ter of course. I think the influence of
foreigners is much more real and much more useful on the Arabs than on
the Turks, though the latter show it more in dress, etc. But all the
engineers and physicians are Arabs, and very good ones, too. Not a Turk
has learnt anything practical, and the dragomans and servants employed by
the English have learnt a strong appreciation of the value of a character
for honesty, deserved or no; but many do deserve it. Compared to the
couriers and _laquais de place_ of Europe, these men stand very high.
Omar has just run in to say a boat is going, so good-bye, and God bless
you.

March 22, 1864: Sir Alexander Duff Gordon

_To Sir Alexander Duff Gordon_.

LUXOR,
_March_ 22, 1864.

DEAREST ALICK,

I am glad my letters amuse you. Sometimes I think they must breathe the
unutterable dulness of Eastern life: not that it is dull to me, a curious
spectator, but how the men with nothing to do can endure it is a wonder.
I went yesterday to call on a Turk at Karnac; he is a gentlemanly man,
the son of a former Moudir, who was murdered, I believe, for his cruelty
and extortion. He has 1,000 feddans (acres, or a little more) of land,
and lives in a mud house, larger but no better than any fellahs, with two
wives and the brother of one of them. He leaves the farm to his
fellaheen altogether, I fancy. There was one book, a Turkish one; I
could not read the title-page, and he did not tell me what it was. In
short, there was no means of killing time but the narghile, no horse, no
gun, nothing, and yet they did not seem bored. The two women are always
clamorous for my visits, and very noisy and school-girlish, but
apparently excellent friends and very good-natured. The gentleman gave
me a _kufyeh_ (thick head kerchief for the sun), so I took the ladies a
bit of silk I happened to have. You never heard anything like his
raptures over Maurice's portrait, '_Mashallah_, _Mashallah_, _Wallahy zay
el ward_' (It is the will of God, and by God he is like a rose). But I
can't 'cotton to' the Turks. I always feel that they secretly dislike us
European women, though they profess huge admiration and pay _personal_
compliments, which an Arab very seldom attempts. I heard Seleem Effendi
and Omar discussing English ladies one day lately while I was inside