CHAPTER III

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ALEXANDRIA. 1840.

Mr. Hay did not long remain without employment. In his Note Book for 1840 he thus describes his entrance on the career of a diplomatist.

Waiting with some anxiety to learn what might turn up and be my fate, I stayed for some months in Town, and in May, as I was walking down St. James’ Street towards the Foreign Office, I met Henry Forster, brother of the late General Forster, then a senior clerk in the Foreign Office, who said, ‘Hay, I have to congratulate you, for you have just been marked with our chief’s initial letter.’

On my asking for an explanation, Forster informed me that my name had been sent up by my kind friend Mr. Hammond (the late Lord Hammond, then Senior Clerk) for the post of attaché at Constantinople, and that Lord Palmerston, as usual when he approved a note or a memorandum, had signed P. Before I received this appointment, Lord Palmerston’s private secretary asked me whether I was a Whig or a Tory, adding that his Lordship had directed him to question me, as he had appointed so many members of Tory families to foreign posts that it was his intention in future before making an appointment to inquire of a candidate to which party he belonged.

I replied that, as I hoped to obtain employment abroad, where it would not be necessary for me to take part in politics as Whig or Tory, my party would always be that which upheld the honour and interests of my own country.

I was told that, when my reply was reported to Lord Palmerston, he said, ‘Mr. Hay may be a Tory, but he will do for diplomacy.’

On my appointment I was directed, before proceeding to my post, to attend for some weeks at the Foreign Office to learn the forms, &c.

Before the present Foreign Office was built there was, at the back of the old buildings, a street, the houses on the opposite side of which were overlooked by the rooms occupied by some of the junior clerks. In a window of one of these houses two elderly ladies used sometimes to be seated, sewing, and a youthful clerk was wont to amuse himself dazzling them by means of a looking-glass. The ladies wrote a note to Lord Palmerston, complaining of this annoyance; upon which his Lordship sent a memorandum to be circulated amongst the clerks:

‘The gentlemen in the office are requested not to cast reflections on ladies. P.’

After working for some weeks as an assistant clerk in the Foreign Office I was ordered to proceed, in the first place, to Alexandria, where I was to remain for some time to assist Colonel Hodges, then our Agent and Consul-General in Egypt—as there was a press of work in consequence of the question with Mehemet Ali—and was told that Lord Palmerston desired to know when I should be ready to start. I replied, ‘To-day.’ This pleased Lord Palmerston, but I was given three days in which to prepare, and told that, if I had not a carriage of my own, I was to buy one at Calais and post with all speed through France to Marseilles in order to catch the mail-packet thence to Alexandria. At the Foreign Office I was given £100 to pay all expenses.

Posting down to Dover, I crossed to Calais, and there bought, second-hand, a light _britzska_, in which I deposited the two huge bags of dispatches, of which I was in charge for the admiral at Malta and our agent in Egypt. As bearer of dispatches I had the preference over other travellers for fresh horses, and travelled very rapidly, day and night, arriving at Marseilles several hours before the packet left. After selling the carriage I had bought at Calais, I took a bath and had dinner at an hotel.

During dinner, I was waited on by two Maltese. Having finished, I requested that my bill should be brought; upon which, one of the waiters observed to the other _sotto voce_ in Arabic, ‘We will not present a bill; let us charge him fifteen francs, and we will divide the five which remain over and above the charge for bath and dinner.’ Knowing Arabic, I understood the plot; so when they told me I had fifteen francs to pay, I replied that I wished to see the landlord before leaving. He was summoned and I then related to him what had passed between these rogues of waiters. Upon which he demanded very angrily what they meant, and one of them, very much flurried, replied foolishly that they had not supposed the gentleman knew Maltese! The landlord dismissed the two waiters from his service then and there, and I paid him his bill of ten francs.

It is remarkable that though Malta has been occupied by a great number of nations—Phœnicians, Romans, Arabs, Franks and English—Arabic is still the language of the inhabitants.

Before arriving at Alexandria, I learnt that the plague was in Egypt, and, having heard so many dread stories about this disease and the dangers incurred from contagion, I landed with my hair standing on end from terror, fearing I should be plague-stricken and die—as I had heard might happen—after a few hours’ illness.

There was much contention at that time between medical men at Alexandria regarding the contagion from plague. The chief Italian doctor—whose name I have forgotten—who was said to be very clever, mounted a donkey covered with oil-skin, the doctor wearing also clothing of a supposed non-contagion-bearing texture. He visited the plague patients, but carried an ivory wand with which he touched their ‘buboes.’

The other chief medical man was Dr. Lorimer, an Englishman, who did not believe in great danger from contagion but rather in the risk of infection from visiting, or living in, unhealthy quarters of the town where there were no sanitary arrangements.

These two doctors were on friendly terms, and when they met in the streets during their visits to plague patients, some banter generally passed. The Italian doctor was wont to salute Dr. Lorimer with ‘Tu creparai’ (Thou wilt die), and the latter returned the gloomy salutation with a ‘tu quoque.’ The Italian died of the plague whilst I was at Alexandria, but Dr. Lorimer kept in good health and was unremitting in his attendance on the sick, doing many acts of charity. He told me, in support of his theory of infection rather than contagion, that there were several houses in Alexandria of a better class, but situated in an unhealthy part of the town, whose tenants, even when observing the strictest quarantine, had caught the plague, whilst there were whole streets in a healthy quarter where no cases ever occurred.

Some years before, in Morocco, I had experience of the danger of going into dwellings where there is disease.

When the cholera morbus visited Tangier in 1836, Mr. Bell—at that time Consul under my father, and who had been surgeon on board Lord Yarborough’s yacht Falcon—devoted his spare time after office hours to attending, gratis, upon cholera patients and had much success: I sometimes accompanied him to interpret when he could not find an assistant who spoke Arabic, and on one occasion he requested me to aid him in giving directions to a poor Moor whose son was attacked with cholera. I accompanied Dr. Bell without fear, but when he requested me to lift the dying man, already looking like a livid corpse, to enable him to pour some liquid down his throat, I shuddered, and, trembling, held the man in my arms till the dose was administered. The patient died shortly after.

I returned home feeling ill and shaken; and, whilst standing before a fire trying to warm myself, was seized with terrible cramps and fell in pain on the hearth-rug. I was put to bed with bottles of hot water on my body. Dr. Bell was sent for, but was not to be found. Having heard that sometimes oil relieved pain in cholera, I got a bottle of good French oil and adding a few drops of laudanum to a full tumbler of oil, drank it off. This relieved the intense pain. When the doctor arrived, he approved of my remedy and said I had an attack of cholera asiatica.

The danger from plague by contagion cannot, however, to my mind be called in question. That dire disease was introduced into Morocco about the year 1826 by an English frigate which our Government had dispatched to Alexandria, where the plague was then raging, to convey from that port to Tangier two sons of the Sultan, returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca. No case of plague or other illness had occurred on board the frigate during the voyage, and the Sultan’s sons and other passengers were allowed to land at Tangier.

The Customs’ officers being suspicious that in the numerous boxes, brought by pilgrims who had been permitted to embark with the Moorish princes, contraband goods were being smuggled, caused some of the cases to be opened. One contained Egyptian wearing apparel, which the owner said he had bought second-hand, and subsequently confessed had belonged to a person who had died of the plague at Alexandria. The two Moorish officials who opened the boxes were attacked with the plague that night and died in a few hours. The disease spread rapidly throughout Morocco, carrying off eighty per cent. of those who were attacked.

Shortly after my arrival at Alexandria, I was presented to Mehemet Ali by Colonel Hodges. I need not give a description of this remarkable man, of whom so much has been written, but I was much struck by his keen eyes, like those of an eagle. The Colonel proved to be no match for him in discussing the grave questions then at issue regarding his desire to be independent of the Sultan’s sway, whilst Mehemet Ali showed markedly his personal dislike to the Irish colonel, who was hot-tempered and blurted out in very unguarded language the views entertained by the British Government at that time regarding Egypt.

On hearing that I was attached to the Embassy at Constantinople, Mehemet Ali fixed on me his eagle eyes with no friendly expression, and I could perceive, from words let drop then and afterwards, the extreme hatred his Highness entertained towards any one connected with our Ambassador, Lord Ponsonby, the persistent and successful opponent of his ambitious views.

About this time a portion of the Mahmud Canal was being dug by the unfortunate Egyptian fellahin, assisted by their wives and children, according to the ‘corvée’ system. Men, women and children dwelt in miserable hovels near the canal, and I have seen the wretched people working by thousands. A platter of bean soup and some coarse bread was all that each person received to keep body and soul together. No pay was given—or if any were made, it was retained by the overseers—and the greatest misery prevailed. I was told that there were two young fellah girls, sisters, who possessed only one garment between them; so whilst one worked the other remained in her hovel until her turn came, and then she donned the long blue shift and the weary one remained nude. Yet have I seen this joyous race, after emptying the baskets of earth they carried, filled with mud grubbed up by their hands, without aid of spade or other implement, singing and clapping their hands as they returned to the canal, balancing the empty baskets on their heads.

The Egyptians have been bondsmen for thousands of years, and are a degenerate and cowardly race.

On one occasion, when the younger son of Mehemet Ali, Abbas Pasha, a cruel tyrant, visited the canal, a wretched fellah, with hardly a rag to his back, walked to a mound of earth above where the Pasha stood and cried out to his fellow-workmen: ‘Slaves and cowards! There stands the tyrant. Strike and destroy him, or—if you have not the courage to strike—spit, and you will drown him!’ This rash but brave fellah was seized and beaten until he lay a corpse.

To give another instance of the cruelty of this monster, Abbas Pasha. It was the custom in Egypt for any one of position to be accompanied, when on horseback, by a ‘sais,’ or footman, who ran beside, or preceded, the rider; and it was astonishing how these men could keep up for miles with a horse going at a fast amble or trot. The ‘sais’ of Abbas Pasha, having run by the side of his master during a long journey, became footsore and, his shoes being worn out, begged that a new pair might be given him at the next village. The Pasha replied, ‘Thy petition shall be granted.’ On arrival at the village, Abbas Pasha ordered that a blacksmith should be sent for, and when he came said, ‘Bind the sais, and nail on his feet two horse-shoes; see that they are red hot before they are fastened on.’ This was done, and the tortured man was left writhing in agony, whilst the Pasha returned to Alexandria.

One day, finding that I was not needed at the office, I went for a ride. When I had gone about four miles beyond the town I met an Arab, mounted on a ‘huri,’ or dromedary, riding at a great pace towards Alexandria, his face muffled up, as is usual with these people. He stopped his animal as I passed, and, showing me a little object he had in his hand, said, ‘I hear you Franks care about these things, and am going to Alexandria to find a purchaser.’

It appeared to be a very beautiful gem, apparently cut in agate, of the head of Bacchus. On my asking where he had found it, he told me in some ruins at a distant spot. I offered him a few piastres for the gem: but he refused my offer, saying that he knew a similar object found on the same site had been sold by a friend of his for a sum equivalent in piastres to about £5.

Though not myself a collector of antiquities, my father was an archaeologist, and possessed a beautiful collection of coins, &c., and I decided on purchasing the gem as a gift to him: so, after some wrangling, I became the owner on paying about £2. The Arab, on receiving the money, turned back and rode off at a rapid pace.

Being very anxious to learn whether my acquisition was one of great value, I returned to Alexandria and called on the Austrian Consul-General, Monsieur Laurin, a collector of gems and other antiquities, and a great connoisseur. On showing him the gem he pronounced it to be a very beautiful work of art, and, if genuine, of great value and worth ten times what I had given; but said he really could not say without putting it to a test whether or no it were counterfeit. He informed me that imitations of all kinds of antiquities were imported from Italy and sold to travellers. When I related to him the incident of my meeting with the Arab, when riding out in the country, and the language and appearance of the man, he said there were Europeans at Alexandria who sold these objects, who were quite capable of hiring an Arab and his camel, and, on seeing that an English stranger was about to take a ride, sending him to encounter the traveller, in the hope of getting a good price.

With my permission, Monsieur Laurin used a penknife to scratch the back of the gem, which he said was agate, but he still hesitated in declaring, though he used a magnifying glass, whether the head of Bacchus was also cut on the agate or was composition. He said there was one way of solving the doubt, which would not injure a gem, but that if it were a counterfeit it would disappear,—which was to plunge it into hot water. He added that the head was so beautifully executed, it deserved to be kept on its own merits and not to be put under the test, as it would be greatly admired, he felt sure, by my father. I insisted, however, on the test being applied, so hot water was brought. Into this I dropped the gem, and in an instant Bacchus disappeared and I found myself the possessor of a flat piece of agate.

My father, as I have said, was an archaeologist. When he lived in the neighbourhood of Valenciennes, in 1826, a French labourer discovered, in the neighbourhood of that town, a beautiful bronze statue of Hercules, about eighteen inches high, and, hearing that my father bought coins and other antiques, brought it to him. The statue was then in a perfect state: the club was of silver, in the left hand were apples of gold; the lion’s skin over the shoulder was in silver, and in the eyes were two small rubies. My father made the man an offer, which he refused.

A few days afterwards he brought back the statue in a mutilated state—the club, apples, lion’s skin, and ruby eyes were gone, having been sold to a jeweller. My father gave the man 100 francs for the statue, and this beautiful work of art became his idol; though offered a large sum to part with it, he declined, and in his will bequeathed it to the British Museum, where it can be seen amongst other gems of ancient art. His collection of coins and other antiquities he left to the Museum of the Antiquarian Society in Edinburgh, of which he was for many years honorary secretary.

Dated June 27, 1840, Cairo, I find among my notes the following entry:—

‘Heard a good story of the last of the Mamelukes, a fine old Saracen, one of the very few who escaped the massacre at Cairo.

‘The old fellow had been invited to an evening party at the house of the former Consul-General, Colonel Campbell, where there was assembled a large party of ladies, to each individual of whom he determined, in his politeness, to address what he imagined to be the most flattering remark possible. Thus he made the tour of the fair sex, saying to each, “I see you will soon make a child!” accompanying his words with an expressive gesture. Married and unmarried were greeted alike! and to a young widow, a flame of the Colonel’s, notwithstanding her persistent denial and offended dignity, he repeatedly asseverated she would “make a child!”’

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