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With the destruction of the tribal system there was sure to be a diminishing of these virtues, as displayed in royal fashion especially by the chosen leader. But it should not be forgotten that by the same process of reasoning 4. But, as a matter of fact, these noble virtues as shown in the primitive chief have largely survived in the whole Arab race, and in a thousand ways still manifest themselves to the delight of those who come into such intimate relations with the Arab Moslems as admit them into the inner shrine of the home, whether it be the tent or the palace.
Not even the austerities of the sect of the Wahabees, who in a blaze of grim Puritan zeal last century tried to take Islam back to the teaching of the Koran and the example of the Prophet, by abolishing all personal display and making smoking and even coffee-drinking a sin—they would not have carpets on their floors because the Prophet had none—could suppress the inherited instincts of a generous hospitality in the Arab mind, as Palgrave testifies in the story of his travels in Central Arabia.
It was Palgrave who found painted over a door the distich of the celebrated poet, Omar-ibn-el-Farid:. In the Delta, too, I have stayed in what we should call a ducal house, famous for its lavish entertainment 5. This same chivalry towards a guest appears equally, as I well know, in the tent of the desert, and the mud hut of the remote oasis, where it can charm away the limitations of poverty as surely as it can soften the demonstrativeness of wealth.
I valued very highly these opportunities of intimate acquaintance with the people, apart from the true friendships I formed, for the European rarely sees the best of Moslem society.
He easily makes acquaintance with the official class, the Egyptian who has learned in European cities to despise his religion; but he is debarred as a rule from entering the circle of true Moslems of good birth and education and pious life. We were invited to spend a week in a remote village in Upper Egypt with friends whom we had known and visited in Cairo. Arrived at the nearest railway station we were met by a son of the house, with a regular cavalcade of servants and horses, and the humble ass, for the five-mile ride across the fertile plain.
The white Arab mare reserved for my use was gorgeous in its trappings; it was the squire's own beast, in gala array. Our winding narrow path lay through the fields, and by the waterways, which alone bring the possibility of fertility to them; the fields being green everywhere with the tall ripe crop of sugar-cane and Indian corn, as well as with the new beans just springing up.
All this part of Egypt flourishes under the boon of the ever-spreading system of irrigation, which men even in the days of Mohammed Ali dreamed of, and realised—on paper—but which British rule has made possible. All the canals we passed are new; until two years since the natural flood from the Nile was the only chance for the one annual crop where now three crops are grown every year. My friends are Arab Egyptians, with all the piety of the early Moslems, and unspoiled by that contact with modern civilisation which their wealth enables them to have.
Naturally they owe much to this threefold enriching of their lands, and they are candid enough to admit this. The railway too, which recently reduced the road distance from the village by eight miles, and made possible a daily post, is a greatly appreciated benefit. Wilfred Blunt. An amusing period to our journey was made by the canal, about half-way, which had to be crossed by ferry.
Here was an opportunity to see the country-folk at close quarters—the promiscuous little crowd waiting for the 7.
The boatman, as an exception from the general good temper, was a wag, but of the surly and sarcastic order. His remarks to his human cargo were an example of that coarseness coming from a brutal frankness of expression so universal in the East, and which to English ears is revolting. A criticism he hurled at a peasant girl of fourteen or so, for her clumsiness, and at which both men and women smiled, would—I hope—have brought him a swift blow from the roughest navvy in England. In Chaucer's day our own forefathers were lacking in what we now think is decent reserve in speech; we had not advanced too far when Shakespeare or even Fielding wrote.
I am told that in Egypt a slow improvement is noticeable as education increases: and on the effendi or gentle class , at least, intercourse with Western people is having its effect, as I can testify. I admit that the coarseness is still appalling in native conversation; but it is something gained that the Egyptians have come to realise that its repression is required by all decent Europeans with whom they have dealings. Neither my wife nor I ever had a coarse remark addressed to us during the many months we have lived with Eastern people. This boatman was particularly enraged with one of our servants, a negro, whose mule slipped into the canal from the muddy deck of the ferry; the servant nimbly jumping on to its back and swimming it across 8.
It was interesting to see the skill with which those in charge of buffaloes—perhaps a young girl or a boy of six or seven—would induce the beasts to go through the stream so as to avoid the ferry charge. The saving of the tenth of a penny is worth any exertion where the folk are so poor as the fellaheen of Egypt are.
We were a merry boat-load that eventually started; there is nothing of bucolic muteness about these poor labouring people, but good-humoured and ready civility, a responsive smile, very little impertinent curiosity, and a willingness to serve. At last we remounted and rode away. The land we now passed had all been under water at high Nile, so that the two or three villages in sight standing on slight eminences had lately been islands, but the flood had now returned to the waterways and the river.
The villages, standing amidst their palm trees, with the minaret of the mosque always rising as the crowning point, looked very picturesque. Soon in the distance the village in which we were to stay appeared, standing prettily on its small round hill or mound. In the centre was the large house, remarkable in an Egyptian village from having three. We turned across the last field of beans, then into a lane, and were at once in the narrow ways of the hamlet; such a sudden contrast from those wide spaces of land and sky of the valley of the Nile.
The great house we had seen from afar belongs to the family with whom we are to stay; but for us is reserved, as the custom is, a small separate house, with its own courtyard, adjoining the larger residence. It was at our own door that we were received by the men of the family, two older brothers of Omar, with that courtesy of which we were confident.
This house, and all it contained, with its own servants, was ours; literally we were to have sole possession of it; they were honoured by our coming; we were welcome, more than welcome. All was ours, if only we would please them by accepting it. In the Eastern way, these gentle compliments would break out again in pauses of the conversation. You bring a blessing on our house.
Allah yisallimak God preserve you. From this moment we begin to live. And the wealth of practical hospitality with which they are followed shows that I was amused later on to notice that this politeness goes so far as to lead a man who is silently reading a letter from a friend to make an audible reply to the compliments addressed to him in the letter, in exactly the same way as though the writer were present. We sat for a time in the salemlik or men's reception hall with our hosts and chatted and smoked and drank coffee.
Then Omar introduced us to our establishment.
It was built rather like a square bungalow, only with loftier roof, and the usual central hall of the Arab house of the rich classes, with a room at each corner leading out of the hall. Our bedroom was large, and, with its mosquito-curtained beds, quite modern in its furnishing, but for an Eastern brass jug with spout, and its basin, for washing.
Omar explained that our man-servant would come in to pour water from the jug for us when we wished to wash! Then bethinking himself that English people preferred a splashing variety of ablution, a servant found a bigger basin and a large jug; and our personal Arab servant, who had no experience of Europeans, was greatly puzzled to be told that we should not need his help in this particular matter. In the East, by a series of ingenious questions, it will be elicited what the guest's habits and wishes are, and everything will be made to quietly fit into these.
I expected this, This village is so far out of the track of visitors—tourists have never so much as dreamed of the existence of such a place, so far from dahabieh, and Cook's steamer, or even the humblest temple of Isis—that an Englishman outside the official class has never been seen here, and my wife is the first European lady even known to visit it. And as by this time he had doffed his European clothes and was dressed in a galabieh a sort of long cloth smock he modestly suggested that I should find it easier to approach the unsophisticated country-folk if I wore native dress and a tarboosh.
I agreed, and soon found myself similarly robed and with the red tarboosh fez on my head, while there was placed at my disposal a second set of garments for special wear, dressed in which I should appear as a full member of the sheikh or learned class. In many ways I found this clothing an advantage. Of its comfort, if one adopts the Eastern mode of sitting on one's crossed legs, there can be no question.
As my friend Omar, when he is in the country, is a holiday-maker, and has time for all the daily prayers, he finds this garment convenient, if not necessary, for making the ablutions and other practices of his religion. As we rode about the country a good deal, we of course passed many men by the wayside, as well as in the villages.
It is a mistake often made, however, to say that the Moslem will not return the greeting of a Christian. It is extremely interesting, and sometimes amusing, to see the ingenuity and persistency with which two friends, especially after a long absence, will sustain a competition in greetings, one compliment upon the other, always with a better greeting, in obedience to this command. Masnavi I Ma' Navi. And so on. There is something in the Arabic language which lends itself to a rhythmic repetition and phrase expansion. Our Lord and the Prophet know the good men.
The graceful imagery of the East permeates the expressions of all classes of men, and among the poor fellaheen lends poetry to lives otherwise those of toil and drudgery. The cordial word between master and man, the curious mixture of unclouded assurance and deference with which the poorest and most unlettered approach the rich and the learned; the dignity on both sides which allows of an equality leading to no loss of self-respect with either—all this serves to create a happy Only the women of the village would hide when we appeared, by retiring into a doorway, if possible, or by hiding their heads in their flowing black veils—and this is a tribute to our rank, for the fellaheen women do not veil in the formal sense as the townswoman does; they give no greetings, and only in the case of a woman being well known to one of our party should we speak to one of them.
And wherever we went we met signs of the touching, simple kindness of these people. And what they offer—it is all they possess very often—is done as a matter of course; to suggest reward would be to deeply wound them; all they desire is that you will condescend to accept the respect of which their service is the sign.
IT was in the salon of our own house that we again met the men of the family, as though we were the hosts, and they the guests; and soon after our arrival, on the first day, lunch was announced in an adjoining room. We all went to the dining-room, took our serviettes from the table, and returning to the hall, washed our hands, for by our own desire we were to eat, during our stay here, in the Eastern fashion—with our fingers. Nothing can exceed the daintiness and the cleanness with which even the humble Arabs eat. If the tourist would have proof, let him watch the boatmen waiting for the Kasr-el- Nil bridge to open, under the Semiramis wall in Cairo , as they sit round the common dish at their evening meal, as the sun is setting.
For my part I sit at meals, eaten in this way, with pleasure, knowing how scrupulously clean the hands of a Moslem are the right hand only is used for eating, and that is always kept from impure contact , for in addition to the prayer ablution there is always this special washing at each meal. What a meal this luncheon was—forerunner of an unbroken succession of banquets twice a day to the end of our stay.
Happily, as Omar had been in England, he knew our limitations of appetite and digestion , and we were not pressed to eat of each of the innumerable courses, as the usual Egyptian custom dictates.
After the coffee and siesta in the hall, we explored the village and met its dignitaries and notables. A village of this size—there are two thousand inhabitants all told—has a mayor and a deputy mayor, on which officials we now called to pay our respects.
They are appointed by the Government, at a small salary, but with certain privileges—for instance, the mayor's son is exempt from military service. The mayor is responsible for law and order, and can give sentence of imprisonment up to twelve hours. He is responsible to the mudir. Egypt, we learned, is divided into provinces, each province being ruled over by a mudir, with a sub-mudir. Each province is divided into districts, and over each district is a mamour who has control over a number of police officers.
The mamour has oversight of the villages in his district, each village having an omdah or mayor. The province in which I stayed was that of Benisuif, which is in the third or last grade, having three mamours over its three districts. Tanta , in Lower Egypt , is the first province in rank, having eleven districts. There is a provincial council for each province presided over by the mudir. From a narrow street we emerged into the brilliant sunshine, which in winter—it was now December—is in Egypt truly golden, and of all things in nature the most delightful and grateful.
On the village green—only it is not grass-green, but dust-grey—flocks of geese were preening themselves, and the children, dressed in every bright colour, played in groups. On the opposite side, outside a cottage door, sat a number of men in white or blue galabiehs, smoking and chatting.
Now there pass three or four women, in black, one of them with a bright bundle of a child straddled on her left shoulder, another with water-pot on her head—the sunshine making, with each turn of the kaleidoscope, a perfect picture. The lowly habitations are built of unbaked bricks, in some cases plastered with rough clay, of one storey, and in every way are as elementary a form of house-building as can well be.
And how primitive the people are. I noticed on the outer walls by the side of the entrance of several houses long marks scratched in the clay, in one place as many as four strokes, in another two, and so on. The explanation is that a venerable pedlar, who travels all the way from Medina, with henna, which is particularly esteemed as coming from the Holy City, and visits all the villages in this part of Egypt, gives credit to the poor cottagers, and marks his account in this way on the outer walls!
Another house we passed was decorated round the doorway with crude drawings, denoting that the occupant As the whole of his life had been passed in the service of our host's family, his great age was well authenticated.