THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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the eastern shore of the Red Sea, and with all the women of Israel came out with timbrels and dancing to take up the great autiphon to the Song of Moses and the hosts of Israel.
Then came the Greeks to Egypt with their graceful women and modern customs, and later on, Cambyses the Persian, with his beautiful wife, true heir to the throne of Pigypt, and for two hundred years the Persians had dominion, until Alexander conquered Darius at Issus. The Ptolemies brought their learning and gayety to Egypt. The Cleopatras became co-regents with the Greek kings of Pigypt for half a century. It was by the seductive charms of Cleopatra VII., when Caesar and Antony in turn were her captives, that Egypt became a Roman province.
About this time there arrived in Egypt a family party journeying from Bethlehem. They were Joseph, a just man, the young and gentle Mother Mary, and her perfect child Jesus. They had fled to the land of Pigypt to preserve the life of the Divine Child, and that Child sanctified the land by the first steps He ever trod.
Roman matrons, pagan and Christian, dwelt in Pigypt for two centuries. The Empress Helena built religious houses throughout Pigypt near to the ancient temple of Osiris, Horus and Pan, lifting the cross of Christ amid the emblems of heathenism.
The privacy and seclusion of the Moslem women have not prevented them from influence and intrigue in the politics of the past twelve centuries. In our days, in the triumphal pageant of the Suez Canal, the Empress Eugenie vied with Cleopatra in pomp and luxury, and the cicerones descant upon the places visited by her with as much pride as upon those associated with Cleopatra.
And what shall we say of the gentle and beautiful wife of Tewfik—his only wife? Only one who has seen her in her great palace surrounded by her maidens can fully appreciate the life of the highest woman in Egypt today Of high breeding, and with the various accomplishments of European women of her rank, familiar with modern literature, of most affable manners and sprightly conversation, she might pass for a Parisian of the highest social talent. Her description of the devices to which she resorted to see the performers at the opera over the screens, without showing her face, was most amusing as well as historic, as an incident of Oriental customs. The Harem of the opera is as impenetrable as that of the palace or the home, As the screens were high, they could only see by standing and holding their cushions above their faces and peeping between the cushions and the screens. She talked with maternal pride of her sons, then at school in France, and exhibited their photographs. Far from envying the European princesses and American ladies, she said: “Oh I could know well but twenty or thirty men at most, and I am content with the affection and society of one. ” There must indeed be a power in custom and education which could make such a woman happy and contented to have a fancy ball in the superb salons of her own royal palace, with music and flowers and feasting, filled with the beauty and chivalry of all nations, and, though herself dressed for the ball in the costume of Mary, Queen of Scots, to view the scene through a screen embroidered with palms and flowers. She saw her husband and his nobles talking and dancing with English, French and American ladies, but none of the ladies could enter the sacred precincts of her presence. The only man allowed to enter the house of a modern Egyptian woman is the physician, and then, whatever the occasion of his visit, the eunuch is always present.
In a visit to the Khedive with Lady Greenfel, whose husband, Sir Francis, is at the head of the Egyptian army, a line of Egyptian women stood in the antechamber to speak to her as she passed. Each had a petition for place or promotion in the army for husband, brother or son. Not to the wife of Tewfik within her own palace, but to the wife of the English commander were the appeals of the Egyptian women made.
The prominent and presiding women of a few years ago were Lady Baring, now Lady Cromer; Lady Greenfel, the young, beautiful but unconventional wife of Gen. Forrester Walker, and Lady Charles Beresford. The Civil Service, the Army of (16)