scene. The mudhir (governor) of the province arrived with a splendid
cavalcade, and a great troop of under officials, and servants, and
pitched his gay camp at the foot of the hill. We exchanged visits of
ceremony, and discussed what had happened. The mudhir told us beforehand
that the individual offenders would not be found out, at any rate they
would not be brought to confess, because each knew that his throat stood
a poor chance. However, on the second day, the Sheikhs of Saqâra and
of Abusir, and a number of suspected persons were brought forward, in
order to be put upon their trial. As was to be expected, no decision
was come to, neither by personal interviews, nor examinations. The
punishment was therefore summarily executed. One after the other they
were tied to a post, their faces towards the ground, and the soles of
their feet upwards. They were then unmercifully bastinadoed with a
long whip of hippopotamus hide, called _kurbatsch_, often till they
fainted. It was in vain that I urged that I saw no reason to punish
these particular persons, and I was still more astonished when our old
venerable friend, the Sheikh of Saqâra, for whose innocence I would have
accepted any surety, was also led up, and, like the others, was laid in
the dust. I expressed my surprise to the mudhir, and protested earnestly
against it, but received for answer that he could not be exempted from
the punishment, as though, indeed, we had not been on his ground and
territory, we had however received the watchmen from him, who had run
off, and had not then returned. With some difficulty I obtained, at
least, a mitigation of the punishment; but he had already become almost
insensible, and it was necessary to have him carried to the tent, where
his feet were bound up. The whole affair ended with a compensation in
money for the value of the stolen articles, which I purposely did not
estimate at too low a price, as every loss of money remains for years
in the remembrance of the Arab, while he forgets the bastinado, indeed
boasts of it, as soon as he no longer feels it. _Nezel min e’ semma e’
nebút, bárakak min Allah_, say the Arabs, _i. e._ “The rod came from
Heaven, a blessing from God.” But also in the matter of the fine, the
sum that we demanded was so distributed, that the rich Sheikh of Saqâra
was compelled to pay a far greater share than the Sheikh of Abusir, a
partiality which was probably in some measure owing to the intercession
of the old distinguished Turk of Abusir with the Turkish mudhir.
As soon as the money was paid down I went to our Sheikh of Saqâra,
whose unmerited adverse fate had seriously vexed me, and I publicly
gave him the half of his money back again, promising in confidence that
afterwards, when the mudhir should have departed, I would restore to him
also the other half. This was such an unexpected thing to the old sheikh,
that he looked at me for a long time incredulously, then kissed my hands
and feet, and called me his best friend on earth; I, who had just been,
at all events, the indirect occasion of his beautiful beard being soiled
with dust, and of his feet being so lacerated as to cause him weeks of
pain. His wondering joy, however, was not directed so much at me as at
the unhoped-for sight of the money, which never loses its charm with the
Arab.
There is a curious mixture of noble pride and vulgar avarice to be found
in the Arab, which is at first quite incomprehensible to the European.
Their free noble bearing, and imperturbable repose, appear to express
nothing but a proud sense of honour; balanced, however, against the
smallest gain of money, it melts away like wax before the sun, and the
most contemptuous treatment is not taken into consideration, but is borne
with crouching servility where money is in question. We might at first
imagine one of these two natures to be hypocrisy, or dissimulation; but
the contradiction returns too often in all forms, both great and small,
not to lead to the conviction that it is characteristic of the Arab, if
not of the entire East. Even as early as in the days of the Romans, the
Egyptians had so far degenerated, that Ammianus Marcellinus could say of
them: _Erubescit apud eos, si quis non infitiando tributa plurimas in
corpore vibices ostendat_,[18] and in the same manner the fellah to-day
points with a contented smile to his scars as soon as the tax-gatherer
has withdrawn, who, in spite of his instruments of torture, has been
curtailed of a few piastres.
LETTER IX.
_Cairo, the 22nd April, 1843._
A violent cold, which for some time checked my usual activity, has led me
hither from our camp at Saqâra. The worst is, that we are still obliged
to postpone our further journey. Certainly all which such a spot affords
is of the utmost interest, but the abundance of material this time almost
causes us embarrassment. The most important, but most difficult works,
and those which occupy the longest time, are those of our architect
Erbkam. To him belongs the great task of making the most detailed plans
of the border of the desert, in nearly the central point of which we
lie encamped. This ground comprises the almost uninterrupted field of
tombs from the Pyramid of Rigah as far as that of Daschûr. The separate
plans of the northern fields of Abu Roasch, Gizeh, Zauiet el Arrian are
already completed. However meritorious the sketches of Perring, they
cannot be compared in exactitude with ours. Entire Necropoli, with the
Pyramids belonging to them, have been newly discovered, partly by myself,
partly by Erbkam. Some of the Pyramids, hitherto unknown, are even now
from eighty to a hundred feet high; others are indeed almost wholly
demolished, but were originally of considerable extent, as is manifested
by their base. My return to Saqâra will, it is to be hoped, give the
signal for our departure.
We shall go by land to the Faiûm, the province which branches off
into the desert. The season is still incomparably beautiful, and the
desert-journey will undoubtedly be far more conducive to our health than
the voyage on the Nile, which we before contemplated.
It is to be hoped that my state of health will not detain me long here,
for my impatience daily increases to return from the living city of
the Mamelukes into the solemn Death-city of the old Pharaohs. And yet
it would perhaps afford you more pleasure if I were able to paint in
colours, or in words, what I here see before my windows.
I live in the extensive square of the Ezbekîeh, in the most beautiful and
most frequented part of the city. Formerly, there was a great lake in the
centre, which is now, however, converted into gardens. Broad streets run
round it, separated for riders, and foot passengers, and shaded by lofty
trees. There all the East pass by, with their gaily-coloured, various,
yet always picturesque costumes; the poorer classes with blue and white
tucked up blouses, and the richer with long garments of different
materials, with silk kaftans,[19] or fine cloth dresses of delicately
contrasted colours, with white, red, green, and black turbans, or with
the more refined, but less becoming, Turkish tarbusch;[20] amidst these
some Greeks, with their dandy tunics, or Arab Sheikhs, wrapped up in
their wide antique mantles, thrown around them; the children wholly or
half naked, also with shaven heads, on which now and then a single tuft
stands up from the crown, as if ready to be laid hold of; the women
with veiled faces, but whose eyes painted round with black, peer forth
ghost-like hither and thither through peep-holes in the veil. All these,
and a hundred other indescribable figures, walk, glide, and rush past,
on foot, on asses, mules, dromedaries, camels, horses, only not in
carriages; for these were more used even in the time of the Pharaohs than
they are at present. If I look up from the street, my view is bounded
on one side by splendid mosques, with cupolas, and slender-springing
minarets, together with long rows of houses, most of them built
carelessly, yet some of a more distinguished class, richly ornamented
with artistically carved grated windows, and elegant balconies; on the
other side, by the green domes of palm-trees, or by leafy sycamores and
acacias. Finally, in the distant background, beyond the flat roofs, and
green intervening masses, the far-shining sister-pair of the two largest
Pyramids stand out distinctly on the Libyan horizon in sharp lines
through the thin vapour. What a contrast from that mongrel Alexandria,
where innate Eastern habits and feelings still struggle for mastery with
the overpowering high-pressure civilisation of Europe. It seems to me as
if we had already here penetrated into the innermost heart of the East of
the present day.
LETTER X.
_On the Ruins of the Labyrinth, the 31st May, 1843._
After my return to the camp of Saqâra, I only required three more
days to finish our work there. I paid a last visit to the ruins of
ancient Memphis, the plan of which Erbkam had meanwhile completed; some
interesting discoveries terminated our researches.
On the 19th of May we at length set out on our journey, with twenty
camels, two dromedaries, thirteen asses, and one horse. When I speak of
_camels_ and _dromedaries_, it is perhaps not superfluous to observe
what is here understood by these names, for in Europe an incorrect or
rather arbitrary distinction is made between them, which is unknown
here. We Germans call _camel_ what the French call _dromadaire_, and
_dromedary_ (_Trampelthier_, _Germ._ a corruption of dromedary), what
they call _chameau_. The first is said to have _one_ hump, the other
_two_. According to that, there can be no question of dromedaries or
_chameaux_ in Egypt, for here there are no two-humped creatures, although
now and then they appear in one-humped families. In Syria again, and the
central parts of Asia, there would be no camels or _dromadaires_; at
least the one-humped animals are very rare. In truth, however, it is a
very immaterial difference, and whether the one hump of fat on the back
be divided in two or not, in itself alone would perhaps scarcely justify
the distinction of a different species. The people of the East, at the
present day at least, make no distinction between them; neither did the
ancients also, for the one-humped creatures do not carry easier, nor
move quicker, than the others. Nor does the rider sit more conveniently
between two humps, for the saddle is equally raised over the two as
over the one hump. On the other hand a great distinction, although not
founded on natural history grounds, has been generally established
between the strong, dull _camel_, used as a beast of _burden_, commonly
called _gémel_, and the younger, more tractable, broken-in, riding camel,
which is called _heggîn_, because the pilgrims to Mecca (_hágg_, _pl._
_heggâg_) set a great value on good riding animals. An Arab takes it as
much amiss if his slim favourite camel is called a _gémel_, as if with
us, a well-broken horse was to be described as a plough or draught-horse.
_Dromedarius_, or _camelus dromas_, κάμηλος δρομάς, does not appear to
have meant more among the ancients, as the name proves, than a courser of
a slight breed, suited for riding.
As these last are far more expensive, it is often difficult to procure,
even a few of the better animals from the Arabs who furnish them; most of
us are obliged to be contented with ordinary beasts of burden. Mine was
this time endurable, and received, at least, the title of _heggîn_, from
the Arabs.
I did not wait for the decampment of the general party, in which the
Sheikhs of Saqâra and Mitrahinneh were included, but rode on in front
with Erbkam, always beside the desert. On our way, the latter made
one more plan of a Pyramid, with the surrounding ground, which I had
observed on a former trip. We have now a list of, altogether, sixty-seven
Pyramids, almost twice as many as are to be found in Perring. The
topographical plans of Erbkam are most invaluable.
Soon after sunset we arrived at the first Pyramid of _Lischt_, where we
found our tents already pitched. The following morning I made the caravan
depart early, and I remained behind with Erbkam, that we might employ
ourselves in examining and noting down the two Pyramids, which stand
rather widely apart in this isolated field of death. We did not follow
till two o’clock, and arrived about seven in the evening at our tents,
which were pitched on the south side of the stately Pyramid of Meidûm.
It was again a short day’s journey to the Pyramid of Illahûn, and thence
through the embouchure of the Faiûm to this spot, three hours more.[21]
It was late before we started. I left Erbkam and E. Weidenbach behind, to
put on paper the examination of the ground; and I rode off with only two
servants, half an hour in advance of the caravan, in order to reach the
Labyrinth by a more interesting route, along the Bahr Jussuf, and to fix
upon the place of encampment.
Here we have been, on the southern side of the Pyramid of Mœris, since
the 23rd May, and are settled among the ruins of the _Labyrinth_; for I
was certain from the first, after we had made but a hasty survey of the
whole, that we are perfectly entitled to designate them under this name:
I did not, however, imagine that it would have been so easy for us to
become convinced of this.
As soon as Erbkam had measured and noted down a small plan of what
is extant, I caused some excavators to be levied from the surrounding
villages, through the Mudhir of Medînet el Faiûm, the governor of the
province, and ordered them to make trenches through the ruins, and to
dig at four or five places at once. A hundred and eight people were thus
occupied to-day. With the exception of those belonging to the nearest
place, Howara, who return home every evening, I allow these people to
encamp on the northern side of the Pyramid, and to spend their nights
there. They have their overseers, and bread is brought to them; every
morning they are counted, and they are paid every evening; each man
receives a piastre—about two silver groschens;[22] each child, half a
piastre, sometimes, when they have been particularly diligent, as much
as thirty paras (there are forty of them in a piastre). Each of the men
brings with him a pickaxe, and a shallow, woven basket (_maktaf_). The
children, who form the greatest numbers, are only required to bring
baskets. The maktafs are filled by the men, and carried away by the
children on their heads. This is done in long processions, which are kept
in order and at work by special overseers.
Their chief pleasure, and a material assistance in their daily work, is
singing. They have some simple melodies, which at a distance, owing to
their great monotony, make almost a melancholy impression. When near
them, however, the unmerciful persistence of the shrill voices, as they
often amuse themselves many hours together in the same manner, is hardly
to be borne. It is only the consideration that I am helping so many to
bear half their burden for the day, and that I materially further the
work, which has constantly prevented me interfering when it reaches this
point, till I sometimes at length leave my tent in despair, in order,
by employing myself at a greater distance, to obtain some repose for my
ears. The only variety in the execution of the stanza of two lines, is
that the first line is sung by one voice, the second by the whole chorus,
while the hands are clapped at every bar of common time. For example:
[Music:
1. Om mi be-tá-kul má-ku-li U a-ná bagh-bágh-tét aʾ-léï (Dill)
2. Dill as-sa—ri mál u mal Bun yál dill ebánne ú aʾ-léï (Yâ)
Yâ-min sa-báhʾ u le-bén U sámneh sâih ʾá-le-ʾï &c.
_i. e._ 1. My mother eats my dates,
And I—anger overcomes me.
2. The shade of Asser (vesper-time) lowers itself and lowers itself.
The wall (bunyân).
3. (Oh) Happiness (when) the morning milk
And butter pour over me.]
_Makûl_, in the first line, is really only “_food_,” but it has become a
general expression for _dates_, because, in the huts of the Fellah, this
is the chief, and, for many people, the only food. Another rather more
animated melody is this one:
[Music]
in which the chorus, in exception to the general rule, separates into
two parts. I hardly think, however, that these thirds are intentional,
they slip in of themselves; for it sometimes happens that single
voices join in singing the same cadence in a totally different strain
without paying any regard to whole hours of discord. The Arab—I might
almost say, the people of the East generally—are devoid of the sense
of making the simplest complications of several voices into a harmony.
The most artistic music of the best singers and performers, which often
inexpressibly delights the most civilised Musulman in Cairo, and collects
large masses of people as an audience, consists only in a melody a
hundred times repeated, flourishing, restless, and whirling, whose theme
cannot be retained, and can scarcely be detected by a European ear. Nor
are the different instruments, when played together, employed for any
harmonious united variety, beyond what is suggested by the rhythm.
We have eight watchmen during the night, who really do watch, as I often
convince myself by making a nightly round. One of them walks constantly
up and down with his gun on the ramparts surrounding our camp, for if
any where, we have to fear another attack here, not from the Arabs, but
from the still more dangerous Bedouins, who inhabit the borders of the
desert in many single hordes, and are not under the control of great
sheikhs, who we might secure in our interests. From Illahûn to this
place, we passed through a Bedouin camp, whose sheikh must have known
of our arrival, as he rode out to meet me on horseback, and offered
his services, if we should require anything here. Farther on, we met
an old man and a girl in a distracted state, uttering loud cries of
despair. They threw dust into the air, and heaped it on their heads. As
we approached nearer to them, they complained to us with inconsolable
expressions that two Bedouins had just robbed them of their only buffalo.
We actually saw the robbers still in the distance, on horseback, driving
the buffalo before them into the desert. I was alone with my dragoman and
my little donkey-boy, Auad, a lively, dark-skinned Berber, and I could
be of no assistance to these poor people. Such thefts are not unfrequent
here. A short time ago, one tribe drove a hundred and twenty camels away
from another tribe, and none of them have yet come back.
Nevertheless, we shall probably remain here unmolested; for the sentence
we passed at Saqâra is well known, and they are aware that we are
specially recommended to the authorities. They have also now become
convinced that we carry no gold or silver with us in our heavy chests,
which was formerly very generally believed among the Arabs. Added
to this, we are ourselves well armed against any new attack. I have
collected the most valuable chests in my own tent, and every night an
English double-barrelled gun and two pistols lie ready beside my bed.
Besides, I clear out my tent every evening, that we may be prepared for
anything, especially for storms, from which we have had to suffer much
latterly, and of a degree of violence unknown in Europe. Abeken’s tent
fell three times over his head in one day, and the last time roused him
in a very disagreeable manner out of his sleep. Thus we are often whole
days and nights in constant expectation that during the next gust of wind
our airy house may fall down upon our heads; under this apprehension, it
requires some habit to continue to work or to sleep quietly.
It appears that we are to have a taste of all the plagues of Egypt. Our
experience began with the inundation at the Great Pyramids; then came the
locusts, whose young fry has now increased like sand upon the sea-shore,
and is again devouring the green fields and trees, which, combined with
the previous cattle disease, is indeed sufficient to cause a famine; then
occurred the hostile attack which was preceded by a daring robbery. Nor
has even a conflagration been wholly wanting. By an incautious salute,
Wild’s tent was set on fire and partly burnt in Saqâra, while we stood
around in bright sunshine, which prevented the fire being seen by us.
Now comes, in addition to this, the annoyance of mice, which we had not
hitherto experienced; they gnaw, play, and squeak away in my tent, as if
they had always been at home there, quite unconcerned whether I am within
it or not. During the night they run over my bed, and over my face; and
yesterday I started up frightened, out of my sleep, because I suddenly
felt the sharp little tooth of one of these audacious guests upon my
foot. I sprang up in a rage, struck a light, and knocked against all the
chests and pegs; but on lying down once more, I was soon driven out of
bed again. In spite of all these annoyances, however, we continue to keep
up a good and cheerful spirit, and God be thanked, they have hitherto
only threatened us, and made us heedful, not materially injured us.
The superintendence over the servants, and the management of much extra
business, has now been considerably alleviated, by my having brought
a well-qualified Kawass with me from Cairo. These Kawass, who form a
peculiar band of sub-officers of the Pascha, are considered here, in
the country, a peculiar and important class of persons. Only Turks are
appointed, and they possess, through their nationality alone, an innate
superiority over every Arab. There are probably few nations who have
so much natural ability to rule as the Turks, who, nevertheless, we
are often accustomed to regard as rude, uncouth, and half barbarians.
On the contrary, as a nation, they have some degree of distinction.
Imperturbable repose, calmness, reserve, and energy of will, appear
to belong to every Turk, down to the common soldier, and do not fail
to make a certain impression upon the European on first acquaintance.
This external bearing with the appearance of deliberate firmness, this
reserved proud politeness easily passing into nice shades of ceremonial,
is met with in a still higher degree among the upper rank of Turks,
who have all, from childhood upwards, passed through a school of the
strictest etiquette in their own families. They have an innate contempt
for everything which does not belong to their own nation, and appear to
have no feeling for the natural superiority of higher mental culture and
civilisation which the ordinary European usually inspires among other
nations.