DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11448#0090
G2
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.
[chap. x
prayer ; and even Ali Pasha was partly humanized by his love
for Emineh. In the time of the Mamelukes, criminals were led
fs execution blindfolded, because if they had met a woman and
could touch her garment, they were saved, whatever was their
crime. Thus idolized, watched, and guarded, the Egyptian
woman's life is, nevertheless, entirely in the power of her lord,
and her death is the inevitable penalty of his dishonor. No
piquant case of crim. con. ever amuses the Egyptian public :
the injured husband is his own judge and jury ; his only " gen-
tlemen of the long robe" are his eunuchs ; and the dagger or
the Nile the only damages. The law never interferes in these
little domestic arrangements.
Poor Fatima! shrined as she was in the palace of a tyrant,
the fame of her beauty stole abroad through Cairo. She was
one amongst a hundred in the hareem of Abbas Pasha, a man
stained with every foul and loathsome vice; and who can won-
der, though many may condemn, if she listened to a daring
young Albanian, who risked his life to obtain but a sight of
her. Whether she did listen or not, none can ever know, but
the eunuchs saw the glitter of the Arnaut's arms, as he leapt
from her terrace into the Nile and vanished in the darkness.
The following night, a merry English party dined together on
joard of Lord E--'s boat, as it lay moored off the Isle of
rlhoda ; conversation had sunk into silence, as the calm night
came on ; a faint breeze floated perfumes from the gardens over
the star-lit Nile, and scarcely moved the clouds that rose from
the chibouque ; a dreamy languor seemed to pervade all nature,
and even the city lay hushed in deep repose—when suddenly a
boat, crowded with dark figures among which arms gleamed,
shot out from one of the arches of the palace ; it paused under
the opposite bank, where the water rushed deep and gloomily
along, and for a moment a white figure glimmered amongst the
boat's dark crew ; there was a slight movement, and a faint
splash—and then the river flowed on as merrily as if poor Fatima
still sang her Georgian song to the murmur of its waters.
I was riding one evening along the banks of the Mareotis,
the low land, half swamp, half desert, was level as the lake,
there was no sound except the ripple of the waves along the far
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.
[chap. x
prayer ; and even Ali Pasha was partly humanized by his love
for Emineh. In the time of the Mamelukes, criminals were led
fs execution blindfolded, because if they had met a woman and
could touch her garment, they were saved, whatever was their
crime. Thus idolized, watched, and guarded, the Egyptian
woman's life is, nevertheless, entirely in the power of her lord,
and her death is the inevitable penalty of his dishonor. No
piquant case of crim. con. ever amuses the Egyptian public :
the injured husband is his own judge and jury ; his only " gen-
tlemen of the long robe" are his eunuchs ; and the dagger or
the Nile the only damages. The law never interferes in these
little domestic arrangements.
Poor Fatima! shrined as she was in the palace of a tyrant,
the fame of her beauty stole abroad through Cairo. She was
one amongst a hundred in the hareem of Abbas Pasha, a man
stained with every foul and loathsome vice; and who can won-
der, though many may condemn, if she listened to a daring
young Albanian, who risked his life to obtain but a sight of
her. Whether she did listen or not, none can ever know, but
the eunuchs saw the glitter of the Arnaut's arms, as he leapt
from her terrace into the Nile and vanished in the darkness.
The following night, a merry English party dined together on
joard of Lord E--'s boat, as it lay moored off the Isle of
rlhoda ; conversation had sunk into silence, as the calm night
came on ; a faint breeze floated perfumes from the gardens over
the star-lit Nile, and scarcely moved the clouds that rose from
the chibouque ; a dreamy languor seemed to pervade all nature,
and even the city lay hushed in deep repose—when suddenly a
boat, crowded with dark figures among which arms gleamed,
shot out from one of the arches of the palace ; it paused under
the opposite bank, where the water rushed deep and gloomily
along, and for a moment a white figure glimmered amongst the
boat's dark crew ; there was a slight movement, and a faint
splash—and then the river flowed on as merrily as if poor Fatima
still sang her Georgian song to the murmur of its waters.
I was riding one evening along the banks of the Mareotis,
the low land, half swamp, half desert, was level as the lake,
there was no sound except the ripple of the waves along the far