Then I went to visit my kind friend the Maohn’s wife, and tell her all about her charming daughter and grandchildren. I was, of course, an hour in the streets salaaming, etc. ’Sheerafteenee Beledna, thou hast honoured our country on all sides.’ ‘Blessings come with thee,’ etc.
Everything is cheaper than last year, but there is no money to buy with, and the taxes have grown beyond bearing, as a fellah said, ’a man can’t (we will express it “blow his nose,” if you please; the real phrase was less parliamentary, and expressive of something at once ventose and valueless) without a cawass behind him to levy a tax on it.’ The ha’porth of onions we buy in the market is taxed on the spot, and the fish which the man catches under my window. I paid a tax on buying charcoal, and another on having it weighed. People are terribly beaten to get next year’s taxes out of them, which they have not the money to pay.
The Nubian M.P.’s passed the other day in three boats, towed by a steamer, very frightened and sullen. I fell in with some Egyptians on my way, and tried the European style of talk. ’Now you will help to govern the country, what a fine thing for you,’ etc. I got such a look of rueful reproach. ’Laugh not thou at our beards O Effendim! God’s mercy, what words are these? and who is there on the banks of the Nile who can say anything but hader (ready), with both hands on the head, and a salaam to the ground even to a Moudir; and thou talkest of speaking before Effendina! Art thou mad, Effendim?’ Of all the vexations none are more trying than the distinctions which have been inflicted on the unlucky Sheykhs el-Beled. In fear and trembling they ate their Effendina’s banquet and sadly paid the bill: and those who have had the Nishan (the order of the Mejeedee) have had to disburse fees whereat the Lord Chamberlain’s staff’s mouths might water, and now the wretched delegates to the Egyptian Chambers (God save the mark) are going down with their hearts in their shoes. The Nubians say that the Divan is to be held in the Citadel and that the road by which the Memlook Beys left it is not stopped up, though perhaps it goes underground nowadays. {315}