A wonderful blog about Egypt’s Grand Hotels and golden era. On the Shepheard, quoting from this blog: “Long before London’s Savoy or the Paris Ritz, Shepheard’s of Cairo was the epitome of glamour. It was a hotel from which explorers set off for Africa, where kings entertained mistresses, where movie stars rubbed shoulders with of?cers on leave from the desert and spies hovered in the hope of minds being softened by the congenial atmosphere. […] Everybody stayed at Shepheard’s from Mark Twain and Arabian adventurer Richard Burton to Noel Coward and Josephine Baker. Its parties and balls were legendary, its barmen the souls of discretion. When the hotel was burned to the ground in rioting in 1952, it marked the end of an era.”
From Wikipedia: “Shepheard’s Hotel was the leading hotel in Cairo and one of the most celebrated hotels in the world from the middle of the 19th century until it was burned down in 1952. A modern hotel called the Shepheard Hotel was built nearby in 1957” and “in the First World War, the hotel served as British Headquarters in the Near East.” It is frequently mentioned in Lady Anne’s Journals and Correspondence.
Another character who makes occasional appearances in Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals is Thabit Pasha, who acted as Wakil (Trustee) for Ali Pasha Sherif’s estate in the later years of his life, and who was a central character in the process of Lady Anne’s acquisition of the remnant of the Stud of Ali Pasha Sharif in December 1896 and January 1897. The genealogical tree of the royal house of Mohammed Ali the Great has his as: “Muhammad Sabit Pasha (b. 1820; d. 1901), Private Secretary to Muhammad ‘Ali the Great 1847-1848, Minister for Justice 1878, of Charitable Endowments, Education and the Interior 1884, Khedevial Envoy at Istanbul 1881-1882, President of the Privy Council. 1884-1901, a younger son of the Circassian Chief of the Nahoush.” According to the same tree, Sabit/Thabit Pasha married a daughter of Zohra, who was one of Mohammed Ali the Great’s sisters. He appears to have been one of the country’s highest officials, and the head of the Khedive’s advisers when he acted as Wakil for Ali Pasha Sharif. The site goes on to list Aziz Bey Sabit as one of his sons, this being the same Aziz Bey Thabit whom Lady Anne mentions as a visitor to Sheykh Obeyd Stud…
Both Ahmad and Fathi Bey Yeken (Yakan, Yeghen) make fleeting appearances in Lady Anne’s Journals and Correspondence (where their name is sometimes mis-transcribed as Bekin) whether as visitors of the Sheykh Obeyd Stud or occasional buyers of surplus stock. Either Ahmed or Fathi Bey is mentioned as the buyer of the colt of Fasiha (Ibn Sherara x Bint Fereyha) by Antar (Aziz x Sobha) in 1908, and Fathi Bey was the buyer f the colt of Ghazieh (Ibn Nura x Bint Horra) by Feysul in 1907. The genealogical tree of the royal family of Egypt mentions the Yeken as an allied family descending from a certain Mustafa Bey, who married Zubayda Khanum, sister of Mohammed Ali the Great, founder of the Egyptian royal family. Mustafa Bey’s sister, Amina Khanum, was also Muhammad Ali’s principal wife. So the sister of the first married the second, and the sister of the second married the first. Both Mohammed Ali and his brother-in-law Mustafa Bey were born in Kavala (in today’s Macedonia, then under the Ottoman Empire, like Egypt). Most of the senior military commanders around Mohammed Ali the Great were from Kavala, including Mohammed Sherif Pasha, the father of Ali Pasha Sherif. One of Mustafa…
These Journals are a gold mine. There is not a single horse related entry which does not yield new information about the horses of yesterday and today. Look at this set of entries: July 17, 1911: “In the evening Teddy arrived with the (reported wonderful) bay stallion which Mr. Learmouth took to Australia and brought back not being allowed to land it — he bought the horse at Damascus and H.F. [Wilfrid] went to see it at Tatterstalls where today it was sold for 100 gs. Teddy bidding for H.F. It seems that H.F., if the details of pedigree show it to be genuine, intends to breed from it — the advertisement particulars were not convincing: I saw them in the Morning Post.” July 18, 1911: “The horse is a fine horse but does not carry conviction to me. We shall see what is said of pedigree later. Damascus is not a good starting place nowadays. August 3, 1911: “H.F. sends the bay horse’s certificate asking what I can make of it. The horse does not convince me to look at and as far as I can see there is no date or year on the document not clue…
The Kuhaylat al-Krush Nuri Al Krush (Janub Al Krush x Mystalla by SL Jacob) has just foaled a most wonderful colt by Quantum LD (Mandarin x Leafs Ivey by Wotan) for Kim Davis. The dam is a concentrate of rare lines from old American breeding with lines to Mainad (Hanad x Charmain by Abu-Selim), Royal Amber (Ribal x Babe Azab), Oriental (Letan x Adouba) and Kapiti in the tail female (Harara x Tamarinsk). I can’t get enough of looking at the pictures of this colt Kim sent to a few of us, and I think he is the strongest, most handsome, best built and most promising young fellow I have seen this year. He is certainly stallion material for any CMK or any old American breeding program, and even think he can improve the breed overall. In any case, he is testimony to what you can get by preserving some of these really old and rare lines. Click on the photos to enlarge them. Congratulations Kim! By the way, his dam Nuri had foaled another most special horse at Trish Stockhecke in Canada some years ago. His sire was a quasi Al Khamsa stallion with lots of lines to Hallany…
The 27 year old Kuhaylah Hayfiyah Jauhar El Khala (Sporting Life x HB Tiffany by Thane) seems to get more and more and more beautiful with age. Photo by owner Christine Emmert. Click on the photo to enlarge it.
Are those of you who are trying to post comments on DOW able to do so? I still have some problems with the blog.
I am in Yemen for the week. I am done with work for today, and the only book I brought with me is Lady Anne Blunt’s invaluable Journals and Correspondence (Archer and Fleming, 1986). Lately I have been combing the Journal entries for references to non-Blunt, non-Ali Pasha Sherif early foundation stock of Egyptian Arabian breeding, in the hope of finding new direct or contextual information about these horses. I believe I have just made an interesting discovery which I am eager to share with you here. During the later years of her life in Egypt, Lady Anne paid many visits to the studs of members of the Egyptian royal family like those of Prince Ahmad Pasha Kamal, Prince Mohammed Ali Tewfiq and other notables, and described their horses in her Journals with remarkable consistency and accuracy. Most of the horses she describes during these visits have bred on to become foundation horses of modern Egyptian Arabian horse breeding, including Bint Yemama, Om Dalal, Dalal, Tarfa, Doga, Radban, Saklawi II, Dahman El Azrak, Farida Debbanie, Roga El Beda, Sabha El Zarka, Jamil El Ahmar, Koheilan El Mossen, El Sennari, etc, etc. Lady Anne’s description of them and the information she provides on the…