You will think me a complete rebel—­but I may say to you what most people would think ’like my nonsense’—­that one’s pity becomes a perfect passion, when one sits among the people—­as I do, and sees it all; least of all can I forgive those among Europeans and Christians who can help to ‘break these bruised reeds.’  However, in Cairo and more still in Alexandria, all is quite different.  There, the same system which has been so successfully copied in France prevails.  The capital is petted at the expense of the fellaheen.  Prices are regulated in Cairo for meat and bread as they are or were in Paris, and the ‘dangerous classes’ enjoy all sorts of exemptions.  Just like France!  The Cairenes eat the bread and the fellaheen eat the stick.

The people here used to dislike Mounier who arrived poor and grew rich and powerful, but they all bless him now and say at El-Moutaneh a man eats his own meat and not the courbash of the Moudir—­and Mounier has refused soldiers (as I refused them on my small account) and ’Please God,’ he will never repent it.  Yussuf says ’What the Turkish Government fears is not for your safety, but lest we should learn to love you too well,’ and it is true.  Here there is but one voice.  ’Let the Franks come, let us have the laws of the Christians.’

In Cairo the Franks have dispelled this douce illusion and done the Turk’s work as if they were paid for it.  But here come only travellers who pay with money and not with stick—­a degree of generosity not enough to be adored.

I perceive that I am a bore—­but you will forgive my indignant sympathy with the kind people who treat me so well.  Yussuf asked me to let the English papers know about the Gau business.  An Alim ed Deen ul-Islam would fain call for help to the Times!  Strange changes and signs of the times—­these—­are they not so?

I went to Church on Good Friday with the Copts.  The scene was very striking—­the priest dressed like a beautiful Crusader in white robes with crimson crosses.  One thing has my hearty admiration.  The few children who are taken to Church are allowed to play!  Oh my poor little Protestant fellow Christians, can you conceive a religion so delightful as that which permits Peep-bo behind the curtain of the sanctuary!  I saw little Butrus and Scendariah at it all church time—­and the priest only patted their little heads as he carried the sacrament out to the Hareem.  Fancy the parson kindly patting a noisy boy’s head, instead of the beadle whacking him!  I am entirely reconciled to the Coptic rules.

May, 1865:  Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.  NILE BOAT, URANIA, May, 1865.