RECEPTIONS IN EGYPT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4566, 8 November 1875, Page 3

RECEPTIONS IN EGYPT.

In 1867, through the kindness of Nubar Pasha, I was enabled to go up the Nile in a Government steamer, and say good-bye to my mother prior to quitting Egypt for good. My husband and I left Cairo late in February, and stuck on various sandbanks, as the river was very low. On our arrival at the different coaling stations and stopping-places, the villages seemed almost deserted, and there was very little food to be bought. Our servant Mohammed —a sharp lad of about sixteen —at last solved the mystery by explaining that we, being in a Government steamer, were supposed to be people who would be more likely to distribute kicks than paras, and said he would soon set that to rights. So Mohammed tumbled over the steamer’s side, and, swimming like a fish, went ashore, and, cutting off a corner at a long bend in the river, he entered the next village, where we were to anchor, and proclaimed that in the steamer ivas the daughter of the “ Sittel Kebeer,” the great lady (as the Arabs called my mother), who, like the Sitt, was just, and had a heart that ■ loved the Arabs. From that time we had no more difficulties about food, save to make, the people take money. In Egypt it is wonderful how fast news travels. In many places we found people waiting with presents of milk and Arab bread, fowls and eggs. One had been cured by the “ Sitt el Kebeer ;” another had a cousin to whom she had been kind; to some one else she had given a lift in her boat; and so on all the way up the Nile. At Thebes we were expected, a man from Keneh having ridden on to announce the glad tidings to my mother; and the Ulema actually sent the religious flags to decorate her house and meet us. The sekkas (water-carriers) had sprinkled a path for us from the river’s bank to the house, and there was a general rejoicing in the little village. Of course all the notabilities of the place came to have a look at the “Howager” (gentleman—really merchant) and the daughter of the Sitt, and we had endless salaaming to do. The Bedawees came and did fantasia under the balcony—galloping round, their lances stuck in the ground, and shouting wildly. They insisted, too, on accompanying us to the tombs of the kings in the valley opposite ; and the ferryman would not let us pay him for taking us across the river. Then we had to dine with Seleem Effendi, the Mahon of Luxor—a pleasant man, with a dear old wife who would serve us in spite of my husband’s presence. Our procession to dinner was very funny, and at the same time touching—my mother on her donkey, which I led ; two servants in front, with lanterns ; and the faithful Omer, dressed in his best, carrying a sweet dish which he had expended all his skill on ; my husband on the other side of my mother, and then more lantern-bearers. As we passed the people crowded round and called on Allah to bless us, and some threw down their cloaks for my mother to ride .over, while the women lifted the hem of her dress to their lips and foreheads. —Lady Duff Gordon. '