peace (Salám) to each other,' said he. Now, no uneducated Muslim would have arrived at such a conclusion. Omar would pray, work, lie, do anything for me,-sacrifice money even; but I doubt whether he could utter 'Salám aleykum' to any but a Muslim. I answered as I felt,-Peace, O my brother, and God bless thee!' It was almost as if a Catholic priest had felt impelled by charity to offer the communion to a heretic.

'His wife died two years ago, and six months ago he married again a wife twelve

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