DASHING UP THE NILE IN COMPANY WITH MR. PEASLEY AND OTHERS
The dream of many years has come true. We are moving (southward) up
the Nile. Like busy sand flies we are flitting, almost daily, across
white patches of desert to burrow into second-hand tombs and crick our
necks looking up at mutilated temples.
Ten years ago not one of us had ever heard of Koti or Khnemhotep. Now
we refer to them in the most casual way, as if we had roomed with them
for a while. It is certainly a gay life we are leading over the
cemetery circuit. Just think what rollicking fun it must be to revel
day after day in sarcophagi and sepulchres, stumbling through
subterranean passages and kicking up the dust of departed kings,
peering down into mummy pits, also trying to stretch the imagination
like a rubber band so that we may get the full significance of what is
meant by 1500 B.C. People come to Egypt to cure nervous depression and
then spend nine-tenths of their time hanging around tombs. Why come
all the way to Egypt? Why not go out to Woodlawn and run foot races
from one family vault to another?
[Illustration: _It is certainly a gay life_]
Mr. Peasley has no use for the tombs we have seen up to date. At
Beni-Hassan we rode on donkeys and climbed hills for half an hour to
inspect several large cubes of dim atmosphere surrounded by limestone.
At Assiut we put in the best part of the afternoon toiling up to
another gloomy cavern. While we stood in the main chamber of the tomb
of Hapzefai (whoever he was), trying to pump up some enthusiasm, Mr.
Peasley mopped his brow and declared himself.
"I'll tell you what I can do," he said. "I can take a hundred pounds
of dynamite and a gang of dagoes and go anywhere along the Hudson and
blow out a tomb in a week's time that will beat anything we've seen in
Egypt. Then I'll hire a boy with a markin' brush to draw some
one-legged men and some tall women with their heads turned the wrong
way, and I'll charge six dollars to go in, and make my fortune."
The significance of the "six dollars" is that every traveller who
wishes to visit the antiquities must pay a government tax of 120
piastres. He receives a "monument ticket," which he must show to the
guard before entering any tomb or temple. I regret to say that the
tickets are often passed along by departing travellers to those newly
arrived, and as the guards do not read English, anything that looks
like a monument ticket will satisfy the man at the door. At
Beni-Hassan Mr. Peasley discovered, when he arrived at the tombs, that
he had left his ticket at the boat. Fortunately, a fellow traveller
had an extra ticket with him and Mr. Peasley had no difficulty in
gaining admission to all the tombs under the name of "Miss Ella
McPherson."
[Illustration: _Why come all the way to Egypt?_]
Before plunging into the details of our voyage, it is only fair that
the indulgent reader should know how and why we came boating up the
Nile. And first of all he should know something about this wonderful
river. The Nile has been described one million times, at a rough
guess, and yet at the risk of dealing out superfluous information I am
going to insert some geography.
Total length, nearly four thousand miles. For thousands and thousands
of years it has supported a swarming population along its banks, and
yet until fifty years ago no one knew from whence it came. The
inhabitants suspected that it came from somewhere, but they were too
busy paying taxes and building pyramids to worry about scientific
discoveries. For 1200 miles up stream from the delta outlet the Nile
does not receive any tributary. It winds over a limestone base and
through a rainless desert between high and barren tablelands.
Occasionally, where there is a granite formation, the stream is
narrowed and forces its way through rushing rapids, and these are known
as the "cataracts." The first of these is at Assouan, about six
hundred miles up stream.
Assouan has for many centuries marked the border line of Egypt proper.
To the south is the land of the warlike blacks, who have been
trouble-makers from the beginning of time. This First Cataract is the
usual terminus of tourist travel, but those who wish to see Nubia and
the Soudan board a small steamer, pass through the locks of the new
dam, and go by river 210 miles to Wadi Halfa, thence by rail 576 miles
to Khartoum. It is here, about thirteen hundred and fifty miles up
stream, that the White and Blue Niles converge and bring down from the
rainy equatorial regions the floods of muddy water which are the annual
salvation of Egypt.
Ten years ago Khartoum seemed as inaccessible as the North Pole. It
was headquarters for the most desperate swarm of frenzied fanatics that
ever swept a region with fire and sword. They had wiped out British
armies and put Gordon's head on a pole. They were in a drunken ecstasy
of Mohammedan zeal, eager to fight and ready to die, and they got all
that they were looking for.
It is less than eight years since Kitchener went down to call on them.
Of all the cold-blooded and frozen-featured military tacticians of the
inexorable school, Kitchener stands pre-eminent. General Grant in his
grimmest moment was absolutely emotional and acrobatic as compared with
Kitchener. He carried ice water in his veins, and his mental machinery
ticked with Birmingham regularity. He did not get excited and dash
into the open trap, as all the others had done. He moved slowly but
relentlessly into the dread country and built a railroad as he went
along. He carried everything that a British army needs--marmalade,
polo ponies, Belfast ginger ale, tinned meats, pipe clay, etc.
"We cannot stampede them, because stampeding is their specialty," said
Kitchener, "but I will lick them by algebra."
He did not say this, because he never said anything, but this is what
he indicated by his calm preparations. He knew that the dervishes were
frothing at the mouth and praying Allah to give them another chance to
swim in gore, so he simply edged up to within striking distance of them
and picked out his ground and waited. A kinetoscope hero would have
galloped up and down the line shouting, "Up, men, and at them!" But
Kitchener was not a hero. He was business manager of an abattoir. His
object was not to win a great battle, but to exterminate a species.
And he probably did one of the neatest jobs of house cleaning on record.
The bloodthirsty mob, led by the Khalifa, as principal maniac, charged
across an open plain. Each determined dervish carried in his right
hand a six foot spear, with which he hoped to do considerable damage.
When he still lacked about a mile of being within poking distance of
the hated infidel, the machine guns opened up and began to sweep the
plain back and forth in long regular swaths, just as the sickle sweeps
through the yellow grain. It was quite a handicap for the invincible
children of Allah. They could not use their six foot spears on anyone
a mile away, and before they could recover from the chagrin occasioned
by this unexpected move on the part of the enemy, about eleven thousand
of them had winged their way to eternal happiness and the others were
radiating in all directions, pursued by those who wished to civilise
them and bring them under British control. Those of the dervishes who
escaped are supposed to be still running. At least they never came
back to start another Messiah movement.
Ten years ago the Soudan was sealed to the whole world and death waited
for the unbeliever who crossed the border. To-day the _table d'hote_
roams unafraid, and the illustrated post card blooms even as the rose.
The Nile of which you have read and along which are scattered the simon
pure monuments of antiquity is the six hundred miles of winding river
between Assouan, or First Cataract, and the sea. For the entire
distance, until it spreads into a fan-shaped delta and filters into the
Mediterranean, the stream is walled in by flat-topped hills of barren
aspect. They are capped with limestone and carpeted about with
shifting sands, and they look for all the world like the mesas of New
Mexico and Arizona, for they lie baking in the same kind of clarified
sunshine. This meandering hollow between the rugged hill ranges is the
Valley of the Nile. Here and there the hills close in until the river
banks are high and chalky cliffs. At one point the valley spreads to a
width of thirty-three miles.
East and west of the hills are vast areas of desert without even a
spear of vegetation except where there is a miraculous rise of water to
the surface. These spots are grateful landmarks of clustered palms and
are known as oases.
The Valley of the Nile would be just as bare and monotonous as an
asphalt pavement were it not for the fact that once a year the Nile
overflows. It has been overflowing every year for thousands of years,
bringing down from the mountains of Abyssinia and the far-away regions
of tropical rains a spreading volume of muddy water. Every winter,
when the dwindling stream gets back into the customary bed, it has left
a layer of black sediment over the inundated district. So many layers
of sediment have been deposited that now the rich black soil is thirty
to fifty feet deep along the river, thinning out as it meets the slope
of the desert. Unlike our prairie soil of the Middle West, the Nile
farms are not underlaid with clay. The Nile soil is black all the way
down to limestone--a floury mineral powder of even composition. The
only parts of Egypt which can be cultivated are those touched by the
annual overflow. Egypt is really a ribbon of alluvial soil following
the stream on either side. The tourist standing on the top deck of a
Nile steamer can see both east and west the raw and broken edges of the
desert.
The entire population lives on the river, literally and figuratively.
Dark-robed women come down to the stream in endless processions to fill
their water jars, and it seems that about every forty feet or so all
the way up from Cairo the industrious fellah is lifting water up the
bank and irrigating his little field with the same old-fashioned sweep
and bucket arrangement that was in use when Joseph came over to Egypt
and attracted the attention of Potiphar's wife. The Egyptian farmer is
called a fellah. The clothing that he wears would wad a gun--that is,
a rifle, not a shotgun. He puts in at least fourteen hours a day and
his pay is from ten to fifteen cents. Mr. Peasley told a tourist the
other day that the song "He's a jolly good fellah" originated in Egypt
during the time of the Ptolemies. This is a sample of the kind of
idiotic observation that is supposed to enliven a so-called pleasure
trip.
But let us get back to the river, for in Egypt one must get back to the
river at least once every twenty minutes. The Nile is Egypt and Egypt
is the Nile. All this description may sound like a few pages from the
trusty red guide book, and yet the word "Egypt" will have no meaning to
the reader who does not get a clear panoramic vision of this
wonderfully slim-waisted country. Nearly six hundred miles long and
yet containing only twelve thousand five hundred square miles--about
the size of Maryland.
The strip of black land which yields the plentiful crops is nowhere
more than ten miles wide, a mere fringe of fertility weaving along
through dryness and desolation. Anywhere along the river if you will
climb to the rocky plateau, you will see the slow moving river,
probably a half-mile wide, as a glassy thread on which are strung
fields of living green, bordered by the dreary uplifts of desert. The
traveller who goes by boat from Cairo to Assouan sees all of Egypt.
The cities and temples and tombs of olden times were perched on the
high spots or planted in the bare hills, so as to be safe from the
annual rise of waters. Anything worth seeing in the whole country is
within an easy donkey ride of the river bank. The river is the only
artery of travel. There is a railway, but it follows the river all the
way up to Assouan.
It would seem that the country was especially laid out and punctuated
with "sights" for the convenience of the modern traveller, for the
visitor who goes up the Nile and stops off at the right spots can do a
clean job of sight seeing without doubling on his tracks.
Until a few years age the tourist going up the Nile had to take a
dahabeah. This sounds like the name of a disease, but it is really a
big, roomy, flat-bottomed sailboat. The dahabeah moves only when the
wind is in the right direction, and to go from Cairo to Assouan
requires the greater part of a lifetime. Those travellers who have
money to burn and who are content to settle down to many weeks of rest
and indolence charter the private dahabeahs. When a traveller goes
aboard a dahabeah he tears up the calendar and lets his watch run down.
Those who have more money and are in a hurry use the private steam
dahabeahs.
A majority of travellers go by passenger boats. The tourist steamers
devote three weeks to a loafing voyage up to Assouan and back, with
daily excursions to the graveyards and ruins. The express steamers,
carrying freight and native passengers, take less time for the round
trip, as they skip some of the less interesting antiquities. We took
an express steamer, thereby missing many of the tombs and temples, but
still getting enough of them to last us for the next hundred years or
so.
Our steamer is a frail affair, double decked and of no draught worth
mentioning. It resembles the old style of Missouri River boat, built
to run on a heavy dew. There are thirty passengers, who devote most of
their time to lolling on deck waiting for the next meal. Mud banks,
natives hoisting water, green fields stretching away to the bald range
of hills, 'dobe huts, spindly palms, now and then a solemn row of
camels, always several donkeys and goats in evidence, every few miles
the tall stack of a sugar mill, perpetual sunshine--it is monotonous
travel, and yet there is continually something doing along the banks,
and the traveller cannot get away from that feeling of satisfaction
which results from lying back to watch other people work.
[Illustration: _Lying back to watch others work_]
And the sunsets! You cannot estimate the real dignity and artistic
value of a camel until you see him or her silhouetted against a sky of
molten gold just at twilight. I have made two or three attempts to
describe the glory of a sunset in the desert, but I find myself as
helpless as Mr. Peasley, who, after gazing for five minutes at the
flaming horizon can only murmur a low but reverent "Gosh!"
It may interest the reader to hear what Baedeker has to say on the
subject. Baedeker says (p. 216) "The sunsets are very fine." That's
what I like about Baedeker. He doesn't fuss over a lot of words and
tack on superfluous adjectives. As soon as he has imparted the
necessary information in a trim and concise manner he moves on to the
next subject.
I am sending herewith two sketches which show the beauty and variety of
landscape to which we are treated every day. View No. 1 is most
characteristic. We see before us the rippling Nile and beyond it the
sheer river bank of black dirt. Then the field of waving grain, in the
distance the range of hills, and over all a dazzling sunshine.
[Illustration: _View of the Nile--No. 1_]
No. 2 is more varied. Again we have the river, the mud bank, and the
growing crops, together with the distant hills, behind which the sun is
silently sinking. In the foreground at the left is a majestic palm.
The structure at the right is a native house and will indicate
something of the simple life of the agriculturist. The complicated
device on the river bank at stage centre is the shadouf, used for
lifting water from the stream. The cavernous opening in the distant
hill (marked X in the drawing) is the entrance to a rock tomb. By
studying this picture the reader may get a very fair understanding of
the architectural splendour of these ancient sepulchres.
[Illustration: _View of the Nile--No. 2_]
Travelling on the Nile has two reliable features to commend it. The
weather is always fair and the native population constantly enlivens
the picture, for the lower river is crowded with sails and every inch
along the banks is under cultivation. Also, the Nile has some
surprises in store. Two definite delusions are soon shattered.
Delusion No. 1.--HEAT. It is not always warm in Egypt. In the middle
of the day, out of the wind and on the desert, it may work up to a good
summery temperature at this season, but in the shade it is cool, and as
soon as the sun has set, a bracing autumnal chill comes into the air
and the heavy overcoat is needed. The north wind can be very chiselly
at times. If coming to Egypt, bring your flannels along.
Delusion No. 2.--CROCODILES. There are no crocodiles in the Nile. We
have always supposed that the bank of the river was polka-dotted with
these monsters, lying in wait for small, dark children. It is said
that two thousand years ago the Nile was bordered with papyrus reeds or
bullrushes, within the tangles of which lurked hippopotami, crocodiles,
dragomans, and other reptiles, but the animals have disappeared, and so
has the river vegetation. The other day we visited the island on which
Pharaoh's daughter discovered little Moses. The island is still there,
but there isn't a bullrush within a mile of it.
One of the penalties of travel is to have old and settled beliefs
uprooted. For instance, there are no Maltese cats in Malta, no
Venetian blinds in Venice, no Roman punch in Rome. If you want
Neapolitan ice cream in Naples you must send out for it. You may walk
about all day in Bologna without seeing a pound of Bologna sausage.
Egyptian cigarettes are known throughout the world, and yet no tobacco
is grown in Egypt. Go to Manhattan Beach and everybody is drinking
Martinis. Truly, the stereotyped labels are deceptive.