An Autobiography

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 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!”

My entries in the Diary during that unique journey, and my letters to my mother, are published in my book, “Letters from the Holy Land.” I illustrated it with the water colours I made during our pilgrimage, and I was most delighted to find the little book had an utterly unexpected success. It was nice to find myself among the writers! To have ridden through this land from end to end is to have experienced a pleasure such as no other part of the earth can give us. Had I had no more joy in store for me, that would have been enough.

As the railway was not opened till the following year the mind was not disturbed, and could concentrate on the scenes before it with all the recollection it required. I called our progress “riding through the Bible.” Many a local allusion in both Testaments, which had seemed vague or difficult to appreciate before, opened out, so to say, before one’s happy vision, and gave a substance, a vitality to the Scripture narrative which produced a satisfaction delightful to experience. Perhaps the strongest longing in my childhood’s mind had been to do this journey. To do it as we did, just our two selves, and in the fresh spring weather, was a happy circumstance.

As I look back to that time which we spent amidst the scenes of Our Lord’s revealed life on earth, no portion of it produces such a sense of mental peace as does the night of our arrival on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. There there were no crowds, no distractions, not a thing to jar on the mind. Before and around one, as one sat on the pebbly strand, appeared the very outlines of the hills His eyes had rested on, and far from modern life encroaching on one’s sensitiveness, the cities that lined those sacred shores in His time had disappeared like one of the fleeting cloud shadows which the moon was casting all along their ruined sites. His words came back with a poignant force, “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida!.. and thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven…” Where were they? And the high waves raced foaming and breaking on the shingle, blown by a strong though mild wind that came across from the dark cliffs of the country of the Gadarenes. One seemed to feel His approach where He had so often walked. One can hardly speak of the awe which that feeling brought to the mind. He was quite near!

Undoubtedly the effect of a journey through the Holy Land does permanently impress itself upon one’s life. It is a tremendous experience to be brought thus face to face with the Gospel narrative. We returned to the modern world on May 1st. This time I left Alexandria in company with my husband on June 3rd, and on landing at Venice we at once went on to Verona, where he was anxious to visit the battlefield of Arcole.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LAST OF EGYPT

HERE at Verona was Italy in her richest dress, her abundant and varied crops filling the landscape, one might say, to overflowing; not a space of soil left untilled, and, all the way along our road to San Bonifacio for Arcole, the snow-capped Alps were shimmering in the blue atmosphere on one hand, and a great teeming plain stretched away to the horizon on the other.

I noticed the fine physique of the peasantry, and their nice ways. Every peasant man we met on the road raised his hat to us as we passed. At San Bonifacio we got out of the carriage and, turning to the right, we walked to Arcole, becoming exclusively Napoleonic on reaching the famous marsh. History says that a soldier saved Napoleon from drowning early in the battle by pulling him out of the water in that marsh, “by the hair!” I pondered this bald statement, and came to the conclusion that the thing must have happened in this wise. Young Bonaparte in those early days wore his hair very long, and gathered up into a queue. Had he been close-cropped, as his later experience in Egypt compelled him to be, the history of the world might have been very different. As I looked into the water from the famous little bridge, I saw the place where the young conqueror slipped and plunged in. The soldier must have caught hold of the pigtail, and with the good grip it afforded him pulled his drowning general out. Between the little bridge and the spot where he sank Napoleon raised the obelisk which we see to-day. Thus do I like to realise interesting events in history.

Our driver on the way back became a dreadful bore, for ever turning on the box to chatter. First he informed us that Arcole was called after Hercules, “a very strong man” (great thumping of biceps to illustrate his meaning), which we knew before. Then, when within sight of the battlefield of Custozza, where our dear Italians got such a “dusting” from the Austrians, he informed us that he had been in the battle, and that the Italians had blasted the enemy. “Li abbiamo fulminati.” “Oh, shut up, do! Basta, caro!”

Our afternoon stroll all over Verona merged into a moonlight one which takes first rank in my Italian chronicles. The effect of a roaring Alpine torrent (for such is the Adige at this season of melting snows) rushing and swirling through the heart of that ancient city, between embankments bordered with domed churches, with towers and palaces, I found quite unique. Mysterious, too, it all felt in the lights and profound shades of the moonlight. Above rose the hills with very striking serrated outlines, crowned with fortresses.

The rest of the summer saw me at home at Delgany. I must say the “Green Isle” for summer, following Egypt for winter, makes a very pleasant combination. My husband had returned to Alexandria on August 23rd, and I and a wee child followed in November. I had half accomplished my next Academy picture at home, and I took it out to finish in Egypt – “Halt on a Forced March: Retreat to Corunna.” A study of an artillery team this time, giving the look of the spent horses, “lean unto war.” It was very well placed at the Academy in the fresh first room, and well received, but it was too sad a subject, perhaps, so I have it still. There were no half-starved horses in all Wicklow, I am happy to say, look where I would for models. I had well-to-do ones to get tone and colour from, but I bided my time. In Egypt I had plenty of choice, and had I not been able to put the finishing touches to my team there, the picture would never have been so strong – an instance of my favourite definition when I am asked, “What is the secret of success?” “Seize opportunities.”

So on December 10th, 1891, I, with the little child I had safely brought out with me, landed once more at Alexandria. The big charger and the grey Syrian pony had now a black donkey alongside for the desert rides, which were the chief pleasure of our life out there.

But the winter grew sad. On January 7th, 1892, the Khedive Tewfik died rather mysteriously, it was said, but his death was announced as the result of that plague we call the “flu,” which reached even to the East. Just eight days later poor Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, fell a victim to it, and in the same way died Cardinal Manning. Also some of our own friends at Alexandria went down. And yet never was there more brilliant weather, so softly brilliant that one could hardly realise the presence of danger. All the balls and other festivities were stopped, of course. I had ample time to finish my “Halt on a Forced March” in this long interval, so boring and depressing to Alexandrian society. Soon things returned to pleasantly normal conditions, however, and being free from the studio on sending my picture off, I went in whole-heartedly for the amenities of my official position. The Private View at the far-away Royal Academy was in my mind on the occasion of my giving away the prizes at some athletic sports, for I knew it was just then in full blast, April 29th, 1892. I knew my quiet picture could not make anything of a stir, and I chaffed myself by suggesting that the “three cheers and one cheer more” proposed by the English consul at the end of the prize-giving, which rent the sunset air in that dusty plain in my honour, should be all I ought to expect. It would be a little too much to receive applause in two quarters of the globe at the same moment, allowing for difference of time!

I call upon my Diary again: “May 18th. – We joined a picnic in the very palm grove through which the Turks fled from the French pursuit under Bonaparte to find death in the surf of Aboukir Bay. We were shaded by clumps of pomegranate trees in flower as well as by the waving, rustling palms, and a cool wind blew round us most pleasantly, while the white and grey donkeys that brought us rested in groups, their drivers and the villagers squatting about them in those unconsciously graceful attitudes I love to jot down in my sketch book. The moving shadows of the palm branches on the sand always capture my observation; no other tree shadows produce that effect of ever-interlacing forms. Far away in the radiant light lay the region where the terrible naval battle took place later, to our credit. Altogether our party was surrounded by frightful reminiscences, in the midst of which the picnic went its usual picnicky way. We rode back to Alexandria by the light of the stars.

“May 23rd. – A wonderful day, full of colour, movement and interest. Young Abbas II., the new Khedive, was received here on his arrival from Cairo, the whole population, swelled by strange wild Asiatics from distant parts, filling the streets and squares through which he was to pass. Will, of course, had to receive him at the station. The crowd alone was a pleasure to look at. The Khedive seemed a squat young man with a round pink and white painted face. They say he loves not the English. What I enjoyed above all was the drive we took soon after, all the length of the line of reception, to Ras-el-Tin. Oh, those narrow streets of the old quarter, filled with numberless varieties of Oriental costumes. Now and then the crowd was threaded by troops, some on horseback, some perched on camels, and, to give the finishing touch of variety, the native fire brigade went by, wearing the brass helmets of their London confrères, very surprising headgear bonneting their black and brown faces.”

I, with the little child, left for home on June 7th, viâ Genoa, well provided with a good stock of studies of camels and Camel Corps troopers. These were for my 8-foot picture, destined for the next Academy. Many a camel had I stalked about the Ramleh desert to watch its mannerisms in movement. I got quite to revel in camels. Usually that interesting beast is made utterly uninteresting in pictures, whereas if you know him personally he is full of surprises and one never gets to the end of him.

The voyage to my dear old Genoa was full of beautiful sights, with one exception. I don’t know what old Naples was like – I know it was frightfully dirty – but I saw it modernised into a very horrid town, a smudge of ugliness on one of the ideal beauties of the world. It gave me a shock on beholding it as we entered the harbour, and so I leave the town itself severely alone, with its new, barrack-like buildings looking gaunt and gritty in the burning June sunshine. The cloisters of the Certosa at Sant’ Elmo are very beautiful, and I much enjoyed the church and the splendid “Descent from the Cross” of Spagnoletto. There was just time for a dash up there before leaving at 12 noon. As we steamed out towards Ischia I got the oft-painted (and, alas! oleographed) view of Vesuvius across the whole extent of the bay from off Posilipo. Certainly nowhere on earth can a fairer scene be beheld, and greater grace of coast and mountain outline. Then the fair scene melted away into the tender haze of the June afternoon – blue and tender grey, the volcanic islands one by one disappeared and the day of my first sight of the Bay of Naples closed.