Retrospect.
Before I proceed to describe our journey through the desert, it may be
as well to take a glance at the country we have passed, and look once
more at its people.
The Egyptian Fellah, who forms the staple of the population, rarely
exceeds the middle stature. His head, and the whole of his face is
generally shaved; of course leaving him neither moustache nor beard. He
is not industrious; nature has not given him much to do, and he has
scarcely energy to do that.
The land will annually produce, at least four times as much as is
required for the subsistence of the people. With a rude instrument, not
unlike the pointed stick with which cabbages and lettuces are planted in
England, he bores a hole in the mud, on the islands left by the receding
river, and the beans or lentil-seeds, which are dropped into it, will
become ready for gathering without further attention. More labour is
necessary to make the land, not immediately on the banks of the river,
produce its wonted harvest, and shadoofs, so often spoken of in these
pages, are requisite for its irrigation.
This is managed in the following way: the ground is parcelled out in
beds about twelve feet square, which are raked in the most careful
manner; while little acqueducts run round each, and a slate filling up
the sluice, lets the water, ever running from the shadoofs, on and off,
as it may be required.
As far as I could learn, these fields, if properly attended, will
produce three crops annually. Pigeons, and sometimes hares, are
devouring the seed as it is thrown into the prepared mud, or nibbling
the cornsprouts as they raise themselves to the surface. Every two or
three days, the little sluices are thrown open, and the flowerbeds
covered with an inch or two of water.
As you walk along, you are struck with the great amount of population;
five or six fellahs are working in each field, and their wives and
children are assisting them, or play about, awaiting their return to the
village. These villages, as I have already shown, are exceedingly
pretty. Up to Ossioot they are all on the brink of the river, which
flows tranquilly past. A dozen mud dwellings, a whitewashed mosque, with
its tall minaret, and a grove of waving palms form the picture; and a
very charming one it is. A few clumsily-built boats are lying moored
against the high bank, and the gaudy blue and yellow dhabehee of the
Cavaghi adds another feature to the scene.
In entering their humble dwellings, you must stoop low to pass through
the doors. There are four or five rooms, all filled with smoke, from a
miserable fire in the outer room, made of little cakes of dung and sand,
emitting a most disagreable odour. A few old women, often as many as
four or five, are warming their withered hands over the embers, or
stirring the large cauldron in which the soup of lentils, or the mess of
beans is preparing for the family repast. These ancient women almost
suggest the question:
“What are these?
So withered, or so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o’ th’ earth,
And yet are on ’t?”
But they are not witches, and as they hurriedly drop their veils (I
always thought they meant a kindness to the spectator), they resume the
very domestic occupations of spinning, and nursing some little
grandchild.
Around the outer room hang household utensils and agricultural
implements; in the others, mats stretched on the ground, or little
bedsteads covered with undressed sheepskins, constitute the only
furniture. Dogs, sheep, and pigeons dispute every inch of territory, and
the smoke soon forces you to retire.
Women, in their ever-graceful blue robes, carry up jars of water from
the river side, while their children are playing on the shore, or
swimming round the boat for backsheesh. I was particularly struck with
the invariable good-humour of the little urchins on the Nile. They have
not the sharp, impertinent look of the juvenile mendicants in our large
towns, and are as far removed from the stolid stupidity of the youth of
our rural and agricultural districts, who, as they open a gate not a
mile distant from some large village, respond to your question as to its
whereabouts, with a “Doan’t know,” or a long stare. They seem
intelligent and bright; familiar, though always respectful. I never saw
them ill-treating each other; might does not, in their estimation,
essentially constitute right, nor did I ever observe any bigger boy
bullying a weak or delicate child, as is too often done in England.
What I missed most in my visits to these people, was the affection and
filial tenderness which should naturally subsist between children and
their parents; but this, though not ostentatiously displayed, is not
always wanting. The existence of such feelings was strikingly evinced in
the behaviour of our Reis to his son.
The Reis had brought his son away from home, preferring the corrupting
influences of boat life to the chances of his being torn from his
mother’s care by the hateful conscription, and a parent more
affectionate, or a child more dutiful, I never beheld. Said—so the boy
was named—was about ten years old, and of most engaging appearance, with
fine bright eyes, and a clear copper complexion, beautifully shaded. He
was very intelligent, and from the day of his appearance amongst us, we
dressed him in bright chintz, always clean.
We promoted him from the office of do-nothing to the very important one
of gun-cleaner and pipe-bearer, and he always accompanied us on our
shooting excursions, proving himself a capital retriever. On one
occasion, he had broken some dinner knives of ours, and as far as I
could learn had not confessed with his usual veracity, as he was a very
honest boy. For this, he was most mercilessly punished—a duty his father
evidently disliked; this clouded the harmony previously existing between
them, as the son did not take the well-deserved chastisement in the way
he probably would have done previously to the indulgence and
independence he had enjoyed on board. The next night, as he was leaning
over the prow of the boat, then darting forwards under a heavy gale, he
fell overboard, and instantly disappeared beneath the waters. I was
standing by his father, who was at the helm, on the top of the high
cabin, and was a witness of the catastrophe. He would not, even to save
his son, neglect his duty, which at that moment involved the safety of
others, and it was left to strangers to rescue his only child from
destruction. Quick as thought, however, three men dashed overboard; the
boat was lowered to pull them up; and in a few minutes, the boy, though
in a state of insensibility, was restored to his father. The latter
neither exhibited deep anxiety at his threatened loss, nor intense
gratitude at his child’s almost miraculous preservation; we were much
surprised at his apparently stern indifference and apathy. But in his
desire to conceal his feelings which nature had given him, he had
overrated his strength; the same night he was taken very ill, and
several days elapsed before he recovered his usual energy.
As I lay on the deck one night talking to Daireh, and enjoying the
exquisite moonlight and soft cool air, among other stories which he told
me was the following, accounting as he said in a curious manner for the
origin of the three varieties of Arab character.
“When Noah was about to enter into the Ark, he went to the first
shipwright then dwelling in the world, and asked him if he would build
him a boat, according to the measurements he had prepared; but the man
answered:
“‘You have asked God to make us equally rich, and as I am as rich as
you, why should I build you a boat?’
“Noah answered:
“‘I will give you my beautiful daughter in marriage.’ Then the great
builder of ships agreed, and built the Ark.
“But in its construction, they wanted the great worker in iron, and Noah
offered him in vain heaps of that money which he possessed in as
sufficient quantities as himself; and again the much-coveted daughter
was promised as the price of the iron fittings. The Ark was built, but
had to be furnished for its long voyage, and the corn merchant refused
to stock the vessel with the requisite provisions, except at the already
twice promised price of the beautiful daughter. This was agreed to, and
now all was prepared, the ark was ready, and the three sons-in-law
wended their way towards the embarrassed parent. The young maiden was
carrying water from the ever-flowing well, as, every one being equally
rich, no one would work for another; but her dog had strayed into her
room, and as the father entered the house with the great ironmonger, he
found a beautiful daughter where he had only left a dog, and the happy
man departed with the miraculously changed animal. Then came the grain
factor, and departed with an ass transformed into the shape of its
mistress; and Noah felt relieved of the anxiety which his indiscreet
promises had caused him. And now together approached the real daughter,
conversing with the shipwright, and Noah joined their hands, and they
all went into the Ark together, and when the waters rose, they sailed
away.”
As Daireh finished his tale, he turned to the least intelligent of the
sailors, and as he called him, and he answered with a long and stupid
“What?” He said: “you see he come from the donkey mother; and that man
which so quarrel with the other Reis, you see, he come from dog parent;
and when you see our young lady, you no can doubt she descend from real
Noah daughter.”
“But Daireh,” said I, “do you really believe that tale?”
“Why! clever Dervish tell it me.”
I was unable, by frequent conversations with the dragoman, to discover
what position the Dervishes filled among the village people. An old
grey-headed man was always to be seen smoking or idling about in the
court-yard of the mosque; he, though having evidently no salaams, was
attached to these Dervishes, who have the monopoly of professional
begging, and are always wonderfully dressed in piles of clothes, of all
ages and fashions, from European frock coats, to untanned tiger and lion
skins. They made very free with our party, always laying their hands
upon me, and invoking many blessings on my head, in which, if I am to
trust the interpretations of Daireh, length of years and eternal youth
figured conspicuously.
These are the real Dervishes, or priests, but all clever Arabs are
called by the same title. We have a sailor on board one of the boats, or
rather a man taken by the crew as a servant, who we were assured, “was
quite real Dervish.” He was dressed as the rest of the crew, and used to
read aloud from some dirty manuscript, which he kept in his hat, nearly
every night; it was generally the “Arabian Nights,” but sometimes a more
modern work. He wrote all the agreements, kept all the accounts of the
other men, and prayed much more frequently than any of them.
The people pray on rising and on going to rest, and once or twice
besides, in the middle of the day. In our boats, these devotions were
very regularly performed; and nearly all day some one or other of the
crew was prostrating himself on the roof, his face turned towards the
city of his Prophet; or washing, previously to his devotions, in the
little boat behind.
Most of the crew were married, and some had many children, though they
all seemed to have lost a good number, whom they talked of meeting again
in Heaven.
Women are invariably spoken of with great respect, and always treated
with kindness. “He very bad man, beat his wife,” was Daireh’s severest
censure; nor could I find any who had had more than one wife at a time.
They divorce themselves, however, very easily; a quarrel, or even a
difference of opinion, seems to constitute sufficient cause for a
separation; while the wife can demand a divorce, in Egypt, because her
husband does not give her as much sweet-smelling scents as she wishes,
or in Nubia because he does not give her the quantity of oil and grease
to which her rank, as his wife, entitles her.
I was surprised, under these circumstances, that divorces were not more
frequent; but on Daireh’s explaining the manner in which the dowries are
managed, I began to understand it without difficulty. At the wedding,
the husband settles a dowry on his wife—perhaps a pigeon-house and its
feathery occupants, or a few acres of land, or a diabeheeh, or some
household utensils; and should he dismiss her, from whatever cause,
except, of course, those which would seem sufficient in more civilized
lands, he must hand over her dowry, which, as no odium is attached to
the discarded wife, speedily procures her another husband.
The Arabs are very tenacious of property, and one can hardly guess how
many matrimonial squabbles are happily prevented by the wholesome fear
of losing the pigeon-house, or having to give up the diabeheeh.
Pigeon-houses, as the reader may have observed from my descriptions, are
quite a feature in Nile scenery; and the upper story of every dwelling,
in some villages, is crowded with pigeons and their nests. They are kept
solely for their manure, and seem in themselves common property. We were
always allowed, and even encouraged to kill as many as we liked, except
close to the village, where the owners were afraid we should scare them.
Not so the doves, which, as Abbas told me, “are not lucky for man to
kill,” though, when killed, he appeared to have no objection to cooking
them in the most approved style; and very good they were, our ladies
preferring them to partridges.
I expected to have found the Arabs more superstitious than they are. Our
servants were as much so as any one we met; our crews, wild and
courageous, were the reverse. The most popular and deep-rooted prejudice
was against Wednesday; and all the undertakings commenced on that day,
were, they thought, sure to be disastrous. At Cairo, bricklayers will
not begin a work, or finish it, on Wednesday; nor will native merchants
be easily induced to buy or sell; business on Wednesdays, therefore, is
“very dull,” and articles “heavy of sale.” On Friday, on the contrary,
business is peculiarly “brisk,” as on that day there is a lucky hour,
which is to be seized upon, as the unlucky one on Wednesday is, if
possible, to be avoided.
It often occurred to me, that what was lucky to the seller might be
unlucky to the buyer; but this does not seem to have struck the
Egyptian, and he persists in being very prudent on Wednesdays, and very
rash on Fridays.
Our crews were a constant source of amusement to us, they were always
merry and good-humoured, and particularly so when the wind blew strong
from the north, filling our huge sail; and then our Reis at the helm,
telling his son some tale, in a low and monotonous voice, would leave
the sailors free to amuse themselves as they liked. They had but one
enjoyment, but it seemed never to fail. Gathering round the man whose
duty it was to sit at the rope which held the mainsail, the drum was
produced—a sheep-skin stretched over a kind of earthenware jar, open at
the other end—and a pipe wonderfully constructed; and then commenced a
concert, the airs being all in one key. They had but few songs; and some
I recognised as having been thought worthy of translation. I insert two,
the composition of a kind friend—
I.
Like the low sweet music of thy voice
Is the whispering stream;
And my soul, in its melody, fain
Would for ages dream!
II.
Thine eyes resemble the wild gazelle’s,
And thy perfumed hair
Is soft as robes of embroidered silk,
Such as proud Sheiks wear.
III.
Oh! beautiful maiden of Araby,
Fair as a young new moon,
I’ll prize for ever one smile of thine
As life’s dearest boon.
IV.
Sell me, I pray, in the Turk’s bazaar
As a Moslem slave,
Or bid me in the Nile’s dark stream
Find a watery grave:
V.
For sooner shall I forget to swim,
And my lips to eat,
Than cease to recall the hour when first
I knelt at thy feet.
VI.
But I know by thy shy radiant glance,
Which I dimly see,
An obedient wife, and a faithful slave,
Wilt thou be to me.
VII.
Costly and rare the gifts I’ll bestow
When once thou art mine,
Gums and rich jewels, spices and shawls,
They shall all be thine.
VIII.
Oh! beautiful maiden of Araby,
Fair as a young new moon,
I’ll prize for ever one smile of thine
As life’s dearest boon!
* * * * *
I.
Sing, boatmen, sing, it will beguile
Our voyage up the dark-blue Nile;
Pray we for a northern wind,
Though leaving homes and wives behind;
Too fierce the heat for us to row,
Against the rustling current’s flow.
The great Cavàghi is on board,
And we to home shall be restored,
When safely shall his hareem reach
The wind-kissed, pebbly Theban beach.
II.
Sing, boatmen, sing, our hearts are free
From grinding care, though poor we be;
Our wives locked up, are well secured,
And happiness for them ensured
By food in plenty; so no Beauty
Need to swerve from her heart’s duty.
But, comrades, should the bad Turks come,
With clash of cymbal, beat of drum,
Will not our ardent bosoms burn,
When we to Cairo shall return,
Should they have forced our wives away,
And treachery thus our love repay?
III.
No, boatmen, no, our Arab wives
Shall happy make our future lives;
Since skies midst storms retain their blue
Our lovely maids will still be true.
And when our purses shall be lined,
May Allah send a southern wind,
To speed us on our homeward way!
And hail we soon that blissful day,
Which shall to us our wives restore,
Whom absence makes us love the more.
Then, boatmen, sing, it will beguile
Our voyage down the dark-blue Nile.
At the end of each verse, which is sung by one person, the crew join in,
sometimes with a yell of horror, sometimes with a shout of delight, as
the occasion may require, and sometimes only repeating the last line in
chorus. That apathy which so especially distinguishes the Arab,
disappears altogether when under the influence of music; and I have seen
some of the men worked up to a state of wild enthusiasm, or fearful
rage, by a well-sung account of their domestic circle going wrong during
their absence. But Daireh had such an aversion to translating the words
of their numerous effusions all to one tune, that I was obliged to
conclude that there were but few of them adapted to “ears polite.” I
have often thought, however, that Daireh was a very free translator. The
first time I had any doubt about his veracity as an interpreter, was at
Ossioot, where the following conversation ensued between the Governor
and myself, through his agency.
“Daireh, tell his Excellency, that I could not pass through this city
without having the honour of seeing him.”
“No, Herr George, I not say that, I say his having honour to see you:
then give you pipe directly.”
_The Pasha._ “What are you saying?”
_Daireh._ “He say he very great man from England, come on purpose all
the way to call upon very mighty Governor of Ossioot.”
_The Pasha._ “Taib, hat tchibouque.” (Good, bring a pipe for him.)
“Daireh,” I asked, “what did you tell him?”
“Oh! I tell him he ought to make much honour to see you. You very great
man.”
“Undeceive him directly. Tell him I am an English traveller.”
_Pasha_ (_evidently uneasy about our prolonged “asides”.)_ “Is the
Cavaghi come by himself?”
_Daireh._ “No; he have very big family on very fine boat.”
_Pasha._ “Taib” (and a long smoke ensued).
I now began to insist on a real translation of my speeches, and I made
some progress in Oriental conversation. I think it was in this interview
I discovered that crossing one’s legs whilst sitting in a divan or
chair, and putting one’s hand’s in one’s pockets, were abominations to
the Egyptians.