LUNCHEON AT THE PYRAMIDS—KÊF.
Mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the landscape round it measures.—MILTON.
On our first visit to the Pyramids we had our luncheon in the large
granite tomb a little below, and to the south-east of the Sphinx. One
feels that there is an incongruity, a kind almost of profanation,
in using a tomb, particularly such a tomb, for such a purpose. Its
massiveness, at all events, makes you conscious of a kind of degeneracy
in the present day. A sense of unworthiness and littleness comes over
you. What business have we, who send our dead to heaven, and have done
with them, to disturb the repose of those on whose sepulchres a fortune
was spent, if not by their relatives, at all events by themselves? But
on this occasion there was little choice. Outside the sun was scorching,
and the wind was high, and the only alternative was the hotel. But that
was impossible: to be shut up in a hideous, plastered, naked room of
yesterday, within a few yards of the Great Pyramid. One would rather go
without one’s luncheon for six months together than have to bear the
stings of conscience for having so outraged the memory of Cheops and
Chephren. And so we took our luncheon that day in the tomb of one of the
great officers of the court of those old times.
It was formed entirely of enormous blocks and monolithic piers of
polished granite. I do not know of how many chambers it consisted, for
being considerably below the level of the surrounding sand-drift, and
the roof having been entirely removed, a few hours’ wind must always
completely fill and obliterate it. The Arabs then have to clear it out
again. When we were there four chambers were open. These are all long
narrow apartments. The one by which we entered runs from west to east.
At right angles to this are two other apartments, their axes being from
north to south. The fourth we saw was at right angles to the north end
of these two parallel chambers. It was in the southern extremity of
the westernmost of the two parallel chambers that our party took their
places. The comestibles were laid on a cloth spread on the sand, with
which the floor, to the depth of some inches, was covered; the party
reclined on the sand around, or sat on blocks of granite arranged for
seats. The hungry Arabs perched themselves on the brink of the tomb,
waiting for the fragments of the feast, like vultures. The pert popping
of the champagne corks again disturbed ones sense of the fitness of
things.
How was it possible to be there, and not feel the _genius loci_? The
whole of this edge of the desert, from Gizeh to the Faioum, is one
vast Necropolis. The old primæval monarchy lies buried here; at Gizeh,
Sakkara, Dashour, Abusseir, and throughout all the spaces between and
beyond, to the Faioum. No other empire has been so buried.
In this wide field of the dead how much of early thought and feeling,
and life is storied. How much contemporary history in wood and stone,
in earthenware, and glass, and paint. Contemporary history—not history
composed, heaven save the mark! centuries after the events, often by
authors (sometimes truly the authors of all they tell) who did not
understand their own time, often merely for bread and cheese;—not
composed twentieth-hand from writings which, even at their original
source and fountain-head, were the work of men who were not agents in
what they endeavoured to record, and who, not knowing truly the events,
their causes, or their consequences, were but ill qualified to write the
record;—not composed when the feelings and ways of thinking of the time
were no longer living things, but had died out, and other thoughts and
feelings come in their place, and when what the writer had to construct
had become obscure by party prejudice in politics and religion, and by
social misunderstandings. Nothing of this kind is here. What is here is
contemporary history, presented in such a form that it is the actual
pressure and embodiment of the heart and mind of each individual. Here
are the occupations he delighted in, the sentiments that stirred him,
the business that was the business of his life, the clothes he wore, the
furniture he used, the forms religious thought had assumed in his mind,
the forms social arrangements had assumed around him. No people have ever
so written their history. Here is a biography of each man as he knew
himself. Here every man is a Boswell to himself. It is a nation’s life
individually photographed in granite.
We sat after luncheon taking our _kêf_, apparently absorbed in the
contemplation of the little fantastic wreaths of cloud formed by our
cigars. But the few remarks that were made showed that the thoughts of
most of us were occupied in resuscitating the past, and repeopling the
sacred terrain around with the grand impressive ceremonies and funeral
processions of five thousand years back. What a scene must this have
been then. The mountains—for that is the meaning of the Pyramids—not
rugged and dilapidated as now, but cased with polished stone, each with
its temple in front of it. The many smaller Pyramids that have now
disappeared, or are only seen as mounds of rubbish, then acting as foils
to their giant brethren. Great Pyramids reaching all along the foot of
the hills as far as the eye could see towards the south: some of these
still figure in the landscape. The Sphinx was standing clear of sand
with a temple between his paws. Everything was orderly, bright, and
splendid. The dark red granite portals of the thousand houses of those,
who slept in the city of the dead, were standing out conspicuous upon the
sober limestone area, unchequered by a plant, unstained by a lichen. The
black basalt causeways traversed the green plain from the silver river
to the Pyramid plateau. The whole scene was alive with those, who were
visiting, and honouring, the dead, and preparing their own last, earthly
resting-places. Above all was spread out the azure field of the Egyptian
sky.
* * * * *
The word _kêf_ is used everywhere throughout the East, from
Constantinople to Cairo, to convey an idea, that is not European. It is
the idea of sensational comfort combined with mental repose, produced by
the narcotic leaf, when used under circumstances, where the comfort and
the repose are felt. There is no _kêf_ in its use as you walk or drive,
or even talk with the usual effort and purpose. You must be seated, and
in a kiosk, or garden, or some pleasant place, where the _entourage_
feeds the fancy through the eye, spontaneously, with delightful, and
soothing images. You must not be urging the mind to exert itself.
Conscious mental exertion, equally with bodily, is destructive of _kêf_.
The thoughts must be pleasant, and they must come, too, of themselves,
from surrounding objects. Bodily sensations must be so lulled, and yet,
at the same time, so stimulated, as to be in perfect accord with the
stream of thought, that is languidly, and dreamily, floating through the
mind.