THE HAMSEEN, THE LAMP-SHOP, AND THE ACCESSION OF SAID PASHA
FROM the end of March, when the wind shifts to the south, we get a taste of summer’s heat. The talk in the hotels is of home-returning steamers, and Cook’s offices are besieged with visitors anxious to secure early bookings. The Hamseen, as this unpleasant wind is called, causes a rapid rise in the temperature, and while it lasts the whole aspect of northern Egypt changes. The sky partakes of the colour of the desert, and has something of the look of a slight London fog; the sun also reminds us of the pale orange sphere visible when Londoners remark on its being a fine day. Apart from these appearances the sensations felt are very different. Neither moisture nor smoke give that yellowish look here; it is the sand which the wind collects as it blows across the desert in its northern course. As the wind increases, so the temperature rises, and the extreme dryness of the air causes those unpleasant sensations felt with the first symptoms of fever.
Cairo becomes unpaintable, the sun hardly casts a shadow through the thickening clouds of dust, and such shadow as it is has none of that blue reflected light which gives the true shadow quality. Did not experience teach me that it is only a passing phase, my inclination would be to pack up and leave by the first available steamer and join the migration to the north. It is useless to hunt about the streets for subjects; for even if one were found sufficiently attractive, the dust would render the work an impossibility. Some subject of a still-life nature in the shelter of the bazaars or an interior must be found, unless one makes up one’s mind to stay indoors until the wind sets in a more favourable quarter.
The word hamseen means fifty, and is given to this wind because of the fifty days during which spells of it may be expected. If street rows are more frequent, if irritability or headaches are complained of, the Cairene shrugs his shoulders and says ‘Hamseen.’ It was a day of that kind that took me once more to the Khan Khalil. I had often been attracted by a lamp-shop there, but had put off painting it on account of the elaborate detail, and doubts whether the results would be proportionate to the work involved. A corner well sheltered from the wind and an obliging shopman induced me to set up my easel. Should the wind change, I could always leave it and return when the next hamseen would make work impossible elsewhere.
Every type of Egyptian lamp hung round the entrance, and lamps and lampstands lined the walls of the passage leading into the store beyond. There, in the deeper shades, the sparkle of polished metal suggested innumerable lamps of which the near ones were samples. Brass bowls and trays, teapots and candlesticks, filled up the spaces where lamps could not be138 hung. With the buff-coloured stone of the building, this metal-work made a harmonious whole. To pull this together so as not to lose the breadth of effect would be no easy task. During the third day in this corner of the bazaar a ray of sunlight heralded a return of beautiful weather; a drop in the temperature and the feel of one’s skin were enough to tell one that the wind blew no more from the south, and that once more the cool breezes from the sea ran counter to the flow of the Nile. The little sunlight which found its way between the awnings and matting which roof in this bazaar was enough to alter the whole effect of my subject. My drawing looked leathery and sodden compared to the rich glow which lit up the shop, and proved that even the nearest bit of still-life is better when the presence of the sun is felt. I sponged out more lamps in two minutes than I had put in in two days, and this corner knew me no more on hamseen days. It was, after all, only during beautiful days that I could complete the drawing which illustrates these pages.
Nassán is the proprietor of the shop, and Nassán seemed much exercised in his mind why I should have so ruthlessly made away with so many lamps, though they were only on paper. What did a ray of sunlight matter as long as the name of Nassán was conspicuous on the signboard which hung over the entrance? As new lamps replaced the old, Nassán’s interest in my drawing reawakened, and overtures were even made for its acquisition. I told him I wished to take it to England, as I wanted illustrations for a book I was about139 to write, and he, not wishing to lose a gratis advertisement, got me to promise to say that he was prepared to supply any one with as many lamps as they could possibly wish. He had recently furnished the Heliopolis hotel with three hundred metal ones, and his stock was not nearly exhausted.
I looked up Mustapha, the silk-merchant with whom I had spent an interesting evening during the Hasaneyn festival. While we sipped our coffee on the mastaba of his shop, we reverted to the tragic story of the Irishman O’Donald and his first meeting with the princess Zohra. Her history has been continued during this narrative, and my readers may remember that we last saw her settled down in Constantinople under the protection of the Sultan of Turkey. How her hatred of Abbas (the then ruling Viceroy) outlived her thwarted love for O’Donald will now be related. From the account given by the German engineer, Max Eyth, I was able to tell the silk-merchant more of what happened than he knew; for Eyth had the details from Halim Pasha, Zohra’s own brother, who was an important actor in the drama. But nothing to incriminate his sister fell from Halim’s lips; the part she played was related by the servant Ramés, from whom Eyth obtained most of her history. Why no English edition of Max Eyth’s Hinter Pflug und Schraubstock should exist is a mystery to the present writer.
It will be remembered that when the great Mohammed Ali, towards the end of his reign, fell into a state of imbecility, the reins of government were seized by his famous general and adopted son Ibrahim, and that140 the latter died within a year after becoming the ruler of Egypt. Mohammed’s death occurred soon after, and the viceregal throne passed to his grandson, Abbas I., who reigned from 1849 to 1854. During these five years the Europeanisation of Egypt ceased. Abbas would have none of the Frankish innovations which his grandfather encouraged; European schools, western legal procedure and military instruction were banished, and the ulemas, dervishes, and fakirs came by their own once more. His country nevertheless prospered during his reign.
As in so many instances in the history of Egypt, this ruler was a terror to his numerous near relatives who might be able to establish a claim to the succession. Of the eighty-five children of Mohammed Ali but few were living, and this few were well alive to the danger of their august relationship. Even the princess Zohra, after she had fled to Constantinople, must be careful of what she ate or drank, and of the loyalty of those who served her. The Taster became once more an important personage in the various palaces, and not the least in that of Abbas himself. His two uncles, Said and Halim, were both much the same age as their nephew—a thing of constant occurrence in the hareem life in the East. They lived on tenterhooks, as being possible rivals to the succession of Abbas’s only son, a delicate little boy called El Hami. Said Pasha lived at Alexandria when he was not enjoying himself in Paris. He was the minister of the Egyptian navy—not an arduous post, for most of the ships had been destroyed during the wars of his father and those of Ibrahim.141 Halim Pasha lived in retirement in his mother’s palace at Shubra.
Abbas and his large hareem divided their time at the palace at Abbasiyeh, at another which he built in the desert near Suez, and at a third on the banks of the Nile at Benha. The chief ulema of the Azhar who was tutor to El Hami, and Elfy Bey, the Governor of Cairo and Minister of War, became the leading men in the state. Rumours soon spread through the bazaars that a holy war might any day be proclaimed, and, if so, a general massacre of the Christians would follow. Later on it was reported that the day of the horse races at Alexandria was the day decided on for the rising. Said and Halim, who were both friendly to the Europeans, trembled at the consequences which might follow; for in a general rising opportunities are easily found to dispose of relations who may be thought in the way. The Minister of the Navy found an excuse for going to Marseilles about the purchase of a frigate, and he made preparations to sail the day before the races.
It was during the first days of the hamseen that these sinister rumours spread in the bazaars, and Abbas decided to migrate with his court to the palace at Benha, which is about a third of the way on the road from Cairo to Alexandria. It was also decided to send the young prince El Hami to Syria for the good of his health. From his stables at Benha the Viceroy would send his favourite horse, el Dogaan, to compete in the Alexandrian races.
The narrator goes on to say that ‘man may propose, but God disposes.’ Abbas and his court duly arrived at the palace at Benha; the hamseen increased in strength,142 and with it the temper of Abbas, which at no time was a good one. It was an easy task for the ulemas and dervishes, who formed a part of his suite, to dispel any misgivings which the Pasha may have had as to the contemplated massacre. The court astrologer, Soliman el Habeshi, had fixed the auspicious hour on which to begin. The hamseen favoured their designs, for we are told that the wind increased in violence, and that el Habeshi had to make his calculations when no stars were visible, owing to the clouds of dust which hid them.
Rames, the servant of Halim Pasha, now relates to Eyth what followed. ‘I had long been supplanted in my post of pipe-filler to Abbas, who at that time was my master, by two handsome young mamelukes called Hassan and Husseyn. They were twins, the same as were the heroes after whom they were named. They had been sent from Constantinople as a present from the Sultan to the ruler of Egypt. Abbas had every confidence in them and loaded them with marks of his favour, while I was relegated to the stables. I did not mind that, for I always loved horses, and el Dogaan was as the apple of my eye. As no one could ride this horse as I could, it was decided that I should do jockey in the coming races. I was in the seventh heaven, and was attending to my charge one night, when I was startled by the appearance in the stables of the astrologer. His wild looks and gestures were alarming. “Be silent, Rames!” he said, “the all-knowing God ordains what is right, but our Lord the Basha is in his bath! He bathes in his own blood!”
‘The horror of this awful news gave way to a sense143 of relief that I was at last freed from a lifelong tyranny. I ran to the palace and crept silently up the stairs and through the passages which led to the bathroom. A lamp hung outside the curtain at the entrance. I feared to pull this aside—I listened, and hearing no sound my curiosity overcame my fear. I pulled back the curtain, and a red ray from the hanging lamp fell on to the marble bath. A naked arm hung over the further edge and a head lay against the end wall. As if to make him look ridiculous, his assassins had slit the mouth till it nearly reached the ears, and a horrible grimace added to the awfulness of the scene. A gash in the throat showed how the Basha had met his death, and a dark red stream still trickled from this to colour the water in which the body lay.
‘I still see, when I close my eyes, that bloodless face with its diabolical smile, lit by the red rays of the ............