One must come to the East to understand absolute equality.  As there is no education and no reason why the donkey-boy who runs behind me may not become a great man, and as all Muslims are ipso facto equal; money and rank are looked on as mere accidents, and my savoir vivre was highly thought of because I sat down with Fellaheen and treated everyone as they treat each other.  In Alexandria all that is changed.  The European ideas and customs have extinguished the Arab altogether, and those who remain are not improved by the contact.  Only the Bedaween preserve their haughty nonchalance.  I found the Mograbee bazaar full of them when I went to buy a white cloak, and was amused at the way in which one splendid bronze figure, who lay on the shop-front, moved one leg to let me sit down.  They got interested in my purchase, and assisted in making the bargain and wrapping the cloak round me Bedawee fashion, and they too complimented me on having ‘the face of the Arab,’ which means Bedaween.  I wanted a little Arab dress for Rainie, but could not find one, as at her age none are worn in the desert.

I dined one day with Omar, or rather I ate at his house, for he would not eat with me.  His sister-in-law cooked a most admirable dinner, and everyone was delighted.  It was an interesting family circle.  A very respectable elder brother a confectioner, whose elder wife was a black woman, a really remarkable person, who speaks Italian perfectly, and gave me a great deal of information and asked such intelligent questions.  She ruled the house but had no children, so he had married a fair, gentle-looking Arab woman who had six children, and all lived in perfect harmony.  Omar’s wife is a tall, handsome girl of his own age, with very good manners.  She had been outside the door of the close little court which constituted the house once since her marriage.  I now begin to understand all about the wesen with the women.  There is a good deal of chivalry in some respects, and in the respectable lower and middle classes the result is not so bad.  I suspect that among the rich few are very happy.  But I don’t know them, or anything of the Turkish ways.  I will go and see the black woman again and hear more, her conversation was really interesting.

May 12, 1863:  Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.  ALEXANDRIA, May 12, 1863.

Dearest Alick,

I only got your letter an hour ago, and the mail goes out at four.  I enclose to you the letter I had written to my mother, so I need not repeat about my plans.  Continue to write here, a letter comes as soon and safer.  My general health is so much stronger and better—­especially before I had this last severe attack—­that I still hope, though it is a severe trial of patience not to throw it up and come home for good.  It would be delightful to have you at Cairo now I have pots and pans and all needful for a house, but a carpet and a few mattresses, if you could camp with me a l’Arabe.