Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 168
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[Page 168]
contrast to all else. A little was filled out for me. How to avoid drinking it? Pretence to sip. Happy thought, offer some to a wee daughter standing by. A fortunate act which I discovered was accepted as an act of high courtesy. She drank some and handed back the cup. Another pretence. Again request the lassie. The tea came from inside the establishment somewhere. Ye gods! And amid such circumstances they live, rear the families, and follow in the footsteps of their ancestors. "This is a very healthy place, not like Cairo which is an unhealthy place."
I was unable to be at mass this morning. A parade for all ranks was held at 9 a.m., the order was not made known to me till 8 a.m., the earlier mass was at 7 a.m.
The Village school is a crowded, dirty, insanitary room, where an aged man with assistants, teaches the youngsters, 5 to 10 yrs, to print characters, make figures, and recite verses from the Khoran.
You may have mentally formed the sentence:– what poverty stricken people these Egyptian Arabs must be? – Well, the family written about above, own according to the son, Hassan the guide in the photograph, at least 130 acres of fertile land, in blocks (at various spots) of three four and five acres, each acre of which is worth to sell at least £150 of Egyptian or English money. The wealth of the household then in golden English sovereigns if they sold the land would be 130 x £150 = £19500. Not so poor after all. Some people of good position in our country my estimate an estate of this magnitude as being wealth beyond all dreams of avarice.
Sun 11 p.m. Since dinner I have been dreaming with Joseph the son of Jacob as told in the book of Genesis, some of my thoughts have got into a letter for Mollie.