March 13, 1865:  Mrs. Austin

To Mrs. Austin.  LUXOR, March 13, 1865.

Dearest Mutter,

I hope your mind has not been disturbed by any rumours of ’battle, murder and sudden death’ up in our part of the world.  A week ago we heard that a Prussian boat had been attacked, all on board murdered, and the boat burned; then that ten villages were in open revolt, and that Effendina (the Viceroy) himself had come up and ’taken a broom and swept them clean’ i.e.—­exterminated the inhabitants.  The truth now appears to be that a crazy darweesh has made a disturbance—­but I will tell it as I heard it.  He did as his father likewise did thirty years ago, made himself Ism (name) by repeating one of the appellations of God, like Ya Latif three thousand times every night for three years which rendered him invulnerable.  He then made friends with a Jinn who taught him many more tricks—­among others, that practised in England by the Davenports of slipping out of any bonds.  He then deluded the people of the desert by giving himself out as El-Mahdi (he who is to come with the Lord Jesus and to slay Antichrist at the end of the world), and proclaimed a revolt against the Turks.  Three villages below Keneh—­Gau, Rayanaeh and Bedeh took part in the disturbance, and Fodl Pasha came up with steamboats, burnt the villages, shot about one hundred men and devastated the fields.  At first we heard one thousand were shot, now it is one hundred.  The women and children will be distributed among other villages.  The darweesh some say is killed, others that he is gone off into the desert with a body of bedaween and a few of the fellaheen from the three ravaged villages.  Gau is a large place—­as large, I think as Luxor.  The darweesh is a native of Salamieh, a village close by here, and yesterday his brother, a very quiet man, and his father’s father-in-law old Hajjee Sultan were carried off prisoners to Cairo, or Keneh, we don’t know which.  It seems that the boat robbed belonged to Greek traders, but no one was hurt, I believe, and no European boat has been molested.

Baron Kevenbrinck was here yesterday with his wife, and they saw all the sacking of the villages and said no resistance was offered by the people whom the soldiers shot down as they ran, and they saw the sheep etc. being driven off by the soldiers.  You need be in no alarm about me.  The darweesh and his followers could not pounce on us as we are eight good miles from the desert, i.e. the mountain, so we must have timely notice, and we have arranged that if they appear in the neighbourhood the women and children of the outlying huts should come into my house which is a regular fortress, and also any travellers in boats, and we muster little short of seven hundred men able to fight including Karnac, moreover Fodl Pasha and the troops are at Keneh only forty miles off.