The el-Misr had taken part in the opening celebrations for the Suez Canal in 1869, when it had carried, amongst others, Sir Frederick Arrow, the Deputy Master of Trinity House. (Trinity House is the organisation responsible for lighthouses, and other navigational aids, in England and Wales). Sir Frederick described the ship as being “a large, powerful screw vessel, fitted up as a passenger vessel, but loaded with gilding and beautiful wood carving, her occupation being, about once a year, to take the Viceroy’s entourage for a sniff of the briny.”
Sir Frederick, a former Master Mariner, would not have approved of the running of the ship when Ellen voyaged on board it. “We, the educational staff, and Mrs. Freeland and her children, went on board the Masr on the morning of the 14th, [October] and were much annoyed to find that one of the cabins which we had taken had been appropriated to some one else… there was no one to regulate and arrange as on European ships.” What was more: “The hot deck was very crowded and dirty. I wonder what an English sailor would say to their mode of washing it! They throw down a quantity of water, and then drag along a piece of flannel to wipe it up!”
Still, apart from this, Ellen was generally pleased with the ship. “We went to look at the accommodation on the Masr, and were very well satisfied with it… the Masr had also splendid harem apartments; but there were many excellent cabins all over the ship … The windows in the cabins were large, so I hoped to see something of the land we might pass, while dressing in the morning.”
A fellow passenger had an interesting story, recounted by Ellen. Some years previously, a wealthy woman had wanted to make the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. However, she could only do this as a married woman. Ellen takes up the story: “Strange as it may appear, I was told that temporary marriages are often made by rich women for that purpose. So the lady in question married a poor man, and after the pilgrimage was accomplished she departed from her temporary husband, making him a handsome present in return for his protection.”
However, protection was not all that she got from him. “A daughter was, however the result of the connection, who was brought up by her mother and received a good education. In the meantime, the repudiated husband went to Egypt, entered the service of the Viceroy, and rose to rank and dignity. The father, now become a great man, conceived a wish to see his daughter, who was married and had one or more children. So the lady was in the same vessel with us, in the part devoted to the harem, on her way to Egypt to visit the father whom she had never yet beheld.”
Who says that stories never have happy endings!
But it was not to be so happy for Princess Zeynab, who would be confined to the harem on her return to Egypt. “My dear little pupil was now “shut up.””, Ellen wrote. “Her last day of liberty had bee that on which she left Emirghian. Henceforward I was now to go to her daily to give lessons in the harem.” Kopsès was also to live in the harem, with Zeynab; of course as a slave she had even less choice about it than Zeynab did. Both seem to have merely accepted it as inevitable; on her first visit to the harem to give them lessens, Ellen found they: “were very quiet, and said nothing whatever of the change that had taken place in their condition since I last saw them.”
Ellen, however, felt deeply for them. “It really went to my heart to see them thus caged”, she wrote, “because they had known what liberty was, and lost it just at the age when its deprivation would have been felt the most.” (Princess Zeynab was now aged 14, and Kopsès perhaps slightly older; evidently they had entered the harem at puberty).
William Loring, indeed, wrote that Princess Zeynab "rebelled when the time came for her incarceration, and that she lamented in tears her unfortunate fate." This may well be true, although Ellen (perhaps diplomatically) does not mention it.
Still, like so much else, neither Zeynab or even it seems Ismail himself, could have done anything about it, as Ellen explained:
“The Khédive did all that lay in his power to give his daughter careful and moral training in early youth, but he could not set aside the opinion of all Mahometans [sic], which would have been outraged by her retaining that liberty when arrived at womanhood.”
And Ismail could not have afforded that. He was already unpopular for favouring foreigners with the strong nationalist movement that was developing in Egypt during the 1870s; this was, after all, a mere seven years before the start of the Urabi Revolt against Ismail and the undue influence of foreigners – specifically Europeans, Turko-Circassians and Albanians.
Indeed, the two women closest to Princess Zeynab at this time, apart from her mother, the Second Princess, were two such: Ellen, a European, and Kopsès, who appears to have been Circassian. Ismail might have felt it best not to publicise this fact too much, as it certainly risked being commented on unfavourably by the popular, and increasingly nationalist Egyptian press of the time.
What was more, Ismail seems to have hoped that his daughter would carry forwards his plans for the increasing westernisation of Egypt. And that would require tact; according to Ellen the plan seems to have involved “marrying her early, and then encouraging her gradually and innocently to introduce European customs”.
It all inevitably lead to the question, did Ellen, however innocently and indirectly, have any kind of political role? Or to put it more simply, whose side was she on? After all, it would perhaps be naïve not to imagine that she was completely outside the political sphere, as one of the main influences on a member of the Egyptian Royal Family. And she certainly had associations, at least, with British Establishment circles.
The answer seems to have been that, if anything, she was loyal to the Khedival family, even delaying publishing her book – despite her need to earn money – until its appearance could not offend, or harm any of them. And indeed, it seems to have been her intention to remain in Egypt, even when her employment there had ended, as she wrote that she left it “with deep regret”, and felt that it had “an attraction surpassing that of all other countries.” (Including, evidently, Britain).
She does not say, indeed, why she had to return. All that we do know is that she went to live with her older sister, Anne Lydia, in Cheltenham, so it may be possible that it was to care for Anne Lydia, who may possibly have been in poor health, as she was not to live for many more years.
Ellen did not immediately return to the house in Choubrah on her return to Cairo, as it was needed for part of the retinue of Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia (whether the elder or the younger of that name is not specified), visiting Egypt after having visited Constantinople. For Ellen, this simply meant having to live in an hotel for a while. But it would seem likely that the Grand Duke’s visit concerned the tensions that were increasingly building up in the Ottoman Empire, particularly in the Balkans, and which were to lead to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, and the increased intervention of European powers in the region.
In the past, Princess Zeynab and Kopsès had travelled to Choubrah for their lessons. Now Ellen had to travel to the palaces to teach them. Ellen only regretted that the two young women were thereby deprived of a daily ride outside.
The Khedive, and his family had returned from Constantinople to the Abdeen palace, which, according to Ellen, they used as their winter palace.
Entrance Hall of the Abdeen Palace, early 20th century
The Palace was, at that time, still under construction. Building had started in 1863, and was to continue until 1874; evidently, however, by late 1872 enough of it was complete for the Khedival family to move in. Following Ismail’s taste for Parisian style architecture, it had been designed by a French architect.
Ellen gives a description of the Khedival family’s life at Abdeen, which has a certain rarity value, as in fact the Khedival family were to spend very little time there in the future, with the Palace being mainly used as government offices.
Construction work meant that, at first, Princess Zeynab and Kopsès did not live in the Palace itself, but in an adjoining house, belonging to the then Minister of Finance, Ismael Sadyk Pasha. Sadyk, Ellen explains, was at that time: “in high favour, but a few years after disgraced and exiled to Dongola.”
“The time of my coming and going”, Ellen wrote “was to be fixed by myself, and the [Princess’s] Turkish and Arabic lessons were to be arranged accordingly.” However, she rather ominously went on to mention that “the Princess no longer rose so early as she had been accustomed to do when she came to us.” In other words, Princess Zeynab, like all other teenagers, had a tendency to sleep in!
The Princess had previously been awoken in time to go for her lessons by her attendants, “who would be blamed if she was late… But all this changed in the harem, as I soon had occasion to see. Perhaps the Princess might have sat up late at night, and as a growing girl she required much sleep. In the morning the rooms were all darkened, and not a sound was to be heard until the Princess became wide awake of her own accord, and called out to her slaves to come and dress her.”
This was only the start of a sort of comedy of every one not arriving on time.
“After consultation,” Ellen wrote, “I settled that I would come every morning at half-past eight, and leave at twelve”. (The Princess had Arabic and Turkish lessons in the afternoon). “…the carriage was ordered to fetch me from the hotel at that hour.”
19th. century Egyptian carriage driver
The following morning, the carriage came for Ellen again at seven o’clock. “I swallowed a hasty breakfast and went to the harem, where I found the Princess not dressed and amazed at my having come so early. The eunuch had simply told the coachman that he was to go earlier, so he thought he would come in time!”
Princess Zeynab herself awoke at varying times. “From the time of her seclusion in the harem, she always took breakfast, luncheon, and dinner with his Highness [i.e. Ismail], but the time for the first meal was not very regular. His Highness transacted much business before breakfast, so that it might be late. Someone was on the watch to give notice when he was coming, and then if the Princess was sleeping, her attendants did not hesitate to awaken her, and hurry through the toilet.” A late breakfast would affect the time when Ellen was able to start lessons.
Things did not improve much. “The same unpunctuality with the carriage went on in spite of the repeated orders of the Princess. It sometimes came an hour before time, and sometimes an hour after. There was always the same difficulty in getting away.” That is, a carriage was never available to taker her back.
However, by chance, whilst Ellen waiting for a carriage home one afternoon, Ismail walked past. Princess Zeynab seized the opportunity, and “drew me gently into an apartment just at the entrance [of the harem], whilst she herself waited the coming of her father. As the Khédive passed the room in which I was, he caught sight of the European dress, and I heard him ask his daughter who it was.
“It is my governess, who is waiting for the carriage to take her away.”
“And why don’t you order it?” said his Highness.
“I have done so, but they do not come.”
“What! not obey my daughter!” said the Khédive.
He walked quickly towards the door, and called loudly that a carriage was to come up immediately…”
Still, by now Ellen had had enough of this, and so wrote a letter of complaint to the Second Princess. And sure enough, “The next morning, at eight o’clock, I was surprised to see a pretty open carriage at the door… the Khédive had given orders that a carriage wshould be sent for me every morning at eight, and that it was to bring me back at twelve; that I was at liberty to order it whenever I wished for a drive in the afternoon, or go to the opera, or French theatre in the evening.”
However:
“For the first week or two I had a very nice carriage, then an inferior one was substituted, and I was told it was solely to take me to and from the harem daily…”
Ellen more-or-less gave up. “I believe the Khédive wishes to act fairly and liberally” she wrote, “but there is such a jealousy existing, first, between natives and foreigners, and secondly, between the different nationalities, that the officials manage constantly to evade the Khédive’s orders; and though you may sometimes succeed in making your complaint reach his ears, so as to obtain temporary redress, the tables are sure to be turned on you in the end.”
For Ellen, this jealousy between natives and foreigners and between different nationalities was a mere inconvenience. For Egypt itself, it was soon, unfortunately, to have tragic and far-reaching consequences.
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