Recollections of Egyptian Princesses

ELLEN CHENNELLS (Continued)

For some time I have left Ellen marooned here, as it were – although I have indeed found out more about her during a visit to England. It is now time that I went on with her story.

What motivated Ellen?

What motivated Ellen, a woman no longer young, to take up what can only have been a somewhat arduous and challenging post in a foreign country? After all, in her late 50s it is likely that she would have been contemplating retirement when Admiral Milne’s daughters no longer needed a governess.

Part of the answer may have been that conditions of employment with the Khedival family, "the service" as she always referred to it as, seem to have been far more generous than in England. For example, when one of the Third Princess’s servants got married, she “received presents from her mistress and the other Princesses, such as might be given to a lady of rank in England… and to crown all, she continued in the service.” (In England a servant would usually lose her job if she got married).

Equally, Ellen undoubtedly gained status from her post as governess to a royal family. She was certainly very proud of having been governess to the Khedival family, to the point of having it mentioned in the announcement of her death in the local Cheltenham newspaper, the "Cheltenham Examiner" on Wednesday 18 November 1896. If nothing else, it would have marked her out as being someone who was different to most governesses.

Still, we might wonder just what her social status was anyway. After all, this would certainly have mattered a great deal to everyone at the time. There are clues that she was from at least well-connected origins; she was employed only by aristocratic families, and was also, on one occasion, asked by Ismail to pay a call on the Earl and Countess of Dudley, then staying in Cairo, who to say the least would not usually feel particularly flattered by a visit from a family’s governess.

There is no doubt that Ellen enjoyed working as a governess; she plainly liked children, and liked teaching. In an age when women had very few careers open to them, it was, for her, a rewarding profession – although of course it was by no means so for all governesses.

Besides, Ellen aimed to do far more than simply teach Zeynab and Kopsès. She had, in fact, an agenda; through Zeynab, she hoped to improve conditions for all Egyptian women.

“I wished”, Ellen wrote, “as much as possible to cultivate the mind of my pupil during the short space of time she would still be under my charge… I told her I thought much would depend on herself. She was in a high position, and would be looked up to as an example. If she by her conduct could show that liberty was not inconsistent with modesty and innocence, there was no doubt but a few years would bring about an entire revolution in the present system with regard to women… in all countries the more civilised [in the Western sense] a state became, the higher did women rise in the social scale.”

Ismail himself would have agreed with this. Indeed, he actually did a great deal himself to improve conditions for women in Egypt, particularly encouraging the setting-up of girls schools. Ellen wrote that he: "was anxious to raise the position of women: he founded schools for girls, he endeavoured to promote education in his own harem..." Indeed, Ellen explains that his ambition for Zeynab was by “encouraging her gradually and innocently to introduce European customs… and had she lived, I believe a thorough change would in a few years have taken place in female society in Egypt”.

Unfortunately of course Zeynab did not live, and “European customs” were unfortunately to be introduced not by persuasion, but by the British invasion and occupation of Egypt. Still, both Ismail and Ellen had done their best.

Ismail has had a very bad press, both at home and abroad, both at the time and ever since. Yet he sincerely tried to modernise Egypt, even if the unfortunate result was to bankrupt the country. Perhaps in the end he was unfortunate in having to face Western imperialism and capitalism at its most ruthless. He saw that the Ottoman Empire, to which Egypt still belonged, was the past, that even then it was the "sick man of Europe", and - for better or worse - that the west represented the future. Ellen recognised his hard work, and his capacity for thoughtfulness towards others, and was loyal to him long after she ceased to be his employee. And yet, she had to recall that, despite his efforts, he all too often was unable to realise his aims.

For instance, she writes that he "gave much greater liberty and means, both of recreation and instruction, to... [his harem's] inmates than any sovereign had done before him." And yet she was to find when she moved into the palace harem with Zeynab and Kopsès that it could still be a dreadfully boring place. “I passed whole days in the house, with no-one to talk to, no books or papers to read, and nothing but my piano for recreation. I began to doubt whether I was right to sacrifice the few remaining years of health and strength which might be in store for me, to this dreadful monotony of harem life.” (In fact, happily Ellen was to have another 20 years of comparative health and strength afterwards).

But most of all, I think, Ellen accepted the post of governess to the Khedival family for the travel opportunities it gave her. Recollections of an Egyptian Princess is, above all, a travel-book. Its descriptions of contemporary Cairo and Constantinople (now Istanbul) are wonderful; they are detailed, insightful, descriptive and lively. If there was ever a born travel-writer it was plainly Ellen; she must have spent hours making notes.

Ellen was a natural traveller; she was resourceful, plainly quite physically and mentally tough, and valued different cultures. She tried out every experience that she could; whether diving inside a Pyramid in her crinoline, or being rowed in a tiny boat across the Bosphorus. At every possible opportunity she went on an “exploring expedition”.

I wonder, was it her love of travel that led to the somewhat enigmatic epitaph on her tombstone: In my father's house there are many mansions to go to. It is a curious adaptation of a biblical passage that she must have known well. Is it taking speculation too far to read into to go to her wish to see many places, many more "mansions"?

She spoke at least three languages fluently: English, French, and Italian. Very likely as a governess of the time she would also have had at least some familiarity with German. She also tried to learn as much Turkish (the official language of the Khedival Court) as she could, describing how she would “sit about in the saloons with my Turkish books… or at work, sometimes listening to what passed around me, and trying to understand it.

Still, she did not find it easy to learn Turkish, explaining that “a person who understands two or three European languages finds the acquisition of a fourth comparatively easy, but they do not help the least in learning an oriental language.” Other Europeans seem to have had the same difficulty. “I never met" she wrote, "with more than two or three persons who could read and write Arabic or Turkish. I speak of Europeans long resident in the country…”

I shall now take up Ellen’s story again, at the point where she was about to leave for Constantinople, where she was to spend so many happy hours (and a few challenging ones). In May 1872, the Khedival family escaped from the growing heat, firstly to the summer palace at Gezireh.

The Gezireh Palace

Ellen compared the Gezireh Palace to a “miniature Versailles”; it had elaborate gardens, and even a private zoo. The place was even run on French lines: “The servants engaged at the palace are French, with Arabs under them, because everything at Gezireh (except the harem) is European”. Zeynab and her brother Ibrahim lived in a wing of the palace that was usually reserved for important visitors. This was “delightfully situated; some of the apartments looked down onto the river [Nile]; others on the lovely garden. Ellen was fascinated by the exotic trees growing in this garden.

Still, Ellen was very much looking forward to visiting Constantinople, where she knew the Court usually spent some of the year, and feared that it would remain instead at Gezireh, which meant that she would have gained no “respite from the mosquitoes of Choubrah.” So she was very glad when towards the end of May the harem moved to the Ras-el-Tin Palace at Alexandria, as the prelude to voyaging to Constantinople.

The Ras-el-Tin Palace

In Alexandria, the educational staff were lodged at the Hôtel d l’Europe, in the Grand Square, driving each day to Ras-el-Tin, which was then about two miles west of Alexandria. After the dryness of Cairo, Ellen found the sea air at Alexandria very refreshing, and every one seems to have enjoyed themselves: “Our days passed very pleasantly. We were a very united party, never interfered with one another, and enjoyed each other’s society when we met. As at Minieh [on the excursion up the Nile] and at Choubrah, every one tried to please the Princess, and as she was very easy to please, everybody succeeded.”

Meanwhile, Ismail remained at Cairo, on business. And with the political and economic situation of Egypt worsening, no doubt he had a great deal to concern himself with. However, on 1 June 1872 he arrived in Alexandria. Even so, Ellen was unsure if this meant “an immediate departure for Constantinople… Zohrab Bey [the doctor]… told us that His Highness [i.e. Ismail] spoke of going at once to Constantinople, so that we should do well to hold ourselves in readiness to depart at an hour’s notice.” But Ellen had heard this before, and remembering the constant delays to the excursion up the Nile, felt that “we had been too much accustomed to this sort of thing to lay too much stress upon it.”

None the less, the following day, Sunday, Ellen and Mr. Mitchell were told to go aboard the steam-yacht Mahroussah by one o’clock, to be ready to accompany Zeynab and the Second Princess on the voyage. Fortunately this presented no difficulty, as the educational staff had not “unpacked any more than was absolutely necessary”, since arriving in Alexandria.

And so, finally, Ellen was to set off on her long hoped-for adventure, one of her trips of a lifetime, to the ancient, beautiful and fascinating city of Constantinople…

To be continued.