before
his mother, a Habbesheeyeh, oh Lady, and tell her "thy son is dead"?' So
I said, '_Allah kereem ya Seedee_, and _Inshallah tayib_,' etc., etc.,
and went this morning early to the boat. It was a regular old Arab
cangia lumbered up with corn, sacks of matting, a live sheep, etc., and
there I found a sweet graceful boy of fifteen or so in a high fever. His
father said he had visited a certain Pasha on the way and evidently meant
that he had been poisoned or had the evil eye. I assured him it was only
the epidemic and asked why he had not sent for the doctor at Keneh. The
old story! He was afraid, 'God knows what a government doctor might do
to the boy.' Then Omar came in and stood before El-Bedrawee and said,
'Oh my master, why do we see thee thus? Mashallah, I once ate of thy
bread when I was of the soldiers of Said Pasha, and I saw thy riches and
thy greatness, and what has God decreed against thee?' So El-Bedrawee
who is (or was) one of the wealthiest men of Lower Egypt and lived at
Tantah, related how Effendina (Ismail Pasha) sent for him to go to Cairo
to the Citadel to transact some business, and how he rode his horse up to
the Citadel and went in, and there the Pasha at once ordered a cawass to
take him down to the Nile and on board a common cargo boat and to go with
him and take him to Fazoghlou. Letters were given to the cawass to
deliver to every Moudir on the way, and another despatched by hand to the
Governor of Fazoghlou with orders concerning El-Bedrawee. He begged
leave to see his son once more before starting, or any of his family.
'No, he must go at once and see no one.' But luckily a fellah, one of
his relations had come after him to Cairo and had 700 pounds in his
girdle; he followed El-Bedrawee to the Citadel and saw him being walked
off by the cawass and followed him to the river and on board the boat and
gave him the 700 pounds which he had in his girdle. The various Moudirs
had been civil to him, and friends in various places had given him
clothes and food. He had not got a chain round his neck or fetters, and
was allowed to go ashore with the cawass, for he had just been to the
tomb of Abou-l-Hajjaj and had told that dead Sheykh all his affliction
and promised, if he came back safe, to come every year to his _moolid_
(festival) and pay the whole expenses (_i.e._ feed all comers). Mustapha
wanted him to dine with him and me, but the cawass could not allow it, so
Mustapha sent him