s there arises any other
demagogue like Achmet et-Tayib to incite the people and now every Arab
sympathises with him. Janet has written me the Cairo version of the
affair cooked for the European taste--and monstrous it is. The Pasha
accuses some Sheykh of the Arabs of having gone from Upper Egypt to India
to stir up the Mutiny against us! _Pourquoi pas_ to conspire in Paris or
London? It is too childish to talk of a poor Saeedee Arab going to a
country of whose language and whereabouts he is totally ignorant, in
order to conspire against people who never hurt him. You may suppose how
Yussuf and I talk by ourselves of all these things. He urged me to try
hard to get my husband here as Consul-General--assuming that he would
feel as I do. I said, my master is not young, and to a just man the
wrong of such a place would be a martyrdom. 'Truly thou hast said it,
but it is a martyr we Arabs want; shall not the reward of him who suffers
daily vexation for his brethren's sake be equal to that of him who dies
in battle for the faith? If thou wert a man, I would say to thee, take
the labour and sorrow upon thee, and thine own heart will repay thee.'
He too said like the old Sheykh, 'I only pray for Europeans to rule
us--now the fellaheen are really worse off than any slaves.' I am sick
of telling of the daily oppressions and robberies. If a man has a sheep,
the Moodir comes and eats it, if a tree, it goes to the Nazir's kitchen.
My poor sakka is beaten by the cawasses in sole payment of his skins of
water--and then people wonder my poor friends tell lies and bury their
money.

I now know everybody in my village and the 'cunning women' have set up
the theory that my eye is lucky; so I am asked to go and look at young
brides, visit houses that are building, inspect cattle, etc. as a bringer
of good luck--which gives me many a curious sight.

I went a few days ago to the wedding of handsome Sheykh Hassan the
Abab'deh, who married the butcher's pretty little daughter. The group of
women and girls lighted by the lantern which little Achmet carried up for
me was the most striking thing I have seen. The bride--a lovely girl of
ten or eleven all in scarlet, a tall dark slave of Hassan's blazing with
gold and silver necklaces and bracelets, with long twisted locks of coal
black hair and such glittering eyes and teeth, the wonderful wrinkled old
women, and the pretty, wondering, yet fearless children were beyond
description.