Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 353, March 1845. Various
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the kurbáj, and the same farce was repeated. Though neither slave nor cat was a sufferer, the effect must have been equally bad on the mind of the child. Alas! for the slaves and cats when he is big enough to make them feel!"
The children, however, occasionally fare no better than the slaves; and Mr Lane was not seldom obliged, by the screams of the sufferers, to interfere to stop the cruelty practised in his neighbourhood, when "the answer usually returned was of the most civil kind, assuring us, with many salutations, that for our sakes the offender shall be forgiven." On one occasion an old woman, to punish her little grandson for a trifling theft, had employed the services of a professional beater, who had tied the child's legs and arms, and was beating him with a ponderous stick, while his grandmother cried, "again!" and only desisted on a peremptory remonstrance from Mr Lane; yet the same woman disturbed the neighbourhood with her lamentations every alternate Monday for the loss of her son, the little boy's father! It is perhaps hardly fair to cite instances of brutality like this, to which our own police-offices afford abundance of parallels, as examples of the national manners of Egypt; and Mrs Poole does full justice to the spirit of mutual aid which prevails among the poor in all Moslem countries, and teaches them "to bear each other's burdens." The women, especially those of the higher class, are admitted to be the "most affectionate of mothers." They are so possessed, however, by terror of the "evil eye," which they firmly believe may be cast on their children by an admiring word or glance, that the smallest allusion to them is hazardous. Mrs Poole was much amused by the agitation of an Arab lady, in conversation with whom she had congratulated herself that the strength of her eldest boy's constitution had preserved him from the ill effects of the heat. "In an instant she vociferated, 'Bless the Prophet! bless the Prophet!' and coloured deeply." And it was with difficulty that Mrs Poole could calm her, or convince her that the English apprehended no danger from the expression of their satisfaction in the welfare of those they love.
It is not easy for even the most experienced to avoid contretemps of this kind in the East, where even the ordinary observances of life seem to have been arranged on a system diametrically opposite to our own; and some amusing anecdotes are given of the gaucheries unconsciously committed by raw tourists from Europe. At the house of an Egyptian grandee, an European gentleman, on receiving the sherbet after pipes and coffee, which was handed to him first as a stranger, "looked at it for a moment, and then at the gaily-embroidered napkin hung over the arm of the slave who presented it; and following the impulse given, I conclude, by his preconceptions of Eastern habits of cleanliness, dipped his fingers in the sweet beverage, and wiped them on the napkin!" A less pardonable breach of etiquette, as it proceeded not from ignorance but want of good-breeding, was committed by two Franks, who, arranged in a motley mixture of European and Oriental costume, made their way into the Pasha's palace at Shubra, and, after rambling from room to room without meeting any one, at length entered the bedroom of the Pasha, who was nearly undressed! "Though taken by surprise, his Turkish coolness did not forsake him; calling for his dragoman, he said, 'Ask those gentlemen where they bought their tarbooshes?' 'At Constantinople.' 'And there,' rejoined the Pasha, 'I suppose they learned their manners. Tell them so.' Judging from this retort that their presence was not agreeable, the Franks saluted the viceroy, and withdrew."
As we profess to deal with Mrs Poole solely in her own peculiar province, as a delineator of female manners and female society in Egypt, we shall pass with brief notice her visit to the Pyramids, the account of which contains much valuable information, supplied (as she avows,) from the notes of her brother. The excursion, though at a short distance from Cairo, is not altogether unattended with danger, especially to ladies, from the attacks of the Bedawees; as appears from the remarks of some young men, the sons of a Bedawee sheykh at some distance, who had ridden over, as they admitted, in the hope of seeing the faces of the ladies of the party, and were much disappointed at finding them veiled. They had been much struck by the charms of a beautiful American whom they had seen a few weeks before; and one of then exclaimed, in speaking of her – "But the sword! the sword! if we dared to use it, we would kill that man," alluding to the lady's companion, whether her husband or brother, "and take her for ourselves." – "'Tis well for pretty women travelling in the East, that these lawless Arabs are kept under a degree of subjection by the present government," says Mrs Poole; and the anecdote affords an indication that, when the reins of administration are released by the death of the present Pasha, the overland route to India may not be quite so secure as it is at present.
But there is another, a modern wonder of Cairo, which, of late years, has almost equally divided with the Pyramids the attention of Frank travellers. We allude to the sheykh Abdel-Kadir el-Maughrabi, in whose enchanted mirror of ink, poured into the palm of an unsophisticated Arab boy, men from all parts of the earth were compelled to appear before the tent of the Sultan, with its seven mystic flags, and submit to a description of their persons and dress, which would have satisfied the vigilance of the Russian police. The oracular sagacity of the Quarterly Review was unable to solve the mystery; and even Mr Lane, in his Modern Egyptians, hesitates whether to doubt or to believe; but the bubble (as we learn from Mrs Poole) has at last burst; and the two familiar spirits, Turshoon and Turyooshoon, stand revealed in the late Osman Effendi, interpreter to the British consulate. Since the death of this respectable personage, who usually acted as master of the ceremonies at his performances, the good fortune of the sheykh has totally deserted him, as he himself inadvertently admitted to Mr Lane, when he not long since accompanied two English travellers to witness the exhibition, which proved an entire failure; and since that time his attempts have been even more signally unsuccessful. Whatever may have been the means employed, there is no longer any doubt that Osman Effendi, who sat quiet and demure in a corner, without word or sign, was the prime agent in the deception; and with him the reputation of the last representative of Pharaoh's magicians has vanished for ever, like the visions in his own magic mirror.
The series of Mrs Poole's letters closes abruptly in April 1844, with the relation of one of her visits to the friendly harem of Habeeb Effendi; and no intimation is given either of the cause of the second cessation, or whether a second series may be hereafter expected. We hope that this may be the case; for, independent of the interest attaching to the subject, and the difficulty of finding another equally qualified by opportunity and powers of observation to do it justice, the time must inevitably soon be past when it will be possible to depict the habitudes and manners of the Arab population in their integrity. Cairo is at present, with the single exception perhaps of Damascus, the most purely Arab city in the East; but the ruthless reforms of the Pasha, and the constant passage of the Franks on this new high-road to India, will erelong divest it of its distinguishing characteristics, and give it as hybrid an aspect as that of the Frank intruders into the Pasha's chamber. An English hotel has already started up; and Mrs Poole informs us, that "by a proclamation of the Pasha, the houses are to be whitewashed within and without; those who inhabit ruined houses are to repair or sell them; and uninhabited dwellings are to be pulled down, for the purpose of forming squares and gardens; meshreebeyehs (projecting first-floor windows) are forbidden; and mastabahs (the seats in front of shops) are to be removed. Cairo, therefore, will no longer be an Arab city, and will no longer possess those peculiarities which render it so picturesque and attractive. The deep shade in the narrow streets, increased by the projecting windows; the picturesque tradesmen, sitting with one friend or more before his shop, enjoying the space afforded by his mastabah – these will be no more; and while I cannot but acknowledge the great necessity for repairing the city, and removing the ruins which threaten the destruction of passengers, I should have liked these features retained which are essentially characteristic – which help, as it were, to group the people, and which form such admirable accessories to pictures."
PRACTICAL AGRICULTURE – STEPHENS' BOOK OF THE FARM, &c
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