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Updated: May 12, 2025
The Story told by the Christian Merchant. Sir, before I commence the recital of the story you have permitted me to relate, I beg leave to acquaint you, that I have not the honour to be born in any part of your majesty's empire. I am a stranger, born at Cairo in Egypt, a Copt by nation, and by religion a Christian.
The Christian Broker's Story. I am by birth a Copt, and a native of Cairo, where I was brought up. My father was a broker, and when I came to man's estate, he died and I became a broker in his stead. One day, as I was sitting in my shop, there came up to me a young man as handsome as could be, richly clad and riding on an ass. When he saw me, he saluted me, and I rose to do him honour.
"And tell Madame that Donovan Pasha is here. My cousin admires his Excellency so much," she added to Kingsley, laughing. "I have never had any real trouble with them," she continued with a little gesture of pride towards the disappearing Berberine. "There was the Armenian," put in Dicky slyly; "and the Copt sarraf. They were no credit to their Christian religion, were they?"
He was painting at the time, I remember, and he testily and unprofitably drew his brush across the face of a Copt woman he was working at, and bit off the end of a cigar. I asked him if it was another man's wife; he promptly said no. I asked him if there were any awkward complications any inconsiderate pressure from the girl's parents of brothers; and he promptly told me to be damned.
In February, 1865, a Copt, Abdul Melak, presented himself at the consulate of Jeddah, pretending to have just arrived from Abyssinia with a message from the Abouna to the Consul-General, purporting that if he could bring from H.M.'s Consul-General in Egypt a written declaration to the effect that, should the Emperor allow the Europeans in chains to depart, no steps would be taken to punish the offence, he, the Abouna, would engage himself to obtain their liberation, and become their security.
Having noticed these remarkable antiquities, the visitor should examine the plaster models, placed upon the central table of the room, of the obelisks of Karnak and Heliopolis. Above the door is a leather cross, from the dress of a Copt priest, supposed to be about twelve hundred years old.
And I see little prospect of my success; nor do I think ten thousand piastres, however honestly gained, will be more tempting than the inclination to oblige our house. 'Ten thousand piastres is not much, said Fakredeen. 'I give it every three months for interest to a little Copt at Beiroot, whose property I will confiscate the moment I have the government of the country in my hands.
That fair-haired, rounded Italian? That fierce, luscious, aquiline-faced Jewess? That delicate, swart, sidelong-eyed Copt? No. She was Athenian, like himself. That tall, lazy Greek girl, then, from beneath whose sleepy lids flashed, once an hour, sudden lightnings, revealing depths of thought and feeling uncultivated, perhaps even unsuspected, by their possessor. Her? Or that, her seeming sister?
This last fact is the more curious, as Sayce discovered in a passage giving access to a cave near Syracuse some characters somewhat similar in form, to which he assigns a proto-Phoenician origin. We may add that certain characters made out at Cissbury, differing but little from the modern letter B or the figure 6, are also found in the most ancient Palmyrian, Copt, and Syrian alphabets.
I admit and enjoy the poetry of the hansom; I admit and enjoy the personality of the true cabman of the old four-wheeler, upon whose massive manhood descended something of the tremendous tradition of Tony Weller. But I am not so certain as I should like to be, that I should at that moment enjoy the personality of the Copt.
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