Ellen and Lucie Duff-Gordon; the bad times amongst the good
I have, in this thread, tried to put Ellen’s description of life in the Khedival court into a historical perspective by comparing it with other generally contemporary accounts. In my last posting, I mentioned Lady Lucie Duff-Gordon (1821-1869) – not to be mistaken, by the way, with the later, Lady Lucy [note spelling] Duff-Gordon, a fashionable dressmaker and a somewhat controversial survivor of the Titanic.
Lucie became very much attached to the ordinary Egyptians, and so wrote a great deal about the disastrous effects of Ismail’s high taxation and forced labour on the ordinary Egyptian population. She wrote two well-known books about her experiences, Letters from Egypt (published 1865) and Last letters from Egypt (published posthumously by her daughter in 1875). The books take the form of collections of letters, written to her friends and relatives since her arrival in Egypt in 1862.
It is possible that Ellen could have read Letters from Egypt before taking up her appointment with the Khedive, although (possibly diplomatically) does not say so.
Indeed, Ellen may have felt that the political situation of the time was nothing to do with her, which was no doubt true; her opinions would have counted for very little – whilst Lucie, on the other hand, was a well-connected, titled woman, with an independent income, who was already an established author when she went to Egypt. Ellen’s place was simply to teach two children.
Besides, Ellen was plainly no-one’s fool; she would have been very careful about what she taught, and said to Zeynab. In fact she was reminded now and then by people such as Zohrab, the doctor, that she was in the Khedive’s pay, in effect one of the harem, and expected to that extent, to act accordingly. However, to compensate for this her pay may have been very good – she mentions that other European servants were attracted to work for the Khedival Court by high wages – and in addition, she was gaining opportunities for travel, and new experiences, that she could never hope to obtain otherwise.
Still, there are rare glances at the Egypt beyond the Palace windows. One such was when the Nile excursion had come to a premature halt at Minya. Ellen describes it thus:
“I saw a curious light one morning while dressing in my cabin [on board the dahabieh]. I heard a strange humming noise as of many voices, and looking out, I saw a large steamer coming down the river, and behind it in tow were five immense flat-bottomed boats and two dahabiehs. The boats were crowded with men, forced labourers from the Upper Nile, who were brought down to work on the railway which the Viceroy [i.e. Ismail] was constructing in Upper [sic] Egypt. There must have been several thousands.”
Lucie Duff-Gordon witnessed much the same thing a decade earlier, in 1862:
“The other day four huge barges passed us towed by a steamer and crammed with hundreds of the poor souls [i.e. conscript labourers] torn from their homes to work at the Isthmus of Suez, or some palace of the Pasha’s, for a nominal piastre a day, and find their own bread and water and a cloak… One of my crew… recognised some relations of his from a village close to Assouan. There was much shouting and…[he] looked very mournful all day. It may be his turn next.”
(Letters from Egypt)
Indeed, Lucie had much to say about the human misery behind forced labour (usually known as corvée labour):
“…the Europeans applaud, and say, ‘Oh, but nothing could be done without forced labour,’ and the poor Felaheen [farmers] are marched off in gangs like convicts, and families starve, and (who’d have thought it) the population keeps diminishing.”
(Letters from Egypt)
It is true that corvée labour had been used in Egypt since ancient times. However, it was to be used during the 19th century to a greater extent than before, in order to construct projects like the Suez Canal, new irrigation work, and railways, and this was to cause increasing hardship to the fellaheen – leading, of course, to increasing resistance to it. It was to eventually come to and end during the 1880s (it was sometimes used after its official cessation).
I have, in this thread, tried to put Ellen’s description of life in the Khedival court into a historical perspective by comparing it with other generally contemporary accounts. In my last posting, I mentioned Lady Lucie Duff-Gordon (1821-1869) – not to be mistaken, by the way, with the later, Lady Lucy [note spelling] Duff-Gordon, a fashionable dressmaker and a somewhat controversial survivor of the Titanic.
Lucie became very much attached to the ordinary Egyptians, and so wrote a great deal about the disastrous effects of Ismail’s high taxation and forced labour on the ordinary Egyptian population. She wrote two well-known books about her experiences, Letters from Egypt (published 1865) and Last letters from Egypt (published posthumously by her daughter in 1875). The books take the form of collections of letters, written to her friends and relatives since her arrival in Egypt in 1862.
It is possible that Ellen could have read Letters from Egypt before taking up her appointment with the Khedive, although (possibly diplomatically) does not say so.
Indeed, Ellen may have felt that the political situation of the time was nothing to do with her, which was no doubt true; her opinions would have counted for very little – whilst Lucie, on the other hand, was a well-connected, titled woman, with an independent income, who was already an established author when she went to Egypt. Ellen’s place was simply to teach two children.
Besides, Ellen was plainly no-one’s fool; she would have been very careful about what she taught, and said to Zeynab. In fact she was reminded now and then by people such as Zohrab, the doctor, that she was in the Khedive’s pay, in effect one of the harem, and expected to that extent, to act accordingly. However, to compensate for this her pay may have been very good – she mentions that other European servants were attracted to work for the Khedival Court by high wages – and in addition, she was gaining opportunities for travel, and new experiences, that she could never hope to obtain otherwise.
Still, there are rare glances at the Egypt beyond the Palace windows. One such was when the Nile excursion had come to a premature halt at Minya. Ellen describes it thus:
“I saw a curious light one morning while dressing in my cabin [on board the dahabieh]. I heard a strange humming noise as of many voices, and looking out, I saw a large steamer coming down the river, and behind it in tow were five immense flat-bottomed boats and two dahabiehs. The boats were crowded with men, forced labourers from the Upper Nile, who were brought down to work on the railway which the Viceroy [i.e. Ismail] was constructing in Upper [sic] Egypt. There must have been several thousands.”
Lucie Duff-Gordon witnessed much the same thing a decade earlier, in 1862:
“The other day four huge barges passed us towed by a steamer and crammed with hundreds of the poor souls [i.e. conscript labourers] torn from their homes to work at the Isthmus of Suez, or some palace of the Pasha’s, for a nominal piastre a day, and find their own bread and water and a cloak… One of my crew… recognised some relations of his from a village close to Assouan. There was much shouting and…[he] looked very mournful all day. It may be his turn next.”
(Letters from Egypt)
Indeed, Lucie had much to say about the human misery behind forced labour (usually known as corvée labour):
“…the Europeans applaud, and say, ‘Oh, but nothing could be done without forced labour,’ and the poor Felaheen [farmers] are marched off in gangs like convicts, and families starve, and (who’d have thought it) the population keeps diminishing.”
(Letters from Egypt)
It is true that corvée labour had been used in Egypt since ancient times. However, it was to be used during the 19th century to a greater extent than before, in order to construct projects like the Suez Canal, new irrigation work, and railways, and this was to cause increasing hardship to the fellaheen – leading, of course, to increasing resistance to it. It was to eventually come to and end during the 1880s (it was sometimes used after its official cessation).
Lord Cromer, who effectively became the ruler of Egypt following the British occupation in 1882, unsurprisingly claimed that its abolition had been a British accomplishment. However, its end was due more to the changing economic and political nature of Egypt; British officials had actually been ambivalent about banning it, at least until the large agricultural estates bought by rich Englishmen in Egypt had been developed by its use.
Forced labour was not the only bad thing to be found in Egypt at the time. Another was the looting of antiquities and old buildings, and both Ellen and Lucie wrote about it.
Ellen went on several occasions to see the Tombs of the Caliphs, part of Cairo’s huge Northern Cemetery. The tombs date from around 1382-1517, and by the 19th century had fallen into bad repair, as this photo from the 1870s, when Ellen visited them, shows:
On one of these occasions, a member of the party that Ellen was with was a tourist, referred to by her only as Mr. P. “P” decided to help himself to one of the surviving carved lattice-screens of the tombs: “at last he succeeded in detaching a piece. I thought it such a pity that I remonstrated with him, but he replied that it would all crumble away sooner or later, and he would like to have a bit of it; so he took it.”
Lucie Duff-Gordon also visited these tombs, and wrote that:
“Omar [her Egyptian servant] witnessed the destruction of some sixty-eight or so of the most exquisite buildings – the tombs and mosques of the Arab Khaleefehs, which Said Pasha [Ismail’s predecessor] used to divert himself with bombarding for practice for his artillery… Thus the Pasha added the piquancy of sacrilege to barbarity.”
(Letters from Egypt)
It was, unfortunately by no means an uncommon attitude, at the time. Ismail himself was busy demolishing huge areas of old Cairo in order to rebuild the city to make it look like Paris, and the first ruler of his dynasty, Muhammad Ali, had even wanted to demolish the Pyramids themselves, to provide building-material for a barrage across the Nile!
Yet another example is a businessman called George Pangals built a exhibit themed on a Cairo street, for the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, USA, in 1893. He searched the older parts of Cairo for any historical architectural features that he could find, and was to boast later that he: “went to work with a vim that would have done credit to a vandal… in about nine months, over fifteen residences had been despoiled of their entire woodwork, and over fifty others had contributed their share of carved panels, doors, etc.”
(Quoted in Whose Pharaohs, by D. M. Reid, 2002, University of California Press).
Forced labour was not the only bad thing to be found in Egypt at the time. Another was the looting of antiquities and old buildings, and both Ellen and Lucie wrote about it.
Ellen went on several occasions to see the Tombs of the Caliphs, part of Cairo’s huge Northern Cemetery. The tombs date from around 1382-1517, and by the 19th century had fallen into bad repair, as this photo from the 1870s, when Ellen visited them, shows:
On one of these occasions, a member of the party that Ellen was with was a tourist, referred to by her only as Mr. P. “P” decided to help himself to one of the surviving carved lattice-screens of the tombs: “at last he succeeded in detaching a piece. I thought it such a pity that I remonstrated with him, but he replied that it would all crumble away sooner or later, and he would like to have a bit of it; so he took it.”
Lucie Duff-Gordon also visited these tombs, and wrote that:
“Omar [her Egyptian servant] witnessed the destruction of some sixty-eight or so of the most exquisite buildings – the tombs and mosques of the Arab Khaleefehs, which Said Pasha [Ismail’s predecessor] used to divert himself with bombarding for practice for his artillery… Thus the Pasha added the piquancy of sacrilege to barbarity.”
(Letters from Egypt)
It was, unfortunately by no means an uncommon attitude, at the time. Ismail himself was busy demolishing huge areas of old Cairo in order to rebuild the city to make it look like Paris, and the first ruler of his dynasty, Muhammad Ali, had even wanted to demolish the Pyramids themselves, to provide building-material for a barrage across the Nile!
Yet another example is a businessman called George Pangals built a exhibit themed on a Cairo street, for the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, USA, in 1893. He searched the older parts of Cairo for any historical architectural features that he could find, and was to boast later that he: “went to work with a vim that would have done credit to a vandal… in about nine months, over fifteen residences had been despoiled of their entire woodwork, and over fifty others had contributed their share of carved panels, doors, etc.”
(Quoted in Whose Pharaohs, by D. M. Reid, 2002, University of California Press).
To be continued...
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