An Autobiography

The World War has thrown a dreadful cloud between us and those old war days, but the cloud in time will spread out thinner and let us look through to those past times.

My next experience was Brittany. Thither we went for a rest, and to give the children the habit of talking French. At Dinan, in an old farmhouse, we ruralised amidst orchards and amongst the Breton peasantry. Very nice and quiet and healthy. There our youngest boy was born, Martin William, who was immediately inscribed on the army books as liable for service in the French Army if he reached the age of eighteen on French soil. During that part of our stay at Dinan I painted the 24th Dragoons, who were stationed there, leaving the town by the old Porte St. Malo for the front, a great crowd of people seeing them off. I had mounted dragoons and peasants for the asking as models.

My husband was knighted – K.C.B. – in this interval, at Windsor. We went to live in Ireland from Dinan, in 1888, under the Wicklow Mountains, where the children continued their healthy country life in its fulness. The picture I had painted of the departing dragoons went to the Academy in 1889, and in 1890 I exhibited “An Eviction in Ireland,” which Lord Salisbury was pleased to be facetious about in his speech at the banquet, remarking on the “breezy beauty” of the landscape, which almost made him wish he could take part in an eviction himself. How like a Cecil!

The ‘eighties had seen our Government do some dreadful things in the way of evictions in Ireland. Being at Glendalough at the end of that decade, and hearing one day that an eviction was to take place some nine miles distant from where we were staying for my husband’s shooting, I got an outside car and drove off to the scene, armed with my paints. I met the police returning from their distasteful “job,” armed to the teeth and very flushed. On getting there I found the ruins of the cabin smouldering, the ground quite hot under my feet, and I set up my easel there. The evicted woman came to search amongst the ashes of her home to try and find some of her belongings intact. She was very philosophical, and did not rise to the level of my indignation as an ardent English sympathiser. However, I studied her well, and on returning home at Delgany I set up the big picture which commemorates a typical eviction in the black ‘eighties. I seldom can say I am pleased with my work when done, but I am complacent about this picture; it has the true Irish atmosphere, and I was glad to turn out that landscape successfully which I had made all my studies for, on the spot, at Glendalough. What storms of wind and rain, and what dazzling sunbursts I struggled in, one day the paints being blown out of my box and nearly whirled into the lake far below my mountain perch! My canvas, acting like a sail, once nearly sent me down there too. I did not see this picture at all at the Academy, but I am very certain it cannot have been very “popular” in England. Before it was finished my husband was appointed to the command at Alexandria, and as soon as I had packed off the “Eviction,” I followed, on March 24th, and saw again the fascinating East.

My journey took me viâ Venice, where the P.& O. boat Hydaspes was waiting. Can any journey to Egypt be more charming than this one, right across Italy?

Oh! you who do not think a journey a mere means of getting to your destination as quickly as possible, say, if you have taken the Milan-Verona-Padua line, is there anything in all Italy to surpass that burst on the view of the Lago di Garda after you emerge from the Lonato tunnel? On a blue day, say in spring? If you have not gone that way yet, I beg you to be on the look-out on your left when you do go. This wonderful surprise is suddenly revealed, and almost as quickly lost. Waste not a second. I put up at the “Angleterre” at Venice, on the Riva, because from there one sees the lagunes and glimpses of the open sea beyond, and the air is open and fresh.

“March 28th.– Took gondola for the big P. & O. S.S. which is to be my home for the next six days. I at once saw the ship was one of their smartest boats, and all looked very festive on board. Luncheon was served immediately after my arrival, and I found a bright company thereat assembled, with Sir Henry and Lady Layard at their head; some come to see friends off and others to go on. We amalgamated very pleasantly, and great was the waving of handkerchiefs as we slowly steamed past the Dogana and the Riva, our returning friends having gone on shore in gondolas whose sable sides were hidden in brilliant draperies. The sashes of the gondoliers’ liveries flashed in coloured silks and gold fringes; the sea sparkled. I rejoiced. The Montalba girls gave us a salvo of pocket handkerchiefs from their balcony on the Giudecca. What a gay scene! Lady Layard, on leaving, introduced Mrs. H. M., who was to join her husband at Brindisi for a long trip in the big liner from England, and I was very happy at the prospect of her pleasant and intellectual companionship thus far.”

And so we passed out into the early night on the dim Adriatic, after a sunset farewell to Venice, which remains to me as one of the tenderest visions of the past. That voyage to Alexandria is more enjoyable, given fair weather, than most voyages, because one is hardly ever out of sight of land, and such classic land, too! The Ionian Islands, “Morea’s Hills,” Candia. But what a pleasure it is to see on the day before the arrival the signs that the landing is near at hand. The General in Command will be waiting at sunrise on the landing stage, perhaps the light catching the gold lace on his cap, appearing above the turbans of the native crowd. Of course every one who has been to Egypt knows the feeling of disappointment at the first sight of its shores, low-lying and fringed with those incongruous windmills which the Great Napoleon vainly planted there to teach the natives how better to make flour. In vain. And so were his wheelbarrows. The natives preferred carrying the mud in their hands. And the city, how it fails to give you the Oriental impression you are longing for, with its pseudo-Italian architecture, its hard paved streets, and dusty boulevards and squares. Government House on the Boulevard de Ramleh was comfortable, roomy and airy, but I missed the imagined garden and palm trees of the Cairo official residence.

“April 3rd.– We have a view of Cleopatra’s Tomb (so called) to the right, jutting out into the intensely blue sea, but the other arm of the bay (the old Roman harbour) to our left, covered with native houses and minarets, is partly hidden by an abomination which hurts me to exasperation, one of those amorphous buildings of tenth-rate Italian vulgarity and dreariness which are being run up here in such quantities, and rears its gaunt expanse close behind this house. To cap this erection it has received the title of ‘Bombay Castle.’ Never mind, I shall soon, in my happy way, cease to notice what I don’t like to see, and shall enjoy all that is left here of the original East and its fascinating barbaric beauty. Will took me for a most interesting drive, first to Ras-el-Tin, during which we threaded a conglomeration of East and West which was bewildering. There were nightmarish Italian ‘palazzi’ loaded with cheap, bluntly-moulded stucco; glaring streets, cafés, dusty gardens, over-dressed Jewish and Levantine women driving about in exaggerated hats, frocks and figures; and there also appeared the dark narrow bazaars and original streets, the latticed windows, the finely-coloured robes of the natives, the weird goats, the wolfish dogs, straying about in all directions. Mounds of rubbish everywhere; some only the leavings of newly-built houses, some the remains of the bombardment’s havoc, others the dust of a once beautiful city whose loveliness in old Roman times must have been supreme.

“Only here and there was I reminded of the charm of Cairo – a tree by a yellow wall, a group of natives eating sugar cane, a water-seller with his tinkling brass cups and a rose behind his ear, and so on. We then had a really enjoyable drive along the Mahmoudieh Canal, which was balm to my mind and eyes. All along the placid water on the opposite bank ran Arab villages with their accompaniments of palms, buffaloes, goats, water jars, native men and women in scriptural robes; water wheels; square-shaped, almost window-less mud dwellings, so appropriate under that intense light. On our bank were the remnants of Pashadom in the shape of gimcrack palaces closed and let go to ruin, on account of fashion having betaken itself to the suburb of Ramleh. These dwellings were, however, so hidden in deep tropical gardens of great and rich beauty that they did not offend.

“Beyond the Arab villages on the other bank appeared Lake Mareotis, and there was a poetical feeling about all that region. It was so strange to have on one side of a narrow band of water old Egypt and the life of the East going on just as it has been for ages past, and on the other the ephemeral tokens of the sham and fleeting life of to-day, and this all the way along a drive of some two miles. This is the fashionable drive, and to see young Egypt on horseback, and old Jewry in carriages, passing and repassing up and down this cosmopolitan Rotten Row is decidedly trying. My admired friends, the running syces, though, redeem the thing to me. Their dress is one of the most perfect in shape, colour and material ever devised. The air was rich with the scent of strange flowers, some of which billowed over entrance gates in magnificent purple masses.”

I must be excused for having shown irritation in my Diary at starting. I soon adapted myself to the entourage, and I hope I “did my manners” as became my official responsibilities. I liked the Greeks best of all – nay, I got very fond of these handsome, sunny people.

It was a curiously cosmopolitan society, and I, who am never good at remembering the little feuds that are always simmering in this kind of mixed company, must have sometimes made mistakes. I heard a Greek woman, who had dined with us the previous evening, informing her friends in a voice fraught with meaning, ”Imaginez, hier au soir chez le Général Monsieur Gariopulo a donné le bras à Madame Buzzato!” The recipients of this information were filled with mirth. What had I done in pairing off these two for the procession to dinner?

The British were entrenched at Ramleh. The little stations on the railway there gave me quite a turn at first sight. One was “Bulkley,” the next “Fleming,” then “Sydney O. Schutz,” and finally San Stefano at railhead, and a casino with a corrugated iron roof under that scorching sun. Oh, that I should see such a thing in Egypt! Cheek by jowl with the little villas one saw weird Bedouin tents and wild Arabs and their animals, carrying on their existence as if the Briton had never come there.

The incongruities of Alexandria became to me positively enjoyable; and the desert air, as ever, was life-giving. My little Syrian horse, “Minnow,” carried me many a mile alongside my husband’s charger, over that pleasant desert sand. But an occasional khamseen wind gave me a taste of the disagreeable phase of Egyptian weather. I name, with the vivid recollection of the khamseen’s irritating qualities, the experience of paying calls (in a nice toilette) under its suffocating puffs. And how the flies swarm; how they settle in black masses on the sweetmeats sold in the streets, and hang in tassels from the native children’s eyes. Oh, yes, there is a seamy side to all things, but it isn’t my way to turn it up more than is necessary. Here may follow a bit of Diary:

“May 22nd.– We had a memorable picnic at Rosetta to-day, with thirty of the English colony. I had long wished to visit this ancient city, brick-built and half deserted, a once opulent place, but now mournful in its decay. I longed to see old Nile once more. We chartered a special train and left Moharram Bey Station at 8 a.m. I was much pleased with the seaside desert and the effects of mirage over Aboukir Bay. The ancient town of Edkou struck me very much. It was built of the small brown Rosetta brick, and was placed on a hill, giving it a different aspect from the usual Arab pale-walled villages which are usually built on level ground. It had thus a peculiar character. Shortly before reaching Rosetta the land becomes richly cultivated. There is a subtle beauty about the cultivated regions of this fascinating land of Egypt which I feel very much. It is the beauty of abundance and richness as well as of vivid colour.

“At Rosetta dense crowds of natives awaited us and some police were detailed to escort us through the town. I heard some of the women of our party wishing they could pick the blue tiles off the minarets, but for my part I prefer them under their lovely sky and sunshine, rather than ornamenting mantelpieces in a Kensington fog. A little musharabieh lattice is still left here in the windows and has not yet been taken to grace the British drawing-rooms of Ramleh. We strolled about the bazaars and into the old ramshackle mosques, and, altogether, exhausted the sights. Everywhere in Rosetta you see beautiful little Corinthian marble columns incorporated with the Arab buildings, and supporting the ceilings and pulpits of the mosques. They are daubed over with red plaster. Very often a rich Corinthian capital is used as a base to a pillar by being turned upside down, so that the shaft, crowned with its own capital, possesses two – one at each end – an arrangement evidently satisfactory to the barbarian Arabs who succeeded the classic builders of the old city. Almost every angle of a house has a Greek column acting as corner stone. But the brown brickwork is very dismal, and but for the vivid colours of the people’s dresses the monotony of tone would be displeasing. This is Bairam, and the people during the three days’ feast succeeding the dismal Ramadan Fast are in their most radiant dresses, and revelry and feasting are going on everywhere. Such a mass of moving colour as was the market place of Rosetta to-day these eyes, that have seen so much, never looked upon before.

“At last, when we had climbed into enough mosques and poked about into houses, and through all the bazaars (the fish bazaar was trying), we went down to the landing stage and took boat for the trysting place, about a mile up the broad, wind-lashed Nile. Will and the Bishop of Clifton, sole remaining straggler from the late pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and half our party had gone on before us; and, after a quick sail along the palm-fringed bank, we arrived at the pretty landing place chosen for our picnic. We found a tent pitched and the servants busy laying the cloth under a dense sycamore, close to an old mosque whose onion-shaped dome and Arab minaret gave me great pleasure as we came in sight of them. I was impatient to make a sketch. I lost no time, and went off and established myself in a palm grove with my water colours. The usual Egyptian drawbacks, however, were there – flies, and puffs of sand blown into one’s eyes and powdering one’s paints. On the Mahmoudieh Canal I am exempt from the sand nuisance, and nothing can be pleasanter than my experience there, sitting in an open carriage with the hood up, and not a soul to bother me.

“Our return to Rosetta was lively. As we were then going against the wind, we had to be towed from the shore, and it was very interesting to watch the agility of our crew dodging in and out of the boats moored under the bank and deftly disengaging the tow-rope from the spars and rigging of these vessels. A tall Circassian effendi of police cantered on his little Arab along the bank to see that all went well with us. The other half of our party chose to sail and progress by laborious tacking from one side of the wide river to the other, and arrived long after we did. We all met at the house of the Syrian postmaster, where he and his pretty little wife received us with native politeness, and gave us coffee and sweets. Our return journey was most pleasant, and we got to Alexandria at 8 p.m. Twelve charming hours.

“May 24th.– The Queen’s birthday. Trooping of the colour at 5 p.m. on the Moharrem Bey Ground. Most successful. Will, mounted on a powerful chestnut, did look a commanding figure as he raised his plumed helmet and led the ringing cheers for the Queen which brought the pretty ceremony to a close. The sun was near setting behind the height of Komeldik, and lit up the roses in the men’s helmets and garlanded round the standard. In the evening a dull and solemn dinner to the heads of departments and their wives. A difficult function. We had the band of the Suffolks playing outside the windows, which were wide open on the sea. I went out sketching in the morning, very early. I should have been at my post all day on such an occasion, I confess. Will said I was like Nero, fiddling while Rome was burning.

“May 29th.– The Mediterranean Fleet is here. Great interchange of cards, firing of salutes, etc., etc. All very ceremonious, but productive of picturesqueness and colour and effect, so I like it very much. The Khedive Tewfik, too, has arrived, with the Khediviah, for the hot season from Cairo. Will, of course, had to be present at the station this morning for the reception of our puppet, and it was not nice to see the Union Jack down in the dust as the guard of honour of the Suffolks gave the salute. Our dinner to-night was to the admiral and officers of the newly-arrived British squadron.

“June 2nd.– To the Khediviah’s first reception at the harem of the Ras-el-Tin Palace. I had two Englishwomen to present, rather an unmanageable pair, as seniority appeared to be claimed erroneously at the last moment by the junior. This reception has become a most dull affair now that Oriental ways are done away with. Dancing girls no longer amuse the guests, nor handmaidens cater to them with sweetmeats during the audience, and there is nothing left but absolute emptiness. The Vice-Reine sits, in European dress, on a divan at the end of a vast hall, and the visitors sit in a semi-circle before her on hard European chairs reflected in a polished parquet, speaking to each other in whispers and furtively sipping coffee. She addresses a few remarks to those nearest her, and the pauses are articulated by the click of the ever-moving fans of the assembly. The ladies-in-waiting and girl slaves move about in a mooning way in the funniest frocks, supposed to be European, but some of them absolutely frumpish. Melancholy eunuchs of the bluest black, in glossy frock coats, rise and bow as one passes along the passages to or from the presence, and it is a relief to get out through the jealously-walled garden into the outer world.

“I find it difficult to converse in a harem, being so bad at small talk. I upset the Vice-Reine’s equanimity by telling her (which was quite true) that I had heard she was taking lessons in painting. ‘Moi, madame?!! Oh! je n’aurais pas le courage!’ It was as bad as when I told her, in Cairo, how much I liked poking about the bazaars. ‘Vous allez dans les bazaars, madame?!!’ So I relapsed into talking of illnesses, which subject I have always found touches the proper note in a harem. They say the Vice-Reine delights in these audiences, as they are amongst the great events of her days. She is a beautiful woman, a Circassian, and of lovely whiteness.

“Finished the delicate sketch of the loveliest bit of the canal, where the pink minaret and the black cypress are. I wish I could do just one more reach of that lovely waterway before I leave! There is a particular group of oleanders nodding with heavy pink blossom by the water’s edge against a soft blurred background of tamarisk, where women and girls in dark blue, brilliant orange, and rose-coloured robes come down to fetch water in their amphoræ. There is another reach lined for the whole length of the picture with tall waving canebrakes, above whose tender green tops appears the delicate distance of the lagoons of Mareotis; there is – but ah! each bend of that canal reveals fresh beauties, and often as Will has driven me there, I am as eager as ever to miss no point in the lovely sequence.

“June 14th.– All my days now I am sketching more continuously, as the arduous work of paying calls has relaxed greatly. This evening we drove again far beyond Ramleh on the old route followed by Napoleon to reach Aboukir, and I finished the sketch there.”

And so on, till my departure a few days later. I had wisely left my oils at home at Delgany, and thus got together a much larger number of subjects, the handier medium of water-colour being better suited to the official life I had to attend to.

CHAPTER XVII

MORE OF THE EAST

MY return voyage was made on board the Messageries boat to Marseilles. This gave me the Straits of Messina as well as those of Bonifacio. On passing Ajaccio I don’t think a single French passenger gave a thought to Napoleon. I was intent on taking in every detail of that place, as far as I could see it through a morning mist. Corsica looked very grand, crowned with great snow-capped mountains.

I lost no time in getting home to the children, and passed the rest of the summer in the green loveliness of Ireland, returning to Egypt, in the following October, viâ Venice again. Every soldier’s wife knows what it is to be torn in two between the husband far away abroad and the children one must leave at home. The trial is great, no doubt of it. Then there is this perplexity: whether it would be well to take one of the children with one and risk the dangers of the journey and the climate at the other end. Parents pay heavily for our far-flung Empire!

On the morning of my departure from Venice I woke to the call of the sunbeams pouring into my room, and, behold, as I went to the window, the dome of the “Salute” taking the salute, as we say in the Army, of the sunrise! And the Dogana’s gilded globe responding, too. Joy! our start at least will be calm. Till midday I had Venice to myself, and I could stroll about the Piazza and little streets, and recollect myself in peaceful meditation in St. Mark’s. What delicate loveliness is that of Venice! Those russet reds and creamy whites and tender yellows, and here and there bits of deep indigo blue to give emphasis to the colour scheme. And that tender opalesque sky, and the gilded statues on domes and towers, and the rich mosaics twinkling in the hazy light! These things make one feel a love for Venice which is full of gratitude for so beautiful a thing.

At 12.30 I took gondola and was rowed to my old friend the Hydaspes lying in the Giudecca, and was just in time to sit down to a truly Hydaspian luncheon, which was crowded. To my indescribable relief the captain told me I should have a cabin all to myself as last time. At two o’clock we cast off, and that effective passage all along the front of the city was again made which so impressed me the preceding spring; and then we turned off seawards, winding through the channel marked out by those white posts with black heads which, even in their humble way, are so harmonious in tone and are beloved by painters, carrying out as they do the whole artistic scheme. Every fishing boat we met or overtook gave one a study of harmonies. Now it was an orange sail with a red upper corner in soft sunlight against the flat blue-purple of the distant mountains and the vivid green of the Lido; now, composing with a line of rosy, snowy mountain tops that lay like massive clouds on the horizon, would rise a pale cool grey-white sail, well in the foreground, with its upper part tinted a soft mouse-grey and its lower border deep terra-cotta red. The sea, pale blue; the sky thinly veiled with clouds of a rosy dove-grey. Nowhere does one see such delicacy of colouring as here. Then the market boats looked well, full of vegetables, whose cool green came just where it should for the completion of the colour study. To think that the Local Board, or whatever those modern vulgarians are called, of Venice are advocating the complete suppression of those coloured sails, to be replaced by plain white ones all round. Hands off, mascalzoni! All this enchantment gradually faded away in the mists of evening and of distance, and we were soon well out to sea.

“Sunday.– At 9 a.m. Brindisi in bright, low sunshine,” says the Diary. “To Missa Cantata; much pleasant strolling. What animation all day with the loading and unloading, the coming and going of passengers, the cries and laughter of the population thronging the quays! The Britannia from London was already in, and I watched the transfer of my heavy luggage from her to the Hydaspes with a hawk’s eye. I had a genuine compliment on landing paid to my accent. Those pests, the little beggar boys, who hang on to the English and can’t be shaken off, attacked me at first till I turned on them and shouted, ‘Via, birrrrichini!’ One of them pulled the others away: ‘Come away, don’t you see she is not English!’ The Italians still think Gl’ Inglesi are all millionaires and made of scudi.

“November 12th.– What indescribable joy this afternoon to see the crew busy with the preparations for our arrival to-morrow morning!

“November 13th.– Of course I began to get ready at 3 a.m. and peer out of the porthole on the waste of starlit waters as I felt the ship stopping off the distant lighthouse. We lay to a long time waiting for the dawn before proceeding to enter the harbour. The sun rose behind the city just as we turned into the port. I looked towards the distant landing stage. Half a mile off, with my wonderful sight, I saw Will, though the sun was right in my eyes. I knew him not only by his height, but by the shining gold band round his cap. We were a long time coming in and swinging round alongside, and, before the gangway was well down, Will sprang on to it and, in spite of the warning shouts of the sailors, was the first to board the Hydaspes.”

I was back in Egypt; to be there once more was bliss. The now brimming Mahmoudieh saw me haunting it again; the predominating red of the flowering trees and creepers that I noted before had made place for enchanting variations of yellow, and all the vegetation had deepened. The heat was great at first. I was particularly struck by the enhanced beauty of the date palms, whose golden and deep purple fruit now hung in clusters under the graceful branches. But all too soon came a good deal of rain, to my indignation. Rain in Egypt! The natives say we have brought it with us. I never saw any in Cairo nor upstream.

The Governor of the city had invited us to make use of a little dahabiyeh, the Rose, for a cruise on the Lower Nile, and on November 20th we started. My husband had already welcomed on their arrival, in a worthy manner, the officers of the French fleet, with whom he was in perfect sympathy; but my Diary records the happy necessity for our departure by the scheduled time on board the Rose on that very November 20th. That morning the German squadron arrived and the thunder of its guns gave us an unintentional send-off! They were duly honoured, of course, but the General himself was away.

It was a nine days’ cruise to the mouth of the Nile and back. Quite a different reading of the Nile from the one I have recorded in my letters to my mother, and reproduced in “From Sketch Book and Diary.” Very few tourists or even serious travellers have come so far down, so that one is less afraid of being forestalled by abler writers in recording one’s impressions there. It was pretty to see the big Turkish flag fluttering at our helm, and a beautifully disproportionate pennon streaming in crimson magnificence from the point of the little vessel’s curved felucca spar. But our first days were damping: “November 22nd.– Oh, the rain! Alas! that I should know Egypt under such deluges, and see in this land the deepest, ugliest mud in the world. We had to moor off the residence of the Bey, to whom this dahabiyeh belongs, last night, as we wished to pay him our respects and tender him our thanks this morning. He made us stay to luncheon, and a very excellent Arab repast it was. I got on well with him as he spoke excellent French, but his mother! Oh! it was heavy, as she could only talk Turkish, and my translated remarks didn’t even get a smile out of her. I must say the Mohammedan women are deadly.

“We proceeded on our voyage very late in the day, on account of this visit which common civility made necessary. The weather brightened up at sunset and nothing more weird have I ever seen than the mud villages, cemeteries, lonely tombs, goats, buffaloes and wild human beings that loomed on the banks as we glided by, brown and black against that sky full of racing clouds that seemed red-hot from the great fiery globe that had just sunk below the palm-fringed horizon. These canal banks might give many people the horrors. I certainly think them in this weather the most uncanny bits of manipulated nature I have ever seen. I was fortunate in getting down in colour such a telling thing, a goatherd in a Bedouin’s burnous, which was wildly flapping in the hot wind against the red glow in the west, driving a herd of those goats I find so effective, with their long, pendant ears, and kids skipping in impish gambols in front. ‘Apocalyptic’ apparition, caught, as we left it astern, in that portentous gloaming! I shall make something of this. As to the inhabitants of those regions, to contemplate their life is too depressing. As darkness comes on you see them creeping into their unlighted mud hovels like their animals. On the Upper Nile, at least, the fellaheen have glorious air, the sun, the clean, dry sand, but here in that mud – !

“November 23rd. – No more rain. At Atfeh we left the canal at last, by a lock, and I gave a sigh of relief and contentment, for we were on the broad bosom of Old Nile. After a delay at this mud town to buy provisions we pushed out into the current and with eight immensely long ‘sweeps’ (the wind was against sailing) we made a good run to Rosetta, on whose mud bank we thumped by the light of a pale moon. The rhythmic sound of those splashing oars and of the chant of the oarsmen in the minor key, with barbaric ‘intervals’ unknown to our music, continued to echo in my ears – it all seemed wild and strange and haunting.

“November 24th. – Began this morning a sketch of Rosetta to finish on our return from rounding up our outward voyage at the western mouth of the great river where we saw it emerge into a very desolate, grey Mediterranean. I may now say I have a very good idea of the mighty river for upward of a thousand miles of its course – a good bit further, both below and above stream, than the authoress of ‘A Thousand Miles up the Nile’ knew it, whom in my early days I longed to emulate and, if possible, surpass! An old-fashioned book, now, I suppose, but all the more interesting for that. Furling sail, for the wind had been fair to-day, we turned and were towed back to Fort St. Julian, where we moored for the night.

“November 25th. – After a nice little sketch of the Fort St. Julian, celebrated in Napoleonic annals, we started off, and reached Rosetta in good time, so that I was able most satisfactorily to finish my large water-colour of the place. I was rather bothered where I sat at the water’s edge by the small boys and a very persistent pelican, which kept flying from the river into the fish market and returning with stolen fish, to souse them in the water before filling its pouch, in time to avoid capture by the pursuing brats.

“November 26th. – From Rosetta we glided pleasantly to Metubis, one of the many shining cities, as seen from afar, that become heaps of squalid dwellings when viewed at close quarters. But the minarets of those phantom cities remain erect in all their beauty, and this city in particular was transfigured by the most magnificent sunset I have ever seen, even here.”

The wild town of Syndioor was our mooring place for the next night, and at sunrise we were off homewards. Syndioor and the opposite city of Deyrout were veiled in a soft mist, out of which rose their tall minarets in stately beauty, radiant in the level light. The effect on the mind of these ruined places, once magnificent centres of commerce and luxury, is quite extraordinary. They are now, all of them, derelicts. And so in time we slipped back into the canal, landing under the oleanders of our starting place. The crew kissed hands, the reis made his obeisance, and we returned to the hard stones and rattle of the Boulevard de Ramleh, refreshed. The Germans were gone.

Balls, picnics, gymkhanas and dinners were varied by intervals of water-colour sketching in the desert. One picnic, out at Mex, to the west of Alexandria, was distinguished by a great camel ride we all had on the soft-paced, mouse-coloured mounts of the Camel Corps, the Englishwomen looking so nice in their well-cut riding habits, sitting easily on their tall steeds. I managed to secure several sketches that day of the men and camels of the corps, and have one sketch of ourselves starting for our turn in the desert. Our ponies took us back home. The sort of day I liked. As I record, the completeness of my enjoyment was caused by my having been able to put some useful work in, as usual. I had a Camel Corps picture in petto at this time.

“February 13th, 1891. – We had the Duke of Cambridge to luncheon. He arrived yesterday on board the Surprise from Malta, and Will, of course, received him officially, but not royally, as he is travelling incog., and he came here to tea. To-day we had a large party to meet him, and a very genial luncheon it was, not to say rollicking. The day was exquisite, and out of the open windows the sea sparkled, blue and calm. H.R.H. seemed to me rather feeble, but in the best of humours; a wonderful old man to come to Egypt for the first time at seventy-two, braving this burning sun and with such a high colour to begin with! One felt as though one was talking to George III. to hear the ‘What, what, what? Who, who, who? Why, why, why?’ Col. Lane, one of his suite, said he had never seen him in better spirits. I was gratified at his praise of our cook – very loud praise, literally, as he is not only rather deaf himself, but speaks to people as though they also were a ‘little hard of hearing.’ ‘Very good cook, my dear’ (to me). ‘Very good cook, Butler’ (across the table to Will). ‘Very good cook, eh, Sykes?’ (very loud to Christopher Sykes, further off). ‘You are a gourmet, you know better about these things than I do, eh?’ C. S.: ‘I ought to have learnt something about it at Gloucester House, sir!’ H.R.H. (to me): ‘Your health, my dear.’ ‘Butler, your very good health!’ Aside to me: ‘What’s the Consul’s name?’ I: ‘Sir Charles Cookson.’ ‘Sir Charles, your health!’ When I hand the salt to H.R.H. he stops my hand: ‘I wouldn’t quarrel with her for the world, Butler.’ And so the feast goes on, our august guest plying me with questions about the relationship and antecedents of every one at the table; about the manners and customs of the populace of Alexandria; the state of commerce; the climate. I answer to the best of my ability with the most unsatisfactory information. He started at four for Cairo, leaving a most kindly impression on my memory. The last of the old Georgian type! ‘Your mutton was good, my dear; not at all goaty,’ were his valedictory words.”

Mutton is goaty in Egypt unless well selected. I advise travellers to confine themselves to the good poultry, and to leave meat alone. What I would have done without our dear, good old Magro, the major domo who did my housekeeping out there, I dread to think. His name, denoting a lean habit of body, was a misnomer, for he was rotund. A good, honest Maltese, his devotion to “Sair William” was really touching. I was only as the moon is to the sun, and to serve the sun he would, I am convinced, have risked his life. I came in for his devotion to myself by reason of my reflected glory. One morning he came hurtling towards me, through the rooms, waving aloft what at first looked like a red republican flag, but it proved to be a sirloin or other portion of bovine anatomy which he had had the luck to purchase in the market (good beef being so rare). “Look, miladi, you will not often meet such beef walking in the street!” He laid it out for my admiration. This is the way he used to ask me for the daily orders: “What will miladi command for dinner?” “Cutlets?” (patting his ribs); “a loin?” (indications of lumbago); “or a leg?” (advancing that limb); “or, for a delicate entrée, brains?” (laying a finger on his perspiring forehead). “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Magro, not brains!” When the day’s work was done he would retire to what we called the “Ah! – poor-me-room” – his boudoir – where, repeating aloud those words so dear to his nationality, he would take up his cigar. Government gave him £250 a year for all this expenditure of zeal.

While on the subject of Oriental housekeeping, I must record the following. Our predecessors of a former time had what to me would have been an experience difficult to recover from. They were giving a large Christmas dinner, and the cook, proud of the pudding he had mastered the intricacies of, insisted on bringing it in himself, all ablaze. It was only a few steps from the kitchen to the dining-room. Holding the great dish well up before him, he unfortunately set fire to his beard, and the effect of his dusky face approaching in the subdued light of the door, illuminated in that way by blue flames, must have been satanic.

“March 14th. – Lord Charles Beresford, who has relieved the other ship with the Undaunted, invited us all to luncheon on board, but Will and I could not stay to luncheon as we had guests; nevertheless, we had a very interesting morning on board. On arriving at the Marina we found Lady Charles, Lady Edmund Talbot, Colonel Kitchener,[10 - The late Lord Kitchener.] whose light, rather tiger-like eyes in that sunburnt face slightly frightened me, and others waiting to go with us to the Undaunted in the ship’s barge and a steam launch. Lord Charles received us with his usual sailor-like welcome, and we had a tremendous inspection of the ship, one of our latest experiments in naval machinery – a belted cruiser. She will probably cruise to the bottom if ever the real test comes. A torpedo was fired for us, but it gambolled away like a porpoise, ending by plunging into a mudbank. I wish they would diverge their direction like that in war, detestable inventions!

“April 1st, 1891. – I am now quite in the full swing of Egyptian enjoyment. No more Egyptian rain! Excellent accounts from home, and my intention of going back is rendered unnecessary. How thankful I am, on the eve of our departure for Palestine, for the ‘all well’ from home!”