Letters from Egypt by Lady Lucie Duff Gordon
page 88 of 412 (21%)
page 88 of 412 (21%)
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you;' and she did. The man must provide all necessaries for his Hareem,
and if she has money or earns any she spends it in dress; if she makes him a skullcap or a handkerchief he must pay her for her work. _Tout n'est pas roses_ for these Eastern tyrants, not to speak of the unbridled license of tongue allowed to women and children. Zeyneb hectors Omar and I cannot persuade him to check her. 'How I say anything to it, that one child?' Of course, the children are insupportable, and, I fancy, the women little better. A poor neighbour of mine lost his little boy yesterday, and came out in the streets, as usual, for sympathy. He stood under my window leaning his head against the wall, and sobbing and crying till, literally, his tears wetted the dust. He was too grieved to tear off his turban or to lament in form, but clasped his hands and cried, 'Yah weled, yah weled, yah weled' (O my boy, my boy). The bean-seller opposite shut his shop, the dyer took no notice but smoked his pipe. Some people passed on, but many stopped and stood round the poor man, saying nothing, but looking concerned. Two were well-dressed Copts on handsome donkeys, who dismounted, and all waited till he went home, when about twenty men accompanied him with a respectful air. How strange it seems to us to go out into the street and call on the passers-by to grieve with one! I was at the house of Hekekian Bey the other day when he received a parcel from his former slave, now the Sultan's chief eunuch. It contained a very fine photograph of the eunuch--whose face, though negro, is very intelligent and of charming expression--a present of illustrated English books, and some printed music composed by the Sultan, Abd el Aziz, himself. _O tempera_! _O mores_! one was a waltz. The very ugliest and scrubbiest of street dogs has adopted me--like the Irishman who wrote to Lord Lansdowne that he had selected him as his patron--and he guards the house and follows me in the street. He is rewarded with scraps, and |
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