From Khartoum to Jerusalem: The Dragoman Solomon Negima and his Clients (1885–1933)

280 Pages·2016·21.582 MB·English

by  Rachel Mairs

From Khartoum to Jerusalem
Also available from Bloomsbury
Archaeologists, Tourists, Interpreters: Exploring Egypt
and the Near East in the Late 19th–Early 20th Centuries,
Rachel Mairs and Maya Muratov
Hidden Hands: Egyptian Workforces in Petrie Excavation
Archives, 1880–1924, Stephen Quirke
From Khartoum to Jerusalem
The Dragoman Solomon Negima
and his Clients (1885–1933)
Rachel Mairs
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway
London New York
WC 1B 3 DP NY 10018
UK U SA
www.bloomsbury.com
BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published 2016
Paperback edition first published 2017
© Rachel Mairs, 2016
Rachel Mairs has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission
in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on
or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be
accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
British Library Cataloguing- in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN : HB : 978-1-47425-500-4
PB : 978-1-35005-412-7
e PDF : 978-1-47425-502-8
ePub: 978-1-47425-501-1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
For Ted and Jack

Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Figures ix
Timeline xii
1 Introduction 1
2 The Sudan, 1885 16
3 Tourists and Pilgrims 36
4 Alone Through Syria 57
5 Rev. Charles T. Walker 88
6 Floyd House 117
7 The Letters 135
Notes 247
Bibliography 250
Index 258
Acknowledgements
Without the internet, none of this would have been possible. I bought Solomon
Negima’s testimonial book on eBay. I dug through nineteenth- century articles
on Newspapers.com. I traced genealogical connections on Ancestry.com.
I accessed archival documents online from the collections of the National
Archives in the UK, National Archives and Records Administration in the
United States, and many others. And I used email to badger a succession of
very kind people all over the world with my queries. All of this is now taken
for granted, but even ten years ago what has in any case been a very difficult
and time- consuming task would have been impossible. So, thank you to the
internet.
People who helped me in person, with books and expertise, include Arezou
Azad, Hannah Friedman, Katherine Harloe, Dorothea McEwan, Arietta
Papaconstantinou, Sophie Spencer and Alexandre Waquet. Nineteenth- century
handwriting styles can be difficult to read and transcribe. Some of the German
examples were, for want of a better word, nightmarish. I was fortunate to have
a second (third, fourth, fifth . . .) pair of eyes.
Those who have helped with my archival and genealogical research online
are thanked individually in the footnotes. At Bloomsbury, Alice Wright, Anna
MacDiarmid, and others, have been terrific to work with.
A special thank- you is due to Maya Muratov, for collaboration and
friendship, on a project (‘Let’s write an article!’) that I don’t think either of us
envisaged getting so wildly out of control. Maya and Cyrill have been generous
with their hospitality in New York.
I will let my dedication speak for itself.