the Red Sea, along the old trade route. This expedition forms a
subject which will be treated by itself in the next chapter, and
therefore one may here pass over the week occupied by the journey,
and may resume the thread of the present narrative at the date when
we set out from Wady Fowakhîeh on our homeward way. The day was
already hot as we trotted down the valley and past the Bir Hammamât,
where, by the way, we put up another family of cream-coloured
coursers. A couple of hours’ trotting brought us to a cluster of
sandstone rocks on the north of the now open and wide road, these
having been passed in the dusk on the outward journey. Here I found
one or two inscriptions in unknown letters, a few Egyptian graffiti,
and a little Græco-Roman shrine dedicated to the great god Min. On
these rocks we ate our luncheon, and rested in the shade; and in
the early afternoon we mounted once more, passing the second Roman
station half an hour later. A ride of two and a half hours brought us
to the Hydreuma about sunset, and here we halted to smoke a pipe and
stretch our legs. Then in the moonlight we rode on once more over the
open desert, which stretched in hazy uncertainty as far as the eye
could see. The oasis of Lagêta was reached at about seven o’clock,
and, the night having turned cold, we were glad to find the camp
fires already brightly burning and the kettle merrily boiling.
We were on the road again soon after sunrise, and, riding towards
Koptos, about ten or twelve miles from Lagêta we passed another
Roman enclosure now almost entirely destroyed. Our route now lay to
the north of the hills of el Gorn, the south side of which we had
seen on our outward journey; and after three and a half hours’
riding we came into sight of the distant Nile valley. The thin
line of green trees seemed in the mirage to be swimming in water,
as though the period of the inundation were upon us again. At the
point where this view is first obtained there are some low hills
on the south side of the tracks, and in one of these there is a
small red-ochre quarry. The sandstone is veined with ochre, and the
quarry had been opened for the purpose of obtaining this material
for the making of red paint; but whether the few red markings on
the rocks are ancient or mediæval one cannot say. Here we ate an
early luncheon, and about noon we rode on over the sun-bathed plain
down to the cultivation. Leaving the desert our road passed between
the fields towards the Nile; and by two o’clock we reached the
picturesque village of Quft, which marks the site of the ancient
Koptos. We spent the afternoon in wandering over the ruins of the
once famous caravanserai, and in the evening we took the train back
to Luxor.
Such are the quarries of Hammamât, and such is the road to
them. It is a simple journey, and one able to be undertaken by any
active person who will take the trouble to order a few camels from
Keneh. There will come a time when one will travel to the quarries
by automobile, for even the present road is hard-surfaced enough
to permit of that form of locomotion, and with a little doctoring
it will be not far from perfection. A place such as this wonderful
valley, with its whispers and its echoes, seems to beckon to the
curious to come, if only to be lost for awhile in the soothing
solitudes and moved by the majestic beauty of the hills. To those
interested in the olden days the rocks hold out an invitation which
one is surprised to find so seldom responded to; but let any one
feel for an hour the fine freedom of the desert, and see for an
hour the fantasy of the hills, and that invitation will not again
be so lightly set aside. On camel or automobile he will make his
way over the ancient tracks to the dark valley of the quarries;
and there he will remain entranced, just as we, until the business
of life calls him back to the habitations of present-day men.
[Plate IX:
Illustration: Abandoned sarcophagus on the hillside in Wady
Fowakhîeh.—Page 38.
Illustration: A typical valley near Wady Fowakhîeh.]
III.
THE RED SEA HIGHROAD.
In the reach of the Nile between Quft and Keneh, a few miles below
Luxor, the river makes its nearest approach to the Red Sea, not
more than 110 miles of desert separating the two waters at this
point. From Quft, the ancient Koptos, to Kossair, the little seaport
town, there runs the great highroad of ancient days, along which
the Egyptians travelled who were engaged in the Eastern trade. It
happened by chance that this route led through the Wady Fowakhîeh
in which the famous quarries were situated; and in the last chapter
I have recorded an expedition made to that place in 1907. From
the quarries I set out with my three friends for the sea; and,
as the route from the Nile to Wady Fowakhîeh has already been
described, it now remains to record its continuation eastwards and
our journeying upon it.
The history of this highroad is of considerable interest, for it may
be said to be the most ancient of the routes of which the past has
left us any record; and its hard surface has been beaten down by the
fall of feet almost continuously from the dawn of human things to the
present day. It has been thought by some that a large element of the
prehistoric inhabitants of the Nile valley came into Egypt by this
road. Excavations at Quft (Koptos) have shown the city to date from
Dynasty I., if not earlier; and the great archaic statues of Min,
the god of the desert, one of which is to be seen at the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, were here found. The ancient Egyptians always
believed that the home of their ancestors was in the land of Pount,
the region around Suakin; and since so many archaic remains have
been found at Koptos, the terminus of a route which in historical
times was sometimes used by persons travelling to Pount, it seems
not unlikely that there was a certain infiltration of Pountites
into Egypt by way of Kossair and Quft. These people travelling in
ships along the coast, Arabians sailing from the eastern shores
of the Red Sea, or Bedwin journeying by land from Sinai and Suez,
may have passed over this road to trade with the inhabitants of
Upper Egypt; but, on the other hand, there is no evidence to show
that any extensive immigration or invasion took place. The coast of
the Red Sea is utterly barren, and the wells are few in number; and
one could more readily imagine the prehistoric inhabitants of Egypt
pushing eastwards on hunting expeditions until they encountered the
sea, and thus opening up the route, than one could picture these
Eastern peoples penetrating from an untenable base to a hostile
country at the dawn of known days.
Upon the archaic statues of the god Min at Koptos there are many rude
drawings scratched on the stone surface. These represent _pteroceras_
shells, the saws of sawfish, a stag’s head, the forepart of an
elephant, a hyæna, a young bull, an ostrich, and a flying bird. It
is evident that these drawings would not have been scratched upon
the statue of the tribal god without some sort of meaning being
attached to them, and it seems probable that one may see in them
the articles of commerce which the people of Koptos imported from
the Red Sea: shells, horn, ivory, feathers, and skins.
The earliest written record of a journey to Kossair dates from
Dynasty XI., B.C. 2020, when an official named Henu travelled from
Koptos to Kossair, and thence to Pount. “The king sent me,” says
Henu, “to dispatch a ship to Pount to bring for him the fresh
myrrh from the chieftains of the desert which had been offered to
him by reason of the fear of him in those countries. Then I went
forth from Koptos upon the road as his Majesty commanded me. Troops
cleared the way before me, overthrowing those hostile to the king;
and the hunters and the children of the desert were posted as the
protection of my limbs. . . . Then I reached the Red Sea, and I built
this ship, and I dispatched it with everything, after I had made for
it a great oblation of cattle, bulls, and ibexes.” Henu, no doubt,
carried the material for building the vessel across the desert,
and settled down on the coast to build it, his supplies being sent
to him from Koptos as often as necessary. He tells us in another
part of the inscription that he dug several wells in the desert;
and one can imagine his little company living quite happily beside
one of these wells near the seashore while the vessel was hammered
together on the beach below. After the lapse of four thousands of
years one may still picture these scenes: the launching of the ship
into the blue waters, when the savour of burnt-offerings streamed up
to heaven, and the shouts of the workmen rang across the sandy beach;
the tedious journey along the barren coast, always the yellow hills
upon one’s right and always the boundless sea upon one’s left;
the landing on the strange shores of Pount, where the precious
myrrh-trees abundantly grew and there was talk of gold as of a
thing of little worth; where sleek, bearded men and amazingly fat
women sat at the doors of bee-hive huts raised from the ground upon
piles; and where, walking abroad, one might meet with giraffes and
other surprising creatures whose existence would not be credited by
one’s friends at home. An Englishman feels that it would almost
have been worth the four thousand years of subsequent oblivion to
have seen what these adventurers saw!
During the next twenty centuries the road seems to have been in
almost continual use, but there are no interesting inscriptions
recording expeditions made along it, though one may be sure that many
of the trading expeditions passed over this route to the land of
Pount. The town of Kossair seems to have been called Thaau at this
period, but in Græco-Roman days this name has developed into Tuau
or Duau, a word written in hieroglyphs simply with three stars. The
trade with Arabia and India which flourished during the rule of the
Ptolemies brought the road into very general use, and Kossair became
as important a trading town as any in Egypt. The harbour, however,
was so poor that a new port and town was constructed some five miles
to the north, where a natural bay was easily able to be improved
into a very fair harbour. This new town was named Philoteras,
in honour of the sister of Ptolemy Philadelphos (B.C. 285), while
the older port was now known as Aennum by foreigners, though to
the Egyptians both towns were called Duau. I was fortunate enough
to find some blocks of a Ptolemaic temple at the older Kossair,
and on one of them was the name Duau, followed by the hieroglyph
representing a town written twice to indicate the existence of
the two ports. Not infrequently one finds at Koptos and elsewhere
short inscriptions of this period relating to journeys made along
this route to Kossair, and thence over the high seas. One example
may here be quoted: “To the most high goddess Isis, for a fair
voyage for the ship _Serapis_, Hermæus dedicates this.”
[Plate X:
Illustration:
1, 2. Inscriptions near the archaic inscription on Plate vii.
3. Old Kingdom inscription, Wady Fowakhîeh.
4. Inscription giving name of King Unas, Wady Fowakhîeh.—Page 39.
5, 6, 7. Drawings of the Greek period in Wady Fowakhîeh.—Page 51.
8. Archaic drawing, Wady Fowakhîeh.
9. Greek inscriptions on blocks of quarried stone, Wady Fowakhîeh.—
Page 50.
10, 11, 12. Old Kingdom inscriptions at Wady Fowakhîeh.
13. Misspelt inscription of Thothmes III. at Wady Fowakhîeh.
14. Inscription of Rameses IV., Wady Fowakhîeh.—Page 46.
15, 16, 17, 18. Inscriptions on Temple at Wady Fowakhîeh.—Page 49.
19. Archaic drawing near Bir el Ingliz.—Page 70.
20. Typical blue-glazed bowl found on ruins of Old Kossair.—Page 86.
21-24. Fragments of Temple at Kossair.—Page 81.]
I must be permitted to give in full a very interesting tariff of
taxes imposed on persons using the road during the Roman occupation,
which was found in a ruined guard-house just behind Koptos, at the
beginning of the highway. It reads as follows:—
BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR OF EGYPT.—The dues which the lessees of
the transport service in Koptos, subject to the Arabian command,
are authorised to levy by the customary scale, are inscribed on
this tablet at the instance of L. Antistius Asiaticus, Prefect of
the Red Sea slope.
For a Red Sea helmsman drachmas 8
„ „ bowsman „ 10
„ an able seaman „ 5
„ a shipyard hand „ 5
„ a skilled artisan „ 8
„ a woman for prostitution „ 108
„ „ immigrant „ 20
„ a wife of a soldier „ 20
„ a camel ticket obols 1
„ sealing of said ticket „ 2
„ each ticket for the husband,
if mounted, when a caravan
is leaving drachmas 1
„ all his women, at the rate of „ 4
„ a donkey obols 2
„ a waggon with tilt drachmas 4
„ a ship’s mast „ 20
„ „ yard „ 4
The ninth year of the Emperor Cæsar Domitian Augustus Germanicus
on the 15th of the month of May.
In the above tariff it will be seen that the persons or articles
on which taxes were levied were such as one might expect to have
passed between the Nile and the sea; and only those items concerning
women seem to call for explanation. The very large tax imposed
upon prostitutes must indicate that Indian or Arabian females
coming into Egypt along this route, and liable to bring with them
the evils of the East, could only be admitted when they were of
the richest and, consequently, best and highest class. Such women
were always taxed in the Roman Empire, and in this regard a rather
humorous story is told in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of
Tyana. That holy man was accosted by a tax-collector when about
to cross the Euphrates, and was asked his wares. He replied with
the somewhat _banal_ remark that he had with him _Sōphrosúnē
kai Dikaiosúnē kai ’Andreia_—“Temperance, Righteousness,
and Courage.” The official at once assessed these as _Doúlas_,
“Female slaves,” and would have taxed them as prostitutes, had
not the prophet hastily corrected him by saying that they were not
_Doúlas_ but _Despoínas_, “Ladies of the House”! The “wives
of soldiers” mentioned in the tariff shows that Mommsen was right
in stating that the rule of the emperors was laxer in Egypt than
elsewhere, for before the time of Severus it was not possible for
legionaries to contract legal marriages while on active service; but
in Egypt the marriages were so far recognised that the wives could
be taxed as such, and the children could be enrolled as legionaries.
During mediæval times this Red Sea highroad was much used by
traders, but its river terminus was now removed from Koptos to Kus,
a town a few miles farther up-stream, which soon became second
only to Cairo in size and wealth. A pottery figure of Buddha, some
mediæval Chinese vases, and a few Arabian antiquities, found in
Upper Egypt, are records of the use of this route at that time. In
later days the terminus again shifted to Keneh, a few miles to the
north of Koptos, and to that town there still come Arabian traders
from across the Red Sea, and pilgrims sometimes use it as the base
of the journey to Mecca.
From Wady Fowakhîeh our party set out along this highroad at about
7 A.M. on a bracing morning in November. From Bir Fowakhîeh the
road branched off to the right along a fine valley, shut in by
hills fantastic in shape and colour. Clustering on either side of
the path for some distance there were groups of huts, and in the
hillsides there were traces of gold mines long since abandoned. The
road beneath one was hard, flat, and blue-grey in colour, as though
some mighty torrent had brought down masses of gravel and had
laid it level over the bottom of the valley. Gradually it sloped
upwards, and as the hills drew in on either side one felt that the
highest point of the whole road was soon to be reached. We were
already half-way between the Nile and the sea, and so far there
had been a continuous slope upwards, so gradual as to be almost
imperceptible. The valley now twisted and turned narrowly between
the dark hills, and the gravel bed became humped and banked up where
the early waters had raced down some narrow gauge and had churned
themselves through a natural basin into the wide bed beyond. The
cold wind beat in our faces as we trotted up the narrowing valley,
and the sun had not yet gained much power when, after a ride of two
hours, we reached the rugged pass which forms the apex of the route.
The scenery here is superb. The pathway, such as it is, threads its
way through a cluster of great grey boulders tumbled into the few
yards’ width between the rocks of the hillside, so that on foot
one may jump from stone to stone up the whole length of the pass,
and on camelback one has to twist and turn, rise and descend,
until the saddle-straps come near to bursting. Amidst the rocks
there is a well, known as Bir es Sid, which may have been opened in
ancient times, perhaps by the redoubtable Henu. A few natives were
encamped near by, and not far away their goats were to be seen in
the charge of a small girl, whose dark dress fluttering in the wind
caught one’s eye amidst the pale grey of rocks and the cold blue
of the shadows.
Riding on for another two hours we reached an open ridge from which
an extraordinary prospect of rolling hills and innumerable humps
was obtained. On the left of the pathway there was a hill at the
top of which stood a ruined Roman watch-tower, one of a chain of
such posts which crowned the higher peaks all along the route. Up
this hill we scrambled on foot, and climbed the tower at the summit,
burning a pipeful of tobacco to the gods of Contentment thereon. The
array of hills around us, as closely packed and yet as individual
as the heads of a vast crowd of people, were of a wonderful hue in
the morning light. Those to the north were a dead grey, those to
the east were pink and mauve, and those to the south every shade
of rich brown, while the shadows throughout were of the deepest
blue. The wind tore past us as we sat contemplating the fair world
at our feet, and two black ravens sailed by on it to take stock
of us. Far below the path wound its way through the humps; and in
the distance the peaks and spires of the darker rocks into which
it penetrated bounded the scene, and hid the sea from view.
[Plate XI:
Illustration: Bir es Sid, the well at the highest point of the Red
Sea highroad.—Page 65.
Illustration: The Roman fortress of Abu Zerah, looking
south-east.—Page 67.]
Mounting the camels once more we defiled down the steep path, and
for a time were lost amidst the hills. We lunched an hour later
in more open country; and riding on afterwards for somewhat over
two hours we reached the Roman station of Abu Zerah, which lies
in the plain at the foot of a range of fine purple hills. As is
usual in these buildings, the station consists of a rectangular
enclosure, the wall being still some twelve feet in height in
parts. The door-posts of the main entrance are made of sandstone,
and upon one of them is the almost obliterated Latin inscription:
SER . . . INV. . . . There are several rooms inside the enclosure,
built against the wall, a space being left open in the middle. Just
to the north there are a few graves, around which some broken
pottery of Roman date lies scattered.
A ride of less than an hour brought us to another Roman station
known as Hosh el Homra, “the Red Enclosure,” where we only
halted for a moment or so in order to ascertain that there was
no unique feature in this building. In the afternoon light the
scene was of great beauty. Range upon range of hills surrounded us,
which assumed a thousand varying colours: pink, rose, purple, blue,
and olive-green in the foreground. Spires of rock shot up to a soft
sky in which floated the already visible moon, and overhead seven
black ravens soared past upon the wind. Soon the sun went down, and,
resting in the lee of a group of dark rocks, we watched the pageant
of colours go by and waited for the baggage camels to come up.
The journey was resumed at an early hour next morning, and after a
trot of about three-quarters of an hour we reached the well and Roman
station of Hagi Suliman. The ancient well, lying within the enclosing
wall, has been restored in modern times, and upon a tablet let into
the wall is rudely written: “Briggs, Hancock, and Wood, 1832.” At
this point the road is joined by another from the north-west, along
which we made our return journey to Bir Fowakhîeh by way of Wady el
Esh and Wady Adolla. From Bir Hagi Suliman to Bir Fowakhîeh by this
route is a trot of about six hours. The morning was bitterly cold,
and the wind swinging up the valley chilled one to the bone. The
tracks led now this way and now that, around sharp corners where
the wind buffeted one suddenly, across patches of sunlight where
there was some hope of warmth, and then again up shaded valleys
where one might see an occasional wagtail or sand-martin puffing
its feathers out against the cold airs. A trot of two and a half
hours brought us to yet another Roman ruin, called El Litêmah. Here
there is as usual an enclosing wall surrounding an area in which
several chambers are built and a well is dug. The door-posts of
the entrance are made of sandstone, and some Cufic inscriptions are
written upon one of these by travellers in the middle ages. As we
entered the building a number of sand-grouse rose from the midst
of the ruins and went off to the north, their swift flight being
visible for some time against a background of pale limestone hills,
which told of our approach to the sea. Near here we passed a party
of Arabian traders, some riding camels and others walking. A more
evil-looking set of men I have seldom seen, and as they eyed us
and whispered together one felt that some mischief was afoot. It
was therefore not surprising to learn when we returned to the Nile
that a caravan had been attacked with considerable bloodshed at
about that place and time, by Arabians answering to this description.
An hour and quarter later we emerged from the hills into an open
plain in which the well known as Bir el Ingliz is situated. This well
was dug by English troops at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
during operations against Napoleon’s generals, of which further
mention will be made. A few Ababdeh natives were here encamped, and
hastened to draw water for our thirsty camels, begging a cigarette as
a reward for the labour. In the shade of some rocks to the south-east
we partook of our luncheon. The seat which I selected for myself
proved to be that chosen by a prehistoric hunter some sixty centuries
ago, for upon the face of the rock beside it there is a rude archaic
drawing of a man holding a bow. Two French soldiers of 1799 have
here written their names—Forcard and Materon—which remain as
memorials of a page of history little remembered at the present time.
In the afternoon we trotted over open desert and through shady
valleys for about the space of an hour, at the end of which we
reached the spring known as Bir Ambagi, situated in a fine wady,
with grey-green cliffs on either hand and pink limestone hills
ahead. In this fair setting there grew the greenest reeds and
rushes amidst pools of the bluest water. A few Ababdeh goats
grazed across the valley, bleating merrily as they went; and not
a few birds added their notes to the happy fluting of the wind,
which, blowing from over-seas, seemed to set the rushes nodding to
“songs of Araby and tales of old Cashmere.” Leaving this valley
we travelled down a rather dull wash-out sloping towards the sea,
which at length opened sufficiently to show us a glimpse of the blue
water. There is always something which penetrates to the heart in
one’s first view of the sea after an interval of months; and now,
the eyes having accustomed themselves to the barren desert, the
old wonder came upon one with new weapons, and attacked the senses
with new vigour. One might have shouted for the sheer pleasure of
it; and when, presently, a group of green palms passed into view
lit by the afternoon sun, and stood between the sand and the sea,
one felt to the full the power of the assault.