Recollections of Egyptian Princesses

ELLEN CHENNELLS (Continued)


Jack-in-the-Green and other entertainments
After ten days staying at the hotel, the educational staff were able to return to Choubrah. However, Ellen somewhat regretted this, as she was no longer able to see the kind of sights that – presumably – she had gone to work abroad for.

“My windows faced the east. I saw the sun rise every morning over the Mokattam Hills, and in the evening I went up to the promenade on the roof to see it set. It is impossible to imagine a more animated scene than upon which we looked down.

"Every morning Arab weddings passed, with a long file of carriages, in the last of which the bride was seated, with large shawls or carpets thrown across the windows to conceal her from the public gaze. Let us hope she can see, though she cannot be seen!

A 19th century Arab wedding - the bride is sitting on the camel, concealed by carpets.

"In the poorer weddings there are no carriages. All the party walk, accompanied by the clang of instruments, and the bride is in a sort of Jack-in-the-green, which screens her from the public gaze; but there is such a throng about her, and so much dust, that I think she must be stifled!”


An 18th - early 19th century "Jack-in-the-Green" in a Maytime celebration in London - doubtless a scene that Ellen remembered from childhood. Compare the appearance of the "Jack" to the bride in the picture above.


(A “Jack-in-the-green” is a traditional character in English Maytime celebrations, and is no doubt very ancient in origin, representing the annual re-growth of plants and crops. A person wears a conical or pyramid-shaped framework, covered in foliage. Traditional Maytime celebrations declined during the 19th century, but the Jack-in-the-green was obviously still a familiar character, at least in the 1870s. The revival of English folk-song and dance since the early 20th century has led to the character re-appearing, usually as part of a Morris-Dance).

Still, there was one festival that Ellen could experience – Ramadan. However, she was uneasy: “We had seen the effect of this formidable fast the year before, and by no means looked forward to it.”

Indeed, Princess Zeynab fell ill with a severe sore throat (although of course being ill, she was permitted to avoid, or postpone, her fast). She suffered a great deal from such sore throats, and indeed, her terminal illness began with one. Ellen found Princess Zeynab in bed, ill, “suffering from the throat, an indisposition to which she was very liable. Of course she could do no lessons, and at first she seemed unwilling that Kopsès should do any, saying that Kopsès would get on before her; but I counted nine persons around her bed, and said surely she did not want ten, so she gave up with her usual sweetness of temper, and Kopsès came with me.”

What was this disease? Certainly it recurred during Zeynab’s life, Ellen saying that “she had been subject to this illness from early childhood.” It involved “an enlargement of the uvula, which would sometimes swell so much as to touch the larynx and nearly choke her.” Fortunately most attacks seemed to have been of short duration, as Ellen was to describe playing duets (presumably on a piano) with her only a “day or two after.” One guess would be tonsillitis; this certainly appears to have been the diagnosis at the time, as a tonsillectomy was suggested, using a new method of surgery, which, however, the Princess unfortunately declined to have.

Indeed, the Princess’s last illness started with a severe sore throat, which might perhaps raise the possibility that her death at least partly resulted in septicaemia, from abscesses developing on her tonsils, although her death was diagnosed at the time as being the result of typhoid.

Ellen found that teaching in the harem was not easy. “We were constantly interrupted in our lessons by the slaves, who came in without scruple, sometimes talked either to my pupils or among themselves, and finally, finding themselves unnoticed, went away again, generally leaving all the doors open. As a rule all doors are left open; my shutting them was an innovation.”

The reason for this was because: “Every Princess has a great many attendants attached to her person, whose business it is to amuse her, and to anticipate her every want. To leave her alone would be considered a shocking neglect. …No place is sacred from their intrusion; they cannot understand any one wishing to be alone and undisturbed. My pupils knew this well, so they never rebuked them.”

Sometimes, however, the visitor was considerably more important. Whilst Ellen was teaching Kopsès during Princess Zeynab’s illness: “the door opened again for the seventh or eighth time, and looking around, I saw a gentleman standing in the doorway. I forgot for the moment that I was in an harem, and my near sight prevented me from distinguishing who it was.” In fact, it was Ismail himself. (Ellen was, unfortunately, very short-sighted). Ellen was disappointed that Princess Zeynab was not there, “as I should have been so glad for him [Ismail] to have seen the progress she had made.”

No sooner had Ismail left, than the Second Princess came in. “She asked me in Turkish how I was, and I was able to reply to that question, but could not remember one of the polite speeches which I had been getting up.”

One of the nice things about Ellen is that she never minded revealing her own small failings and weaknesses. After all, Recollections of an Egyptian Princess is partly autobiography (or, more accurately, a memoir). Indeed, Ellen herself appears in it far more than Princess Zeynab does. Yet Ellen is never quite her own heroine. She never glorifies, or tries to justify herself, and is always ready to reveal her own small, human failings, of health, or spirits, or – as now - of forgetfulness.

About a month after returning to Cairo, Zeynab moved into the Abdeen Palace from the house next door.

Entrance to the Abdeen Palace, early 20th century

Ellen didn’t like the Abdeen Palace. “The entrance was a most disagreeable one at that time, You first had to pass through an outer court, in which were soldiers, grooms, carriages, carts, &c., &c.; then into a second full of eunuchs. Here you left the carriage; but there were several doors, and you did not know which to take to enter the harem.” The Palace, indeed, was a maze. First she asked some unhelpful eunuchs, who eventually directed her to a door behind which was a “labyrinth of passages”. Here, she “met several girls, but they did not appear to understand my enquiries, or at any rate did not answer them. At last I emerged upon an inner court, and after crossing that, found myself in some of the best apartments. Here my enquiries were more successful, and I was presently led to her apartments.”

She had, in fact, entered the Palace from the rear. But entering from the front was not an option; “if I went to the chief gate, I might constantly find myself much delayed by the absence of the head eunuchs, and by the gate being locked.”

Ramadan ended on 1 December in 1872, and as the year before, Ellen went to pay her respects to the Princesses. This year, however, she took three (female) English friends with her, “as travellers are always very desirous of being present at these festivals.”

Unhappily, it all fell rather flat, although on this occasion Ellen had an interpreter, a (presumably) French lady, referred to only as “Mademoiselle O”, who “resided in the harem with his Highness’s second daughter."
Princess Fatima Ismail

(Ismail's second daughter was in fact Princess Fatima Ismail (1853-1920), a pioneer of women's education in Egypt, who sold her jewellery and six feddans (acres) of her own land in Cairo, as well as the income from a further 658 feddans, to help pay for what is now Cairo University).

Usually, such visits would be filled with polite enquiries about families, then in drinking coffee and smoking pipes. But of course European ladies didn’t smoke pipes. Furthermore, the Princesses had “become aware that is not the custom in Europe for the lady of the house to ask her visitors whether they are married or single; if the later why they remain so, and if the former, how many children they have.” What was worse still “we had not even the resource of the weather, an unfailing topic of interest in England. It is always fine in Egypt; and we could not touch on any of the topics of the day, because the ladies of the harem neither read the newspapers nor mixed in society.”

Fortunately, after a while “more visitors arrived, and we came away”, no doubt to every one’s relief.

It did, however, get better. The day afterwards, Ellen visited Indji Hanem Effendi, who was generally known as the Princess Saïd to Europeans. Princess Indji “has been known for many years among Europeans, for her kind and courteous manners towards them.” What was more, “she had adopted in her palace many European improvements which conduce to sanitary reform”. In a hot climate, that was only too important; it is perhaps not impossible that Princess Zeynab’s illnesses and death could have resulted from inadequate sanitation.

Better still, “The Princess Saïd had a regular entertainment for us. She knew that European visitors wanted to see the amusements of harem life, and she always gratified this wish. So after the pipes and coffee, a few slaves came in with musical instruments… then five girls came in, and danced for about a quarter of an hour. They were in pale pink dresses, in the Turkish fashion – that is to say, loose, confined at the waist by a band, high up to the throat, and the skirt forming trousers, which, however, are not easily detected, as they are exceedingly full… this dress is so remarkably decent, that, although the dances usually end with a somersault, there is no further display than the soles of the feet!”


This does not seem to have been a belly-dance, but a traditional kind of dance similar to Ancient Egyptian ones. This 19th century picture shows what Ellen would have seen - right down to the traditional long-stemmed pipe (seen leaning against the table) and cup of coffee that was offered to guests.