Cairo, June, 1843.

My dear Friend,

There has been an alarm of plague in Cairo, and several of the great hareems have been in quarantine. The apprehension has been induced by the fearful murrain which has raged during nine months, as a similar misfortune has proved in former years the forerunner of a severe pestilence.

I mentioned to you some time since that such a calamity was dreaded; and it has in some measure arrived. At El-Mansoorah, the cases of plague have not been few; and while on this subject I must tell you an extraordinary fact, which will show you that it is even possible to extract sweet from one of the bitterest of human draughts. Some Russians have been at El-Mansoorah for the purpose of studying the disease. As a means of discovering whether it be contagious or not, they have employed persons to wear the shirts of the dead, and paid them five piastres a day for so doing. This was a considerable salary, being equal to a shilling per day! Now when the poor of this country consider half a piastre per day a sufficient allowance for each person, and maintain themselves well, in their own opinion, on this trifling sum, you can conceive how charmed they might be with the liberal offers of these Russian gentlemen, were it not for the risk they incurred. Risk, however, they did not imagine. The poor flocked to the physicians from all parts of the town, and entreated to be permitted to wear the plague-shirts. One old man urged his request, saying, “I am a poor old man, with a family to maintain; do not refuse me; by your life, let me wear a shirt.” The women crowded round the house where their imagined benefactors had taken up their quarters, to bless them for having undertaken to support them, their husbands, and their children: and when the chief of these adventurous gentlemen found the dwelling thus surrounded, he walked forth among them, and, taking off his hat, made a courteous low bow to his dark-eyed visitors; whereupon they made the air resound with the shrill zaghareet, or cries of joy.

Not one of the shirt-wearers died, although the physicians after a short time (during which they awaited the result of their experiment) had recourse to heating the shirts to 60° RÉaumur. Still the poor peasants lived, and throve on their good fare; but one of the physicians died. How he took the disorder is of course a subject for controversy, but that the shirt-wearers escaped, is a great triumph to the non-contagionists of Cairo; and from all we can learn, the best informed are of this party.

In the house of a merchant in Cairo, a slave has lately died of plague, and, according to custom, a soldier was placed at the door to enforce strict quarantine. The merchant did not relish this restraint, and desired the comfort of going in and out at pleasure. Accordingly, he attacked the cupidity of his temporary gaoler, and coaxingly addressed him, saying, “Thou knowest, O my brother, that I am a merchant, and therefore have much business to transact in the markets, where my presence is necessary. Let me go, I beseech thee, and I will hire another to take my place. Consider my case in thy generosity,” he added, putting into his hand a piece of nine piastres; and the soldier found his pity so sensibly touched, that further remonstrance was unnecessary: the merchant passed, and the substitute was accepted—a new way of keeping quarantine!

Long since I told you that I feared the plague might induce us, this year, to go to Upper Egypt; but the accounts have never been such as to show us the necessity; indeed, on the contrary, though constantly making the most anxious inquiries, we did not hear that there had been many cases of plague in the city, until the time of danger had passed.

It is a singular and sad fact, that during our few months’ sojourn here this country has been visited by three of its peculiar plagues—murrain, boils and blains (or common pestilence), and locusts. The first has destroyed cattle to an almost incredible amount of value; the second has not been so severe as it usually is; but the locusts are still fearfully eating the fruits of the ground. In the gardens of Ibraheem Pasha and others, the peasants are employed to drive them away by throwing stones, screaming, beating drums, &c.

My assertion with regard to the small daily pay that contents these poor people will show you how much it is in the power of a person of moderate income to dispense comfort to a considerable number of poor grateful fellow-creatures; and could you but see the blind, lame, old people who solicit alms in the streets of Cairo, you would yearn to supply their simple wants.

Those who are above distress are, with the exception of a very small proportion, such as we should number in England among the poor; but, in many respects, they husband their little property in a very strange manner: though they never waste a morsel of food, they are sometimes extravagant with trifles, simply from want of management. A short time since we received from a shop a little parcel about a span long, round which was wound forty-seven feet of string, so that the paper was only here and there visible; and this was not, as you might suppose, on account of the value of its contents, which cost but a few pence.

The climate produces a great degree of lassitude, and the people will often use any thing within their reach (if their own property) rather than make the smallest exertion; and yet, as I have remarked to you some time since, no people can work harder or more willingly when called on to do so. I do exceedingly like the Arabs, and quite delight in my rides in remarking the grace and politeness which cast a charm on their manners. It is very interesting to see two peasants meet; there appears so much kindly feeling among them, many good-humoured inquiries ensue, and they part with mutual blessings.

While riding out, a few days since, I was surprised by witnessing the extreme display which is exhibited during the wedding festivities of a mere peasant. When I arrived within a few doors of the house of the bridegroom, I passed under a number of flags of red and green silk, suspended to cords extending across the street; above these were hung seven immense chandeliers, composed of variegated lamps; and awnings of green and white canvass were stretched from roof to roof, and afforded an agreeable shade. Here the bride was paraded, covered with a red Cashmere shawl, numerously attended, and preceded by her fanner, beneath a rose-coloured canopy.

A stranger might imagine that the feast which concludes this display is the result of extreme hospitality, but this is not the case; I was surprised at hearing of the system on which it is conducted. A peasant, for instance, will often buy two sheep, two hundredweight of flour, and butter in proportion; these things forming always the chief articles of a feast prepared for the lower orders in Egypt. He will then add different kinds of fruit according to the season, and abundance of tobacco and coffee; and for the amusement of his visitors, he engages singers, and sometimes dancing-girls. To effect this, he will borrow money, and his next step will be to invite all his relations, and all his friends and acquaintance. These feel obliged to accept the invitation; and no one joins the party without a present in his hand: therefore, at the conclusion of the feast, the bridegroom is often rather a gainer by the festivities than otherwise. In every instance his friends enable him to repay those from whom he has borrowed. Real hospitality has no part in the affair whatever. Ostentation alone actuates the bridegroom in making his preparations.

On the morning after his marriage he is generally accompanied by his friends into the country, or to a garden, where they feast together, and are usually entertained by dancing and songs. The expense of this fete champetre, in like manner, seldom falls heavily upon the bridegroom.

The Egyptians have an especial passion for gardens and water. Even stagnant water, if sweet, they consider a luxury: running water, however dirty, they hold to be extremely luxurious; and when, during the inundation, the canal of Cairo is full, all the houses on its banks are occupied by persons who sit in their leisure hours smoking by its muddy waters: but the height of their enjoyment consists in sitting by a fountain—this they esteem Paradise.

How much I wish we had the comfort of occasional showers in Egypt: however, one of my boys amuses me often by supplying this desideratum by watering their garden from an upper projecting window; employing for this purpose a large watering-pot with an ample rose, whence many a refreshing shower falls before the lower windows, washing the thick dust from a mulberry-tree, and really giving an agreeable idea of coolness.

This same mulberry-tree was an object of great admiration to a man who described our present house to us before we saw it: he said, after stating the accommodation which the house afforded, “And there is a tree in the court!” Having forgotten what sort of tree it was, he blessed the Prophet (as these people do when they want to brush up their memory), and then said, “It is a vine.”

This sultry day I can write no more; and if able to forget the heat, the poor little sparrows would remind me that it is indeed oppressive, for they are flying in and out of our windows with their beaks wide open. They do not seem calculated to bear this intense heat; and they congregate round their food and water on the terrace, looking so pitiable during a hot wind, that we should like to transport them to England. There, however, I am afraid they would not tenant the houses so fearlessly of harm as they do in Egypt. Here is no wanton cruelty: a great deal of apathy with regard to suffering is apparent in the character of the people; but I do not think the Arabs, in general, ever inflict an intentional injury.