I am more and more annoyed at not being able to ask questions for myself, as I don’t like to ask through a Muslim and no Copts speak any foreign language, or very very few.  Omar and Hassan had been at five this morning to the tomb of Sittina Zeyneb, one of the daughters of the Prophet, to ‘see her’ (Sunday is her day of reception), and say the Fathah at her tomb.  Next Friday the great Bairam begins and every Muslim eats a bit of meat at his richer neighbour’s expense.  It is the day on which the pilgrims go up the sacred mount near Mecca, to hear the sermon which terminates the Haj.  Yesterday I went to call on pretty Mrs. Wilkinson, she is an Armenian of the Greek faith, and was gone to pray at the convent of Mar Girgis (St. George) to cure the pains a bad rheumatic fever has left in her hands.  Evidently Mar Girgis is simply Ammon Ra, the God of the Sun and great serpent-slayer, who is still revered in Egypt by all sects, and Seyd el-Bedawee is as certainly one form of Osiris.  His festivals, held twice a year at Tanta, still display the symbol of the Creator of all things.  All is thus here—­the women wail the dead, as on the old sculptures, all the ceremonies are pagan, and would shock an Indian Mussulman as much as his objection to eat with a Christian shocks an Arab.  This country is a palimpsest, in which the Bible is written over Herodotus, and the Koran over that.  In the towns the Koran is most visible, in the country Herodotus.  I fancy it is most marked and most curious among the Copts, whose churches are shaped like the ancient temples, but they are so much less accessible than the Arabs that I know less of their customs.

Now I have filled such a long letter I hardly know if it is worth sending, and whether you will be amused by my commonplaces of Eastern life.  I kill a sheep next Friday, and Omar will cook a stupendous dish for the poor Fellaheen who are lying about the railway-station, waiting to be taken to work somewhere.  That is to be my Bairam, and Omar hopes for great benefit for me from the process.

May 25, 1863:  Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon.  CAIRO, May 25, 1863.

Dearest Alick,

I have spun such a yarn to my mother that I shall make it serve for both.  It may amuse you to see what impression Cairo makes.  I ride along on my valiant donkey led by the stalwart Hassan and attended by Omar, and constantly say, ’Oh, if our master were here, how pleased he would be’—­husband is not a correct word.

I went out to the tombs yesterday.  Fancy that Omar witnessed the destruction of some sixty-eight or so of the most exquisite buildings—­the tombs and mosques of the Arab Khaleefehs, which Said Pasha used to divert himself with bombarding for practice for his artillery.  Omar was then in the boy corps of camel artillery, now disbanded.  Thus the Pasha added the piquancy of sacrilege to barbarity.