Part One

A Visit to the Convent of Sittna (Our Lady), Damiane

Awid, our bookseller at Cairo, having left a few days previous in our new boat the Morning Star, on her first colporteuring trip, I left Cairo on Tuesday, May 5, to join him at Semanoud. Reached Tanta at noun, where I took the branch railway to Semanoud, on the Damietta branch of the Nile.

The Arabs never start on a journey, nor undertake any great enterprise, without first imploring the blessing and aid of God, and asking their friends also who may be present to prey for them. On this occasion, as we were leaving Tanta, where are the tomb and centre of the worship of Said-El-Bedawe, who is the chief of the Muslim saints of Egypt, the ejaculations and prayers which were offered to him as the train was starting were numerous and fervent. I was particularly struck with the earnestness of the man sitting beside me, as he exclaimed, “I am on thy account, 0 Said-El-Bedawe! Yes (with an oath), I am on thy account!” And then, as if recollecting the stronger claims of another, he varied the expression the third time by saying, “On God’s account and thine!”

About ten days before I had spent part of a day at the Mulid of this saint, to visit and encourage a colporteur whom, according to our custom, we had sent there, and to see a little of Arab life in one of its great gatherings. Mulid means birthday; but in Arab use, as applied both to Muslim and Christian saints, it means death-day: that is, as they explain it, the birthday not to natural but eternal life. These Mulids of the Said are made by the Arabs – who believe in uniting “Gain and Godliness” – not only great religious festivals but also commercial fairs; and I was surprised to find what a vast quantity of goods of all sorts was exposed for sub, and how large a business was done. Indeed the demands of trade have made a second annual Mulid a necessity; and so the Said has now two, a greater and a lesser Mulid. One might suppose that, as the object of these gatherings is at once religious and commercial, a moral and religious element would, more than usual, enter into and pervade the secular; but the vary opposite is the fact. Religion and morality, never very closely united in the Orient, nor regarded in any great measure as involving the one the other, are at these Mulids of the Said divorced as by a treble divorce, and a loose rein is thrown upon the neck of lasciviousness and all wickedness. The religious part of the Mulid is to pay the votive offerings and customary dues of the Said, visit the tomb, and repeat the customary prayers, and march in the procession on the great day of the feast. As for the rest, theft, robbery, cheating, and lasciviousness are the order of the day, and are committed, as is thought, with a special impunity, all saying, “The conscience of the Said is wide;” and his merits and intercession are thought to cover all. I saw enough to convince me of this by day, when Mammon is in the ascendancy; by night, when Bacchus and Venus reign, they say it is terrible.

We have been accustomed for several years past to send a colporteur to open a shop and sell Bibles and religious books at these Mulids; and usually we have had good sales. This year, however, as we could not spare Awid from the shop at Cairo, or one of our more efficient men, we sent a superannuated scribe (one of our members), who is an object of charity, and he had not done so well. It needs a keen, pushing man to get on in these great gatherings. The Muslims have stolen a leaf out of our book, and they now annually send their colporteurs to hawk their books, and especially a book called “The favors or honors of the Said-El-Bedawe,” a book filled with lying wonders of the most extravagant kind.

In less time than I have taken to write these lines we reached Mahallet-El-Kebere, where, to our mutual joy, I found Awid awaiting me. He had gone there in the morning train to see what success our man from Tanta had met with, who had gone there to sell books after the close of the Mulid. In four days he had sold books for 50 piastres, while Avid had that day sold for 300 piastres in four hours. So much for tact and efficiency.

We soon reached Semanoud, and after washing off the dust of travel in a delicious cold bath I was ready for work. Two young men soon came aboard. The one asked for the “Makamat of Naseef,” a literary work of the great Arab grammarian, and when he found that we had not this, nothing could induce him to purchase any of our religious books, although he was evidently free from all priestly shackles in the matter. And when Awid strove to explain to him the uses and advantages of the “Reference Testament,” he was “as one beating the air.” The other asked only for religious books, of which he took a number. This difference led me to suspect a difference in nationality which was not indicated by the appearance of the two lads, when I asked the former from what part of Syria he hailed, and he answered Beirut. The other was a Copt; and this difference in the religious tendencies of the two nations we constantly remark. Syria and Egypt are both awaking from a sleep of semi-barbarism of ages. But the civilization which Syria is putting on is French and infidel. Egypt’s is Anglo-Saxon and Protestant.

Jest beside our boat a Muslim was repairing a grain-boat, between whom and his wife Awid had overheard, a couple days previous, the following conversation. The wife said, “Oh, my husband, the book (Kuran) says that the ‘mumaneen' and the ‘mumanat' (male and female believers) are after death to inhabit paradise, hot it says that each one of you male believers is to have 70 houries, and does it not say what we women are to have? Are there no male henries, and if so, how many are we to have?” He answered her, “Hold your tongue. It says nothing about your having any.” But she answered, “Are we not even to have our own husbands there after we have toiled and borne with them in this world? that is not just.” He answered this by cursing her very soundly for her inquisitive impertinence; and the next day he divorced her with the treble divorce. (The law of the Koran is that a man may divorce his wife twice and take her back again, but that the third time he can not take her back until she has married another man and been divorced. To save trouble a man often says, “I divorce thee with the treble divorce,” when the thing is ended. Though not unfrequently, on repenting, he persuades or hires some other man to marry and then immediately divorce her, when he again marries her.)

As Awid had been four days in Semanoud and finished the bookselling work, we dropped down by night to Mansoura (the Victorious). This town is on the east side of the Nile, and it, as well as Semanoud, has become a large and flourishing place since the immense expansion of the cotton interest the last two years, as this is the centre of the best cotton district in the country. The pipes and clatter of cotton-cleaning and pressing establishments, the flag-poles, and arms of the different European consular agencies, the European post, and Exchange with its café and billiard-rooms, and a Catholic convent and church with its tinkling bell, all show the influx of European population and enterprise. This city was founded by the Sultan Kamil in the year 616 of the Hegira, while the crusaders held Damietta. The Arab historian Makrizi says, that the Sultan Kamil here at first pitched his tent, and then built a palace, and ordered his people also to build, when he surrounded the town with a wall and remained until Damietta was taken, and the Franks finally expelled from the land after the battle of Mansoura. In this battle Louis IX., who has been honored by the Church with a place in the calendar of the saints, and who was pronounced by the Sultan the “proudest infidel he had ever seen,” was defeated. The remains of the prison in which he endured so heroically the tortures which were inflicted upon him as to draw forth this encomium, are still shown, and to this day the French carry away from it bricks as mementoes.

I found that Awid had invented a new and very useful contrivance for facilitating our work. Before leaving Cairo he had written the following notice, of which he had made the boys of
the school write a large number of copies:

NOTICE.
The boat Morning Star has arrived, having on heard a quantity of religions and literary books which are for sale at low prices. Let all, therefore, who wish books come without delay and take what they need, for the reading of these books is most important and necessary, since they bring consolation to the heart, and especially the Holy Book of God, which he has given us by inspiration through holy men and prophets, and which is profitable for the present life and for that is came. Therefore our Glorious Lord has commanded us to search the Scriptures, and the Apostle, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, v. 21, has said, “Prove all things: hold fast that which is good.”

On arriving we sent out a large number of these, and by the time we had finished breakfast the first bevy of black-turbaned corps were seen coming. They took books to the value of $10 – a propitious opening. Others followed until noon. After dinner Awid took the bag and went through the streets, and I remained and attended to those who came to the boat. Toward night Priest John came, with whom Awid had, last year, had a terrible contest at Sitt Damiane. He now, however, appeared all friendship and complacency, and insisted on our going to spend the evening with him and his father, who is the Kummus or head priest of the town. We found him a very fine, pleasant old man, and had with him a good deal of, I trust, profitable conversation. He avoided all controversy, and took his stand upon the following formulary, which he several times repeated with great emphasis; viz., “That we all have one heavenly Father, one mother Church, and one spiritual food; and that, therefore, we should overlook all minor differences and be brethren.”
He is a man of considerable wealth, and I fear more engrossed in the care of his lands and crops than in the “cure of souls.” I was sorry to find that although he strongly reprobated the use of arrack, he and his son each took a few glasses before supper. We supped with him, and then returned to the boat.

We subsequently heard that a very intelligent and devoted scribe, named Faraj, who had distinguished himself among them by an attempted answer to Meshakah’s book (which at present is the Kirwan's Letters of Arabdom), had been lately ordained and settled in Haret Es-Sakeen, in Cairo, where our second female school is. The more earnest-minded of the people of Mansoura are very anxious that he should be sent back to them, and if the Patriarch does not accede to their request we shall strive to send him back a Protestant.

7th. A young Syrian, originally from Sidon, named Abrahim Daoud, who by some means enjoys American protection, seeing our flag, cams down to the boat. He was very affable and agreeable but studiously avoided the subject of religion. After several unsuccessful attempts to introduce the subject, I finally told him that I was very sorry to find that most of the young men of Syria were running headlong into infidelity; that they were at present in a transition state, from which, in general, much good was to be hoped, but which was most dangerous to individuals; that as we had before us the east and west banks of the Nile, so in religions matters there were two lands – that of superstition and that of faith, connected by the bridge of infidelity; and that most of them were now upon this bridge. He then confessed that such was the case, and that he himself, disgusted by the superstitious of the Church, the contests of the sects about the calendar, and the ignorance and disgraceful lives of the priests, had for some years turned away his attention entirely from the subject of religion, striving only to walk uprightly with man and God, and leaving the rest with Him. I told him that, notwithstanding the things he had mentioned, revealed religion was yet a great reality and necessity, and that I trusted he would soon get over the bridge. He keeps a fine horse, which he placed at my disposal, and I had a pleasant ride on him every evening of our stay.

8th. Awid went to day to Benoub to attend to the dispatching of the boxes of books which he had sent there from Semanoud to be forwarded to Damiane, as in this way the transportation was cheaper. Word had come to him that the young man upon whom he had depended to forward them could not attend to it on account of a mourning in the family for a friend, of whose death, in Cairo, they had just heard. I heard of this case the day before leaving Cairo, when, in a fit of intoxication in a grog-shop near our house, he fell down dead. Awid went to comfort the family, when he found that two, priests were already there from Tanta, talking to the poor stricken mother and wife of the necessity of masses for one who had died such a death. He fell upon the priests roughly for coming to rob the poor family of the little left them by the improvident husband and father. The Muslim Shaikh of the village received Awid and killed the fatted lamb for him; and when the priests also came to spend the night with him, he put Awid in the upper furnished room with two coverlets, and told them to go and sleep down stairs; and when they expostulated and wished to come into the same room, he told them that Awid was a Protestant and they were robbers, and that he could not trust them to sleep in the same room, as he knew they hated him and feared they might harm him. And when one of them came up in the night and attempted to steel one of Awid's coverlets, the Shaikh ordered his servant to light a lantern and take them out to some other house, as he would not keep them.

One of the least to be desired, but still most natural results of the new cotton prosperity in Egypt, has been a great revival of the slave-trade. The cotton crop is a heavy one, requiring much more and heavier work than the ordinary grain crop, of the country. Its cultivation was introduced into the country by Mohammed Ali, who, having procured and distributed the seed, stimulated its production in his own arbitrary way, by passing laws requiring each district to produce a certain amount of cotton annually. The land produced it so abundantly, and of such good staple, that it was a profitable crop, even when the South was a competitor in the market. And now, since King Cotton has removed his throne from Dixie to Egypt and India, he has distributed his favors so bountifully that no more laws enforcing the cultivation of cotton have been needed. I recently heard of one man who last year sowed two hundred and fifty acres of cotton from the produce of which he has already sold cotton for $15,000, and he had still a quantity on hand; and a friend told me yesterday of a neighbor of his, whose sister was accustomed to come daily to his house to beg a piece of bread as her brother could not support her, he having only five acres of land. This brother was seen a few days since driving before him, through the streets, a male and female slave which he had just purchased, and when asked how he could afford it, he answered, “I sowed my five acres with cotton this year.”

But the great obstacle to cotton-growing has been, and is, the scarcity of hands. The conscription for the army, and forced labor for the Suez Canal and the Government works make heavy drafts upon the working population. Fully one-third of the available muscle of the land is at present thus employed, while it is lamentable to behold the wheat crop every where perishing on the ground for want of hands to reap it. This state of things has created a great demand for slave labor in Egypt. But slavery is against the law; for England and France, in former years, when it suited them to quote even “base Egypt” to the United States as an anti-slave power, obtained from the Sultan and the Egyptian Government an ordinance abolishing slavery. Still, this law being imposed by foreign pressure, and not sustained by the public sentiment of the country, was in a great measure a dead letter. True, the public slave-markets in the large cities were abolished; but the “Jelabis” or Central African merchants, still clandestinely brought down, with their cargoes of ivory and ostrich feathers, a few slaves; and the Government winked at the trade, except so far as particular officials found it to be their interest to confiscate to themselves these cargoes, or levy black-mail upon the owners. And besides, the Government was the great slave-merchant of the country; for it was constantly stealing and bringing down from the upper country slaves, who were distributed to its favorites or enrolled in the black regiment of the army. And then, too, according to the law of the Kuran, which allows four wives to each believer, besides as many concubines “as his hands may possess,” wealthy and lecherous Muslims must have their female slaves for the harem, and thus the trade was carried on. Meanwhile the representatives of the European powers that had procured the passage of the law were too anxious to preserve the “entente cordiale” and the “integrity of time Turkish Empire” to make any very strong protests against the system, and thus it was continued. Now the European abolitionists view slavery through spectacles brought from Richmond, and there being, in addition, the increased demand above mentioned, caused by the great expansion of cotton culture, the supply is found keeping pace with the demand, and the result is a great revival of the slave-trade.

I may, however, remark while on the subject, that slavery is not there the cruel bondage, the odious institution which it is in our Southern States. It is alleviated by various considerations:

First. We have there none of that senseless “prejudice of color,” or “caste of race,” so prevalent in America, both South and North. Whether it be a white Mamaluke from the North, who is bought and sold as a chattel, or a black Dongolian (so black and shiny, and with such an entire absence of the red or pale in the palms and lips that he seems “dyed in the wool,” black through and through), it is all the same-” a man is a man for a’ that.” And in the female branch of the trade, whether it be a Caucasian beauty or (like Miriam, who was sent to the harem of Mohammed to stay his conquering sword and propitiate his favor) an Abyssinian maid, Anglo-Saxon in feature, but dusky in color, and all reeking in castor-oil; and all the more valued from having been converted – stolen – from a nominally Christian country, it is all the same – “a woman is a woman for a’ that.” It must, too, be remarked that the representatives which we have in Egypt of the Nubian and Central African races are finer specimens of humanity than our American negroes brought from Western Africa; and they are undoubtedly finer as a class than the peasants of Egypt; and this, too, adds to their respectability. It often makes an impartial observer ready to conclude that, after all, the black is “the highest style of man.”

Second. The above feeling is promoted, and slavery is rendered a lighter yoke, from the fact that slaves have not been for the most part field-hands, crushed to the earth under the cumbrous wheels of King Cotton, nor any other great grinding demand of base avarice; but, like Abraham’s three hundred and eighteen, they have been the domestic and body servants of the rich and great, and, as such, are often petted and trusted by their masters, and, as a consequence, acquire influence, and are respected by those around. How far this may be carried is shown by the history of the Mamalukes, who sprang from a race of slaves, and were for a long time the rulers of Egypt until dethroned by Mohammed Ali.

Third. We have here no fugitive slave law. Slavery, as has been said, is against the law of the land; and consequently, if a slave is not well treated, and chooses to walk off, he need have no fears of blood-hounds, nor even take passage by the “Underground Railway.” The master has no redress, except it be through some corrupt Government official, whom he must bribe so heavily that, in most cases, he may better buy a new man. This latter feature takes the sting out of slavery, and almost makes it no slavery at all. It is probably the principal cause of the cheapness of the article. Two years ago a good slave could be purchased for from $40 to $60. Now the price has risen to about $100; and oven yet, though the foreign pressure is removed, the Government continues a fitful and dubiously disinterested opposition to the trade. Lately a dealer, emboldened by the new demand and the late laxness, ventured to bring down, not a few slaves stowed away in the hold of his boat, but a cargo of them; and instead of disposing of them at Osiout, or some other town of Upper Egypt, to be thence quietly distributed through the land, he boldly brought them past Cairo, on his way to the Delta, where cotton has created the present pressing demand. But the event showed that he was too presumptuous. The Government, hearing of it, seized the cargo, and then sent the men to the army, the boys to the Government school, and distributed the girls among the court favorites.

Thus it appears that Egyptian slavery is a very mild and innocent thing when compared with the “peculiar institution” – peculiarly horrible it is – which now forms the bloody cornerstone of the Southern Confederacy – the forever buried and lost corner-stone may it soon he in the ruins and debris of that edifice, which even now is tottering and falling to pieces over it.

This is true of male slavery in the East, but female slavery is there also a peculiarly horrible institution, and what is worse, wherever Mohammedanism reigns, it is a system established by law – by what is accounted a divine law. Many of the so-called Christians have not been slow in this matter to follow the example of their Muslim masters. The scarcity of female domestic help in a country where the voracious maw of the harem engulfs all, and the necessity, in a land where such general corruption reigns, of the seclusion, if not the polygamy, of the harem, even with Christians, which precludes male help, furnish excuse to the well-to-do Christians to purchase female help, and the consequence is the natural one. The temptation, fortified as it is by the public sentiment of the ruling and greatly predominant class of community, is often too strong to be resisted. The crime is usually saddled upon the water-carriers, who are the only persons usually admitted to the house, or (and I am very sorry I have to say it) it is consigned to oblivion by infanticide.

But I will not farther lift this veil. What has led me to this digression has been the negotiations which, in the intervals of bookselling, I have to-day been forced to hear from beneath the curtains of a little slaver beside us, in which an old man and his wife have charge of three black girls whom they are trying to sell. As the different would-be purchasers have come down to examine the wares or negotiate about the prices, the conversation has been more amusing to hear than it would be edifying in the recital. I must, however, mention one circumstance, as it illustrates the deeply religions character of the Orientals even when wallowing in the grossest immorality. The last candidate for one of the dusky beauties was an old Muslim, whose snowy beard and tottering gait showed that he should be in the mosque, preparing for his last account, instead of “making provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof;” and after going through with the usual examination, which was disgusting enough, he suddenly turned upon the girl, and said, “Ya bint tasallah (O girl, do you pray)?” to which she only answered with a titter; but her salesman broke in and answered, very emphatically, “Oh yes, she prays – she is a very religious girl.” The old Muslim left soon after, and as he was leaving the girl’s piety did not prevent her sending after him a volley of not very choice curses; at which her owner, fearing she would he overheard, cursed her in terms not less choice, and told her (“daughter of a pig”) to shut up or he would break her face with his cane.

9th. Awid having dispatched the books and returned, we took animals and a box of books and set out for Radaniyeh and Selamon, two villages about two and a half hours back in the country. At the former place we found a fine church, which also gave evidence corroborating the tradition of the place – that it is vary ancient. This church was formerly worshiped in by the people of Selamon, but they have lately built a church for themselves, so that this one has now only a priest and two or three people. These we saw, and sold them a few books. They had in the church some fine manuscripts of the Fathers and Lives of the Saints, which we tried to purchase, but could not. They were all “devoted to the Church.” When the priest appeared, decked in broadcloth and Damascene silk, and with a splendid silver-mounted amber rosary, Awid, surveying him with a very quizzical look from head to foot, took hold of the rosary, and said, “If the Saviour had had this he would not have needed to send Peter to catch a fish for money to pay the taxes. He would have sold his beads, which would have brought more than enough to pay for both of them.” The Copts seldom pray by the bead. The rosary is not with them, as with the Catholics, a necessity so much as a luxury – a plaything to be taken up when they have nothing more important to do, or think of, or enjoy; and they may often be seen sitting or reclining by the hour, dreamily counting over its invariable “ninety-nine,” and apparently much enjoying the pleasant sensation of the smooth beads passing over the nerves of the finger-ends. It also seems to give an air of quiet, complaisant dignity to the man.

We next proceeded to Selamon, which is about twenty minutes farther on and across a deep canal, which is navigable for good-sized craft. This canal leaves the Nile only a short distance this side of Cairo, and flows to the sea. It has on its banks many villages, and must, as soon as may be, be threaded by the Morning Star.

When we reached the village we went to the church and asked for the priest. We found him in a small upper room connected with the church, very busily engaged correcting a manuscript copy of the memoir of St. George. We told him that we had Bibles and books for sale, and asked if any of his people needed any. He said he thought not, as they already had many hooks, and asked us if we had the book upon which he was laboring. We took a cup of coffee with him, and then went out with our box into the town to the Christian quarter, and seeking a shady street we sat down and exposed our wares, at the same time sending off the boys, who by this time had collected around us, to inform the people. They soon came in good numbers, and we were happy to find that they were of a different mind from their priest as to their need of books. We spent the day selling and talking to them, and sold them to the amount of 210 piastres. Once our business came so a dead-lock in this wise: A boy who had bought a book brought it back, and quietly showed a passage in it to an old man – evidently the oracle of the village – who dubiously shook his head, and whispered something. Others then drew up and read over their shoulders, when, without saying any thing, the boy brought the book back and demanded his money. The rest dropped the books which they were examining, and the sale was stopped. I saw that a crisis had come, and asked the boy what was the matter with the book? After some reluctance he showed me the passage, which was to the effect that the Virgin Mary, like the rest of mankind, was a sinner, and in strong terms he reprobated so heretical a doctrine. I turned, in the Testament which I held in my hand, to Luke i. 46, and had him read it aloud to all: “And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour;” and then asked him from what he was her Saviour if not from sin, and how, at his age, he came to be so wise above what is written? All, even the oracle, bowed with a submission which is peculiarly Coptic to the authority of the Word of God, and the work went on again. This is only an example of the manner in which in these bookselling and street-preaching excursions we are called upon to meet opinions of all shades and hues. The whole debatable ground lying between them and us must usually be gone over, and a full account of one such day’s work would fill a volume.

Our evening ride back over the open plain was delightful after our long day’s work in the hot, dusty street. The country here is more beautiful than in Upper Egypt. Though the picture here lacks the frame-work of the Lybian and Arabian hills, which there so heightens the effect, we have here the sublimity of apparently endless expansion, and the eye is relieved by shade-trees much more thickly scattered over the surface. The Shadoof Here, too, is wanting the “shadoof” with its saddening idea of crushing toil, and the sakias are in groups on the shady banks of the canal; and their concert of creaking wheels and flowing waters, enlivened by the cheerful crack of the whips of the drivers, and their lively songs, inspiriting the laboring beasts, is much better than their solitary groan in the Said. Camels, with towering sacks of the precious cotton balancing on each side, were wending their way with stately, measured step to the market, while all around the new cotton crop was just sprouting from the carefully-leveled and ridged fields. Happy Egypt in these days of America’s distress!

10th, Sabbath. Fearing that, notwithstanding our friend the priest’s platitudes about “one Father, one mother church, and one spiritual food,” he would yet not invite me to preach in his church; and feeling, moreover, after yesterday’s labor, more like enjoying a Sabbath of rest than going to stand by and witness the tedious service of the mass, we remained in the boat. A number of people came to us, and we preached to them the Word.

11th. In the night we dropped down to the landing-place opposite Damiane; and in the morning, before it was yet light, were awakened by the vociferous screams and quarrels of the pilgrims who, the day before, and during the night, had reached this stage of the journey, and were now preparing for the land-journey of three hours to the convent. Such a scene of noise and confusion as is the first morning of starting of an eastern caravan, when all the bargains are to be made and the loads proportioned and arranged, can not be described nor imagined: it must be seen. We, too, secured our animals, and a little after sunrise were all in motion – and a picturesque cavalcade we were – camels, horses, moles, and asses, about sixty in number, and laden with towering loads of tents, boxes, beds, and all the paraphernalia of kitchen furniture, and surmounted by a motley crowd, men and women, boys and girls, and tender infants – white, black, and copper-colored, and all, released from the toils and confinement of the town, and, with the great feast in prospect, in high and exuberant spirits. Here first I noticed that the women, who at home would never appear even to near relatives uncovered, were unveiled; and the strange phenomenon was explained to me by the popular belief that in this region, which is under the special protection of “Our Lady Damiane,” and during the week of her Mulid, the wanton glance is inevitably punished with blindness, and the illicit embrace with even heavier inflictions. So we “made a covenant with our eyes” and bade them look straight before them, while we said in our hearts, Would that “Our Lady’s dominion extended over all the land of Egypt, and that her Mulid embraced all the weeks of the year!”

When we came to a treacherous ditch or steep dyke the ejaculations to God, “the overshadowing One,” and to Our Lady Damiane, “the defender of the two seas and the two lands,” were frequent and earnest. About half-way on our journey we were stopped by a wide canal, which we all had to cross in an old scow – a process which was only second in difficulty to our out-setting, and an hour and a half was consumed in it. This time, however, was not lost, as in it we learned to sympathize with the Army of the Potomac in its numerous crossings and re-crossings. The sun had now become high and hot, and, with the exception of the shouts of the drivers urging on their fly-maddened beasts and the crying of infants, silence reigned. It seemed as if the festive and boisterous morning-time of youth had been succeeded by life’s soberer journey of riper years. We found, too, that the reason which had been given for so early an attempt at starting was a good one; for the gnats and mosquitoes now so swarmed about oil, head, and filled our ears and eyes, that we were glad closely to wrap them up in our handkerchiefs. These are produced by the surrounding marshes, which here rover thousands of acres of land. All this section as far as eye can reach is uncultivated, much of it being covered with these marshes, and the rest without present arrangements for irrigation. This would be just the section for a colony of our freedmen. If managed by enterprising men, who could bring our Western intelligence and machinery into operation in draining and irrigating these wastes, and with sufficient government protection, it would become a splendid rice and cotton country, and be a great success.

The convent soon loomed up before us, yet eight or ten miles distant, appearing with its white walls like a marble castle standing in time midst of a wide-spread lake formed by the deceitful waters of the mirage. I have never seen this phenomenon so perfect as during those few days on this plain. It seemed quite impossible to believe it a pure illusion, and I often found myself half determined to start off for a bath and a sail. We tried to stir up our weary animals, but neither they nor their drivers had a mind to leave the caravan. Finally we reached our destination, and found our man with the tent and boxes of books awaiting us. We immediately commenced setting up the former, but were much vexed to find that, notwithstanding our strict charges to our friends at Alexandria to send it to us all right, one of its sides was wanting, and so we were left to broil by day and freeze by night, like Jacob with, the flocks of Laban – a process which, after three days, made it necessary for me to leave in the midst of the feast.

After arranging as well as we could our temporary habitation, we went up to see the Sitt and the Reis, or head of the convent, our old friend, Father Makar. This Makar I had met a year previous at the convent of the saint whose name he bears, in the Nitron Lakes. But how changed! Then he was a poor monk barefooted, and with a homespun zaboot. Now he has shoes and stockings, and dons an expansive cloth cloak over a silk tunic, and flourishes n long staff. Then he was glad to walk with me six hours over the desert to the other convent for a few piastres; now he has come here to swallow his thousands. Then I found him in our long walk a very attentive and interested listener to the doctrines of Protestantism, and especially to the gospel of matrimony, which is usually the only gospel which brings glad tidings to the monks. Now he is cold and stiff and distant. But Father Makhiel, who was then the Abbot of his convent, and he his factotum, has since been made Patriarch and occupies the throne of St. Mark, and as his most tried and trusty man has sent him here as Reis of the convent to work this rich mine of wealth.

The convent is a high inclosure about one hundred paces square, surmounted by numerous small domes which form the roof; and it is accounted one of the wonders of the Sitt that no man can count them – that is to say, no two men can agree as to the number; one making them one hundred and fifty, and another more or less. In this inclosure is, first, a small open court, then a good-sized church with numerous other smaller chapels, and the rooms of the monks, of whom only three now remain here. Every thing is dirty and untidy and out of repair, as it must needs be to be Coptic.

To the left of the dark passage leading into the church is a small room about twelve feet square, surmounted by a dome, and lighted by two apertures about a feet square, one opening to the north and the other to the east. Here are witnessed those miracles of the Sitt, which draw together these crowds of people from all parts of Egypt. The northern aperture opens upon a low roof several feet below it, and ten or fifteen feet wide, and in front of this are several upper rooms which, during the feast, are let to visitors. These, passing to and fro, east their inverted shadows upon the sides of the dome within on the principle of the camera obscura, while the expectant worshipers within, who constantly crowd the room almost to suffocation, invoke, with loud cries and upstretched hands, at each appearance of the apparitions, their favorite saints: “O Sitt Damiane, defender of the two seas and the two lands, preserve the children and save them!” “O Mary, most blessed Mother of God, regard us!” “O Saint George, thou mighty warrior, help!” “O Father of the two swords, heal us!” and so on to the end of the calendar. (I may remark in passing that the “Father of the two swords” is the saint who has under his special care the votaries of Venus.) Such a scene of blind superstition as that room constantly presented I never before witnessed.

When we reached the convent we found only thirty or forty tents. They mostly belonged to tradesmen, who, like ourselves, had come early to secure a position. The number of those who had brought their barrels of wine and great demijohns of arrack, and had already so temptingly arranged their many-colored bottles in their booths, gave promise of lively times. Within the court of the convent were a few choice shops, and we found we were in time for just the one we wished beside the church door, the price of which had been too high for those who preceded us. Awid, however, with his usual business tact, secured possession for four dollars, which he insisted was sufficient hire for the week, though our friend Makar insisted as stoutly that it was only the pledge to nail the bargain, and that the full rent must be forthcoming at the end of the week. Awid, however, carried his point; for he maintained that, in selling Bibles and religious books, we were doing the work of the Church which they should do, and therefore they should give us the shop free. And truly four dollars seemed enough for a little open stall three feet by four, which could boast of nothing but its position; for there every person who visited the Silt or entered the church must pass, and almost step over us and our books. But this bargain was only a specimen of the system of gouging which was there carried on. Six piastres for a water-jar, and eleven for a small tent mat, of which hundreds were needed by the visitors, and other things in proportion; the full price of the article charged for its hire for a week, and this year after year! One would think they would be satisfied with the thousands which come in as regular fees for priestly services done, and votive offerings, and that they would exercise the famous Egyptian hospitality in these smaller matters. But this is a great money-making institution, and it must be worked to the utmost.

This piece of business finished, we returned to our tent for the evening, where we found Barsum, a friend of Awid, from Mansoura, who had at last year’s Mulid bravely stood by Awid in a hard-fought battle about the truth of the phantoms in the chamber of imagery, in which Awid’s infidelity cost him a sound beating. Barsum is a noble, intelligent, and pious man -one of the princes who should “come out of Egypt.” He stuck to us through our three days’ battle, and each evening he invited us to dine and spend the evening with him, where we enjoyed the opportunity of speaking the Word to many of his circle of acquaintance.

The next morning we commenced work in our little shop, and as the crowds were now coming in we were kept busy enough. As I usually find that the more I have to work the less I write, my notes of these three days of hard work are very scanty, and I must fill up the brief outline chiefly from memory. My plan was to spend the forenoon and part of the afternoon at the shop, helping Awid. Then, when the reclining sun gave me a shady spot beside our tent, I went down, and, spreading our mats, a small audience of passers-by, of whom Barsum and his friends usually formed the nucleus, gathered together, and I spent an hour reading and talking to them, and then in the evening in Barsum's large tent. Occasionally, too, I would retire from the sultry heat and exciting discussions of the shop to the seething suffocation of the phantom-room to witness what was going on there, and then to the church, whose high arches furnished a delightfully cool retreat, where I would sit a while on a mat and refresh myself while viewing the doings of those who came there to pay their vows and offer their devotions to the Sitt. I will try to convey some idea of what was going on at each of these places.

First, at the book-shop. We were almost constantly surrounded by a circle, who were purchasing or reading our books. The Copts, before buying, usually wish to dip here and there pretty deeply into a book to see if it is orthodox doctrine. This, when one is in a hurry, is a great vexation; for they are never in a hurry, and will not be pressed. When one has time enough it is profitable; for these readings often bring up passages which call for explanation and lead to discussions, and thus there is never any lack of a text and a subject. One never need come to these encounters with any set speech, for it can not be foreseen what direction the discussion will take. A warm heart, a ready tongue, an intimate acquaintance with the prejudices and notions of those addressed, and a fund of Scripture proofs always at hand – these are the requisites for success in this work. We had two of our men from the boat with us. One of these we left at the tent to guard the stuff and make provision for our bodily wants, and the other we sent around among the tents with a bag of books, and he had good success in selling to those who did not come up to the church, or did not wish to purchase there.

Early Wednesday morning the great event of the Mulid, which had been looked forward to with great interest by all, took place, viz., the arrival, in great pomp and circumstance, of the Patriarch, accompanied with Botros, the Bishop or Metropolitan of Cairo. (He alone of the thirteen bishops of the Coptic Church enjoys the title “Metropolitan.”) He is an able man, and last year made a strenuous attempt for the Patriarchate; but two objections were found to him. First, he had lost two joints of one of his fingers; and, second, his father was his mother’s second husband – that is, he was not the son of a virgin mother. The Patriarch retired to the reception-room above, where he received the respects of those who chose to call upon him. I was urged by all to do so, but felt no inclination, and so excused myself till the morrow, saying that his Holiness must be weary from his long journey and needed rest. On the morrow I found it necessary to leave, and so did not see him at all. Awid, however, in the afternoon, when I was down at the tent, went up to call upon him. After the salutations, in which Awid only offered him the respect due to a man, not the adoration of a God, as was the custom with the others, he asked Awid, ‒What are you now – a Copt or what?” Awid answered him, “I am a Christian, I hope.” He asked, “And were you not a Christian before you turned Protestant?” ‘’No,” Awid answered, “I was then a heathen.” This sharp answer his Holiness received in good part, and laughed heartily; and after asking the same question and receiving the same answer as to Awid’s wife, and some more sparring, he left. The Bishop was more condescending. During the forenoon he came down and sat a long time with Awid and me at the book-shop. He looked over our books, and asked if we had any thing new; and then he said aside to us, so that the bystanders could not hear, “You have the truth in these books.” Awid, with his usual readiness, answered him, “Then oh, our Father, why don’t you follow the truth?” He raised his hand, closed his fingers, and emphatically moving it, as the Arabs usually do when about to say something important, he answered, “My son, this is an office” – plainly implying that he too was a Protestant in sentiment, and would be one in open profession but for his office. At Cairo he had obtained from Awid and clandestinely read most of our books; and how, knowing as he did that those books so effectually set aside the Coptic faith, he could yet allow us to go on selling them there, when one word or a bare hint from him would have been sufficient to put an end at once to our work, seemed passing strange. “It is the Lord’s doing, and is marvelous in our eyes.” Formerly he was not so tolerant. When, several years ago, our good Father Makhiel first professed Protestantism, he had him inveigled into a house one dark night, where he was thrown upon his face in the mud, and beaten almost to death; but he would not recant.

Before leaving he told Awid aside one thing which filled our hearts with sadness. He said, “Since you Protestants hold to the purity of the Gospel, and have done so much good, and are in general such good men, why do you allow in your ranks that man Beshetly? He has a female slave with whom he is notoriously living on terms of too great intimacy, and I am informed that in a couple of months fruits are expected from this intimacy.” Now we knew that Beshetly was an able man and a bold witness against the errors of the Church, and was therefore the object of the deadly hate of the priesthood. The report therefore we thought might be true or not. It at least seemed evident that he believed it, and the bare suspicion of its truth put a burning coal in our hearts. But more of this in the sequel.

This story continue here

From Egypt's princes: a narrative of missionary labor in the Valley of the Nile
by Rev. Giulian Lansing, 1865