and I went there by donkey as before; returning, I chartered a
dahabieh to see the said cataracts, of which for some days I had
heard so much; amongst other things, that a ship was wrecked
there three weeks ago (I saw it stuck on its rock to-day). The
cowardice of the people here, at least in this particular
matter, is very funny; too naif to inspire disgust: my captain,
an old sailor, and the nicest old gentleman possible, told
Hosseyn that nothing would induce him to go down them; I thought
I observed a shade of respectful interest in his reception of me
on my return from an exploit which most English _women_ would
consider good fun. I make no doubt that when the water is much
lower, and your dahabieh shoots a good six or eight feet drop,
and goes half into the water besides, considerable excitement
may be got out of it; but now that the drop is not or does not
look more than about a yard, and that the whole affair consists
in a few plunges and shipping a little water, the emotion is
very mild, and I own to considerable disappointment, though as
far as it went it was pleasant. Nevertheless I did not for a
moment regret coming if only on account of the amusement I got
out of the sailors and pilots; the latter were men of years; the
former, fine, jolly-looking lads as one could wish to see; but
their demeanour throughout was infinitely droll; they rested
their feet (according to custom here) on inclined planks, up
which they ran three steps with their arms well forward to fetch
the stroke, getting back into the sitting position as they
pulled through the water (and wonderfully fine the action looks
in a large crew all pulling well together); but the contortions
in which they indulged, the gnashing and grinding of teeth, the
throwing back of agonised heads, the frowns, the setting of
jaws, the straining of veins, the rolling of eyes, the groans,
and, absurdest of all, the coming down on one another's laps and
the cutting of crabs, were ineffably grotesque, and would have
convulsed me with laughter if I had not controlled myself
manfully. Meanwhile the pilots were howling at one another and
them with all the vehemence of a violent altercation, and for no
discernible reason. When they were not shrieking at one another,
the crew took up the usual Arab boatmen's chant (I know no
better word); one man gives out a short sentence, or name, or
form of prayer (not exceeding four syllables) in a quavering
treble, and the rest then repeat it in chorus in a graver
key--the effect is very original. As we got within sight of the
big cataract and the stranded ship, Hosseyn loudly exhorted the
crew to pray to the Prophet, and all the saints who have their
shrines on the heights of Assouan, to see them safely through
the danger; the invitation was loudly responded to, and
everybody who had not an oar to pull held up his hands and
prayed with great fervour--which was very pretty, and done with
the dignified simplicity which always accompanies an Arab's
devotions; but it was certainly disproportionate to the
emergency. When we had danced up and down (or rather down and
up) three or four times, I had the curiosity to look about for
the _sailor_ and waiter I had brought with me from the steamer;
they were respectively green and yellow in their unfeigned
terror. Then there was a nominal _small_ cataract (the first one
is called the _great_ cataract), and indeed I believe there was
a _third_ little commotion; then Hosseyn, throwing up his arms,
exclaimed, "El Hamdul illah!! finish!!" and it was, as he said,
"finish." I am utterly ignorant of the mysteries of navigation,
but one figure we executed between the cataracts and Assouan
struck me as novel: it consisted in turning entirely round in a
wide circle to take (as it were) a fresh start; this manoeuvre
we performed with much gravity and success two successive times.
An elaborate salute from the guns of the dragoman and engineer,
responded to with appropriate solemnity by Hosseyn, announced my
return to my steamer--and, oh joy! my tub.
In the evening governor of course.
_Monday, 2nd._--Resumed work; painted for a couple of
hours--badly--in a high wind at an ugly study of a view I don't
like. I consider it a sort of discipline. The wind to-day is
tremendously high; the dahabiehs will come flying up now. I saw
my friend the captain just now sitting on the bank in the midst
of an interested circle having his fortune told. There is a
blessing for them that wait. Hosseyn has caught a fish! two
fishes, to-day! his glee is unlimited, he is radiant; when that
boy is at the near end of his fishing rope, he is so absorbed I
can't get him to attend to me or to answer a question. His
brilliant piscatorial success is an opportune set-off against a
chagrin the poor boy had this morning; he was taking a dip
somewhere under the paddle-box, and lost, in putting away his
clothes (_he_ thinks by a black but improbable theft), a Koran
with which he travels and to which he attributes much luck; he
was greatly cut up, and after telling me how much he valued the
book, proceeded to inform me that it contained a little piece of
wood from Abyssinia with something written on it, "some, what
you call, scription," which, when worn round the neck,
infallibly cured the bite of the scorpion; seeing that this
announcement did not impress me as much as he had expected, he
asked me with some warmth how I supposed, pray, that the
snake-charmers prevented the snakes from biting them if it was
not by saying something out of the Bible.
Another sheep to-day; there was some hitch about the manner of
the killing which caused a little excitement; his throat was not
turned to the sun (or the East?) whilst he was being
slaughtered; an important matter. I observe that Turkish
officials are not expected to be able to write; my captain can,
but I remarked that when his secretary, a poor, wizened little
thing, whose nose and trousers are far too short, but whose
mouth and ears offer ample compensation through their length,
brought him to-day the ship's accounts, he stamped his signature
at the foot of the page instead of writing it, although he
happened to have a pen in his hand; I was giving him his English
lesson. Talking of accounts, the Arabs have a curious way of
singing or rather intoning their sums, rocking all the while
backwards and forwards like so many Dervishes. I have seen a
large house of business (at Sohag) where _all_ the clerks were
doing it at once; it was like a madhouse. Oh, Lombard Street,
and oh, Mark Lane! what would you have felt at the sight?
_Tuesday, 3rd._--My last day at Assouan. Finished my sketches,
took leave of the governor, and had a final stroll about the
streets of the town, which seemed to me unusually picturesque. I
remark that I invariably like a place best the day I leave it;
if I am sorry to go, my regret casts a halo over it; if I am
glad, my gladness makes everything brighter. How picturesque the
people are! their flowing, flying draperies are wonderfully
grand. I hope I may carry away with me some general impressions,
but the immense multitude and rapid succession of striking
things drive individual memories fatally out of the field.
Sketching figures is out of the question--the effects are all
too fugitive. This was also the last day of the moolid, and high
time too; I met in the morning, in a narrow street, a procession
of sailors carrying a boat, which they were about to deposit in
the tomb of the sheykh in whose honour the moolid is held, and
whose name they were loudly invoking. In front, drums and flags,
and cawasses firing guns; behind, in front, everywhere, a host
of most paintable ragamuffins enjoying the fun; above, over the
brown house-tops, dark blue figures of women huddled peering at
the procession; over them a blue sky with a minaret standing
against it, a palm tree; some doves--there was the picture, it
was charming. The children as usual called out, "Baksheesh
howaga;" the so-called begging of the people has been
ludicrously exaggerated; in the first place, only the children
ask for baksheesh (I mean, of course, without the pretext of a
service rendered), and in the next, they treat the whole thing
as an excellent joke, and evidently have seldom the slightest
expectation that they are to get anything. When you approach a
village, every child, from as far as it sees you, whether from a
window, or a doorway, or half-way up a palm tree, or the middle
of the road, holloas out lustily, "Baksheesh, baksheesh,"
generally with much laughter, and frequently with a universal
scamper in every direction except towards you. What I call
begging is that importunate whining that clings to you, and
harasses you wherever you turn in the south of Italy or Spain,
and with which this clamorous performance has nothing in common.
I have remarked, with regard to grown-up Arabs, that though they
wrangle vehemently with the dragoman on the subject of payment,
they invariably show the master a pleasant and satisfied face. I
speak, of course, only of my own experience. As strange a thing
as a satisfied man is a _barking_ fish; the fish that Hosseyn
has caught of late--for Fortune is his handmaid now--all utter a
sound which I can only describe as a faint bark; perhaps
everybody knows that some fishes do this, but I did not, and my
surprise was extreme. They are nasty-looking objects, all fins
and teeth (a thick row of little bristle-like teeth). They are
fat and shiny and most insipid eating.
_Wednesday, 4th._--Started at six down stream; my face is turned
towards bonny old England again, and I feel as if I had wings.
At Kom Ombo (the first halt to-day) there are some ruins on a
rock which crops up abruptly by the riverside in the midst of a
flat country. The morning was divine, and the view from the
temple, looking north, surpassingly lovely in colour. The form
was nothing much; a vast sandy plain (tigered here and there
with stripes of green), and in the distance a long low nest of
mountain peaks; but the colour!--the gradation from the
fawn-coloured glimmering sands in the foreground to the faint
horizon with its hem of amethyst and sapphire was as enchanting
a thing, in the sweet morning light, as I have ever seen. The
temple is fine though heavy, and less delicate in detail than
Phylae. On the under surface of the architrave, between the
columns, are some most curious and interesting unfinished
decorations, on squares marked out in red, and showing (slight
sketch) such as for instance a figure tried two ways on the same
spot. The outlines are drawn out, in red also, with
extraordinary firmness and freedom. Speaking of the squares,
Gardiner Wilkinson--in his, I am told, most erudite, and, I am
certain, most dry and heavy, guide-book--says that they were
used (in the manner in which "squaring off" is practised in the
present day) for the purpose of transferring a design. In this,
however, he is obviously mistaken, because the squares are
adapted not to the pictures but to the space to be decorated;
the hieroglyphs and the figures being adapted to the squares,
not the squares to them: that these squares, once made the
_basis_ of the decoration and fixing its proportions and
distribution, may then have been used also for enlarging a small
design, or even, instead of tracing, for transferring one of the
same size, is probable enough; but that was not their original
function. In corroboration of this view, compare the frets and
ornaments painted on the _back_ of the architrave of the
Parthenon, which I have examined closely; they are painted in
squares marked out with a sharp instrument, and determining the
space to be decorated exactly as at Kom Ombo. The case is so
entirely parallel as to suggest the idea that the Greeks learnt
the practice in Egypt. The great temple of Edfou, where we
stopped next, far surpasses anything I have yet seen in Egypt;
not so much, perhaps, for any especial beauty of
detail--although the sculptures are extremely fine--as for its
general aspect, which is superb, and its wonderful state of
preservation; many parts of it look as if they had been finished
yesterday. The gigantic Propylaea, and the no less gigantic wall
which encloses the whole of this fortress-temple, are almost
entirely intact, and make it unlike any other ruin I know. The
great court, a giant cloister into which one first enters,
discloses the temple itself, blocked out in vast masses of light
and gulfs of shade, and tunnelled through by a corridor which
reaches to its extremest end; the absence of some portions of
the roof, by letting the light play fantastically into the inner
spaces, only adds to the mysterious grandeur of the effect. A
broad, open peribolus runs round the temple, dividing it from
the towering _mur d'enceinte_ which encloses the whole building.
The western part of the temple is as full of staircases, secret
passages, and dark chambers as any Gothic castle. Every square
inch of the whole immense fabric is covered with sculptures and
hieroglyphs.
I forgot to say that I stopped between Kom Ombo and Edfou at the
ancient quarries of Gebel Silsily, from which the material of
the sandstone temples was mostly quarried. They are extremely
striking, and have a grandeur of their own. It was curious to
compare them mentally with the marble quarries of Pentelicus
from which Ictinus carved the Parthenon and Pheidias the Fates.
In a tomb at El Kab are some most amusing and interesting
sculptures (with the colour almost intact on them) representing
the various occupations of Egyptian life, agricultural, &c. The
reaping of the corn and durrah is pretty--a vintage and
wine-treading pleased me vastly. Had they wine in this district?
Coming upon a magnificent view, stopped the steamer for the
night; want to see it by sunrise. The absurd spurious importance
my steamer confers on me in the eyes of the natives is too
funny. At Edfou I found the whole place _en emoi_; horses
handsomely caparisoned, a most polite governor, sheykhs, and a
general profusion of salaams. It appears that the viceroy had
the authorities in the different places telegraphed to be civil
to me; and God knows they are. I was struck with the
magnificence of the population here, the men at least; they are
most stately fellows. I should like immensely to paint some of
them, but for that there is no time; I can only hope that
something will stick to me from this dazzling multitude of fine
things. We are now again in the region of doves, whose presence
in large numbers affects the architecture of the villages in a
most curious manner. Every house has, or rather, _is_, a
dovecot, the chief _corps de batiment_ being a tower, or several
towers, of which the whole upper part is exclusively affected to
the doves. Their sides are inclined like the sides of the
propylaea of the temples, with which they harmonise amazingly
well; they are divided horizontally by bands of colour which
have an excellent effect, recalling strongly the marked parallel
strata of the mountains. (There is no more curious study than
the concord which constantly manifests itself between national
(and notably domestic) architecture, and the nature in the midst
of which it grows up.) The construction of these towers is both
peculiar and ingenious; they are built up entirely with earthen
jars, sometimes placed topsy-turvy, but most often on their
sides, and tier above tier like bottles in a cellar. The
exterior is then filled in with mud, and the interior presents
the appearance of a honeycomb, the cells being formed by the
hollow jars; in these jars the doves have their abode. It is
easy to see that by turning a few of the jars _outwards_ a very
simple but pretty decoration may be obtained; a crest is added
at the top by placing jars upside down at certain intervals; the
bands of colour are generally divided by a string-course of
bricks something after this fashion, but with much variety; and
each of these string-courses is garnished with a perfect hedge
of branches and twigs projecting horizontally a yard or more,
and forming resting places for thousands of doves. Many houses
have two towers, and the wealthier people have towers of great
size subdivided again into small turrets; but in all cases the
height of these edifices is the same, or nearly so, so that the
villages received from them a very monumental look. The large
towers are divided after the manner shown in the sketch. The
natives also make to themselves curious pillar cupboards of mud
(about man high), which from a distance have the oddest
appearance; they look like raised pies on pedestals.
_Thursday, 5th._--Made a little sketch from the paddle-box
before starting. Then to Esne to return the visit of my amiable
friend, the governor; him of the flowers. There is a temple
here; a heavy-looking portico of the Roman period, coarsely
executed, but with a grand, cavernous look, buried as it is in
the ground which rises all round it to half the height of the
columns, so that you have to descend a considerable flight of
steps to get at it. At Arnout, or at least within three miles of
it, are a few fragments of the Caesarium. The portraits of
Cleopatra and Caesarion (he is always seated on her lap), which
occur here several times, would be of the greatest interest if
they were not utterly conventional, and exactly like everybody
else in every temple of the date. Got to Lougsor at sunset, and
found no letters, no Sterlings, no Lady Duff Gordon. I trust the
letters may still turn up before I go, for, if not, I shall
probably lose them entirely, through my desire to get them a
little earlier. In the evening dined with Mustafa Aga, and met
there the American Consul-General, Mr. Hale, who had run up from
Alexandria to show the Nile to a friend of his; both are
agreeable men (Mr. Hale earned my warmest blessings by lending
me a pile of English newspapers); there was also the Consul from
Syoot with a friend of his. After dinner the dancing girls were
asked in, and, presently, a buffoon who stripped to his waist
and performed various antics; he was clever and a good mimic,
but became terribly tedious after a short time. His performance
was of the most Aristophanic coarseness. With the girls, of
whom I had heard so much, I was decidedly disappointed; in the
first place they were mostly ugly, one or two only were
tolerably good-looking--_et encore!_ Then they were clumsily
built, and their dress was quite ludicrous: it consisted in a
body fitting tight to the figure and four inches too long in the
waist, tight sleeves, a petticoat, in shape exactly like a
pen-wiper, and very full, loose trowsers (bags) down to the
feet; the whole of printed calico. In front of their waists hung
a sort of _breloque_, or chain, looped up at intervals in
festoons, the object of which was to jingle as they moved, and
to add to the effect of certain little brass _castagnette_
cymbals which they held on the middle finger and thumb of either
hand. A profusion of ornaments hung round their necks. Their
dancing is very inferior to that of the Andalusian dancers of
the same class, whose performance is full of a quaint grace and
even dignity--inferior, too, to the Algerine dancing, to which
that of the south of Spain more nearly approaches in character;
it is monotonous in the extreme--very ugly for the most part,
and remarkable only as a gymnastic feat; sleight of loins, so to
speak. These are, however, no doubt, unfavourable specimens; I
shall see the best of the kind in Keneh at the house of the
Consul, who has come all the way here from that place to invite
me thereto.
_Friday, 6th._--Went to the palace and temples of Medinet Haboo,
with which I was delighted beyond my expectation. What pleased
me most, and was an entire surprise to me, was a bit of purely
secular architecture--the remains of a royal residence, with its
towers flanking the great entrance, its windows of various
shapes, balconies, semicircular crenelations, outer wall; in
fact, identically such a building as one sees occasionally in
Egyptian sculptures, and, curiously enough, as if it were a
portrait of it, on the walls of the very temple to which this
palace leads. The temple, too (the large one), interested me
extremely from the wonderful preservation of the coloured
decoration in parts of it; one really gathers an excellent idea
of the original effect, and a most brilliant and magnificent
(though barbarous) effect it must have been. The columns in the
great hall here are of what, for want of a better word, I shall
call the "ninepin" pattern; and I think on the whole I prefer it
to the bell-capped pattern; because, besides its character and
massive strength, there is no suggestion in it (as in the other)
of the Doric order, with which comparison is obviously
dangerous. As far as I can observe, there is no trace of colour
on any of the propylaea, but the pylon is always richly decorated
and highly coloured. This decorative importance given to the
door must have had a very striking effect, and reminds me of the
same peculiarity in the dwellings of Upper Egypt.
Visited a private tomb near Medinet Haboo, which is full of the
most curious paintings, many of them in excellent preservation,
and representing every sort of domestic and professional
occupation. They are very superior in execution and character to
those of El Kab. In the evening had a dinner on board: Mr. Hale
and friend, Mustafa Aga and the Syoot Consuls (one of whom does
not speak a word of anything but Arabic). I had also invited
Mustafa's younger son, but find that he may not sit down with
his father. (He accompanied me this morning, and insisted on
lunching with the servants; on the other hand, my servant is
addressed as Hosseyn _Effendi_, if you please! and conversed
with as a gentleman. Service appears to be looked upon in an
entirely patriarchal light.) The entertainment went off
successfully, and Ottilio, the Italian waiter, covered himself
with glory by his excellent waiting. After dinner Mr. Hale
received a telegram to the effect that General Grant had been
elected President of the United States, with Mr. Colfax as Vice.
He was in great excitement and delight; we had a recrudescence
of champagne, and gave the new President three cheers in British
fashion. The news had come in _three days_ from Washington to
Thebes! it is marvellous.
_Saturday, 7th._--Went to Karnak. Wilkinson advises the
traveller to see this group of temples last; and wisely, for it
is indeed the crowning glory of all, and must satisfy, if it
does not surpass, the most sanguine expectations. The vast
unfinished propylaea of the large temple prepare one by their
colossal dimensions for the gigantic grandeur of the great
central hall, in which one is at a loss what most to admire--the
originality of the general design, combining, as it does in a
surprising degree, freedom and variety with the gravest
simplicity--the massive and reposeful breadth of the forms or
the exquisite subtlety of the colour. The latter has of course
gained very much from the blending hand of time, and is now of a
most delightful mellowness, but, judging from the better
preserved portions, it must have been at all times of singular
beauty. It seems strange at first that a decoration consisting
entirely of small blots of vivid colour on a white ground, like
butterflies on a wall, can have a _large_ architectural effect;
but, in fact, the _repetition_ over large surfaces of wall and
column restores, through its monotony, the balance of breadth.
The design of this hall is very curious: the great central nave,
flanked on each side by two aisles of the same height as itself,
but of less breadth (diminishing, roughly, in a proportion of
10, 7, 5), runs, as in a Gothic cathedral, perpendicular to the
main entrance; beyond the second aisle, however, on either side,
the lintels or architraves which connect the columns run at
_right angles_ to the nave; the effect of this arrangement must
have been peculiar and striking. (Too little remains now, except
the columns, to enable one to form a distinct idea.) The central
nave, with the aisles immediately adjoining, rises in a
clerestory thirty or forty feet above the rest of the building,
and was lighted by massive square windows filled with slabs of
stone (sketch), perforated vertically, and of a severe and very
fine (sketch) effect. These windows fill the space between the
entablature of the lateral columns and of the roof of the
clerestory, and must be some twenty to twenty-five feet high. I
find it difficult to reconcile my eye to the far-fetched
"asymetria" in the arrangement of the columns, the lesser ones
standing in no definite relationship, on the plan, to the two
central rows, neither immediately behind them nor half-way
between them. How differently the Greeks managed these things!
The inner row of columns at the east and west ends of the
Parthenon differs also in size, height, and level from the outer
row, and also stands back; but it is only _one row_ at each end;
so that variety and play of form are obtained without a repeated
jar on the eye; and an otherwise uniform rectangular plan is not
gratuitously distorted. In a very ancient temple beyond and
behind that of the great hall are some curious polygonal columns
that have a very Doric look about them, though they are very
rude and undeveloped.
The walls of Karnak are of course defaced and disfigured by the
usual amount of inscriptions; one commemorative tablet,
however, like a similar one at Phylae, inspires a different
feeling. Both are memorials of the French Campaign in Egypt; the
one at Phylae, dated "an VIII. de la Republique Francaise,"
alludes with simple dignity to the victorious march of the
French army to the first cataract, giving the names of the
generals who were fighting "sous les ordres de Bonaparte"; the
other, under the same date, is a simple scientific memorandum
giving the latitude and longitude of the chief towns on the
Nile. It is impossible to read the first of these inscriptions
without emotion: how remote from us, already, seems that stern,
invincible French Republic, tracing its proud name with an
undoubting finger here in the grave-dust of an empire that stood
more centuries than this young giant completed years! How
thickly, already, does the dust lie now on the grave of this
thing of yesterday!
In writing about Phylae, I forgot to notice the henna tree, which
grows in great quantities round the skirts of the temple, and
has a delicious scent. In this wilderness of granite and most
unsavoury haunt of bats, its perfume wafted unexpectedly on the
air is infinitely delightful.
_Sunday, 8th._--Sketched.
_Monday, 9th._--Ditto. In the evening went out to shoot, but
could not get near the pelicans and crows--they see you half a
mile off. Returning, against stream, Hosseyn, anxious to be
useful, took a _punting pole_ and _rowed_ away with an air of
conviction which was worthy of the fly on the coach-wheel in the
fable.
The heat, though still considerable (greater than with us at
midsummer), has diminished within the last few days, and does
not inconvenience me as much as it did in sketching. Towards
evening, soft autumnal veils of mist rise from the smooth, swift
river, and shroud everything in their mysterious folds; to-night
the effect was especially striking; a pale golden sun hung in a
pale golden mist, tempered so that one could look at it
undazzled, and so shorn of its fires that the eastern bank,
instead of burning orange, showed only a faint violet flush over
its dark-brown ridges. On a dahabieh alongside me an Arab is
singing endless strophes of some poem of love and war,
accompanied by the thud and jingle of a tambourine; the melody,
a wandering, nasal strain, full of turns and runs and triplets,
appears to be entirely improvised, and is full of character and
melancholy. At the end of each strophe I hear a prolonged, deep
groan of approval uttered in a chorus by the audience, rising in
pitch after a particularly happy effort of the rhapsodist, whose
song begins again and again in mournful gusts like the song of
the wind. It is dark; I only hear--don't see--the singer and his
listeners.
_Tuesday, 10th._--Sketched. A frequent companion in my work is
my friend, little Fatma, a sweet, small child of about five,
with a bright face and two rows of the whitest teeth ever seen.
She squats down snugly by my side, sometimes looking at the
picture, sometimes at the painter, most often at the paint-box,
at which she twiddles silently; sometimes she pensively draws a
pattern with a little brown finger on my dusty boots. I remember
at Rhodes, last year, a knot of little girls used to watch me
sketching in the Street of the Knights; but the little Turks
were not so nice as Fatma, the little Arab; some used to giggle,
and some used to frown at the Djiaour; but one very chatty young
lady of about six with the manners and graces of sixteen would
exclaim in a little fluty voice, "Mash Allah! Mash Allah!
beautiful indeed! nobody here can write like you!" (Turk., if my
memory helps me: _Guzel! guzel! Bir khimse burda senci zhibi
yazamas!_) I had a visit on board the other day from Mustafa
Aga's youngest son, bonny and rosy as an apple. He wore a
flowing robe of linen, _a ramages_, buttoned summarily and once
for all at the neck, but entirely open from the neck downwards;
over this an enormous embroidered jacket with anticipatory
sleeves turned up at the wrists, and on, or rather about, his
feet, a pair of his papa's shoes; he was irresistibly funny and
pretty; an _amorino_, dressed up as the Dog Toby. He was very
chatty; not so his playfellow, "Genani," the son of Abdallah,
the servant of Mustafa, a putto by Raphael modelled in
chocolate; a wild, black-eyed, trembling, romping, dusty,
stark-naked little imp (I used to call him Afreet), and the
finest child I ever saw. The nearest approach to social
intercourse I could get out of him was a sudden plunge at a
proffered cake; after which he would dart off with affected
dismay, and frown at me through an ill-suppressed grin from
behind the nearest place of safety.
_Wednesday, 11th._--Got on with my sketches. Have begun two or
three rough small studies of heads. Hate sketching heads
rapidly; it is unavoidably and odiously free and easy, and
nearly all that is worth escapes. But I have no time for more,
and, I suppose, the sketches will be useful. One man, with a
face like a camel, whom I drew in profile, was annoyed (though
in a general way complimentary) at seeing only one eye in the
picture. This struck me as quaint; for he was _blind_ of the
other; he had not been defrauded of much. My delight, in the
evening, is to watch the processions of women and girls coming
down to the Nile to fetch water. The brown figures, clad in
brown, coming, in long rows, along the brown bank in all the
glow and glory of sunset, look very grand; very grand, too,
returning up the steep bank, along the violet sky, with their
long, flowing folds and the full pitchers now erect on their
heads (when empty they carry them horizontally). They are
neither handsome individually nor particularly well made, but
their movements are good, and the repetition of the same
"motive" many times in succession makes the whole scene
impressive and stately. There is no more fruitful source of
effect in Nature or Art than iteration.
The suppleness of the limbs of the children here is
extraordinary. I have seen little girls squatting like
grasshoppers in the Nile drinking, _a meme_, the water in which
they were standing little more than ankle deep.
An hour after nightfall the dahabieh, my neighbour, slipped her
cables and began to drift down the river; but not till the
rhapsodist had chanted his ditty to the approving murmurs of his
little circle as on the preceding night. His singing has a great
charm for me; I shall miss it. It reminds me much of Andalusian
singing and moonlight nights in the Bay of Cadiz--there is about
it a strangeness and a wayward melancholy that attach and charm
me. It was a love song (I am told, for I could not hear the
words, and should have understood very few if I had).
"Ya leyl! ya leyl! ya leyl!"--the eternal refrain of Arab songs.
"Oh night! oh night! oh night! you have left a fire in my heart,
oh my beloved! Oh my beloved, do not forget me!" &c. &c. &c.
A day or two ago I heard a youth calling the faithful to noonday
prayer, from the gallery of a minaret, with one of the finest
voices I have ever heard; he was tearing his notes from the
inmost depths of his chest with that eagerness of yet
unconscious passion that I have often noticed in southern
children, and which to me is singularly pathetic; he retained
his last notes as long as his breath allowed it, and they
vibrated in distinct waves like a sonorous metal set in motion:
from a little distance the effect was _saisissant_. I could not
see him, and the air seemed to throb with sound as well as with
heat in the sultry noon.
The departure of the dahabieh was celebrated with the usual Arab
waste of powder, and all the echoes of the valley of the tombs
across the river were aroused by the popping of many guns. All
the consuls fired officially, everybody else fired unofficially.
Hosseyn fired officiously--chuckling and nearly tumbling over;
and the dahabieh itself, having opened the ball, fired again at
intervals from a long distance as if it had forgotten
somebody--they are too funny.
_Thursday, 12th._--More sketching. The weather, which is a
little too canicular at noon, is deliciously fresh and cool for
an hour after sunrise; the Arabs, however, look much aggrieved
at the severity of the cold; they sit huddled in muffled groups
with a pinched look that would become a British December day.
I observe that half the men in middle life have no forefinger to
their right hand. They all of them mutilated themselves to avoid
conscription under Said Pasha, who, however, having found them
out, enlisted them all the same. A curious equality prevails
here: whilst sketching two of Mustafa Aga's servants this
morning, I learnt from his son that they were both his
relations. One of them appears to be a particularly nice fellow,
and is a perfect gentleman in his manners.
_Friday, 13th._--My last day in Thebes. When I arrived here and
found neither friends nor letters, I thought, caring little for
the place apart from the ruins, that I should stay four or five
days; to-morrow when I leave I shall have been here _nine_, and
shall go with regret. Work has exercised its usual attaching
influence.
I have drawn in pencil a few heads that will be of use and
interest to me. The subject of one of my studies (Mustafa's
gardener) on receiving from Hosseyn two shillings for one hour's
sitting, accused him, to his infinite disgust and anger, of
having suppressed the _remaining_ eighteen shillings out of a
putative pound which he conceived to be destined for him.
_Excusez!_
_Saturday, 14th._--Got up early to finish a couple of sketches,
and started at half-past eleven amidst salutes and salaams. To
my great relief, the letters which I very rashly sent for from
Cairo three weeks ago have just turned up at the last
moment--fewer than I had expected, but a great delight: the
first and only news I have received since leaving home--such are
Egyptian posts!
Weather divine: the Nile like an opal mirror, reflecting without
a break the faint, sleeping, sultry hills on the horizon: a
lovely, drowsy scene. Arrived shortly after three at the village
at which one lands for Keneh; a very cheery town about a mile
inland. It is generally separated from the landing place on the
river during the floods by a vast sheet of water; this year,
however, owing to the calamitous lowness of the Nile, a narrow,
shallow strip of water, only, intercepts the road, and a large
tract of country remains untilled and unfruitful from the want
of the quickening flood. Keneh is a very pretty sample of an
Egyptian town; it is animated and full of colour, has some
pretty minarets, some charming gardens, and more than the usual
allowance of ornamental doorways: the effect of the mosaic of
black and white bricks is most satisfactory, and has the charm
which always accompanies a considerable result produced by very
sober and simple means. Great relief is frequently obtained by a
band or frieze of carved wood, running across the decorated
surface at the springing of the arch; this band is generally
carved in circles enclosing patterns and picked out with green
and red. In the jambs of the door of one of the mosques, a very
beautiful effect was produced by alternate bands of brickwork
and minutely carved wood, _not_ coloured (three courses of brick
to one band of wood).
Visited a pottery, and for the first time in my life saw a
pattern-wheel and the artist at work--a most fascinating sight:
the bottles and jugs flow into the most graceful forms as if by
magic, and look incomparably prettier than when they are baked.
I could hardly get away. A little boy scratches a pattern on
them as they leave the wheel.
The Consul's white donkey, on which I ride about here, is as
fleet as the wind and as oily in his movements as a two-oared
gondola.
_A propos_ of consuls, Mustafa at Thebes showed me his
travellers' book--in it I saw an entry of the names of Speke and
Grant, with the numbers of their regiments, and the dates of
their departure from Zanzibar and their arrival at Khartoum and
Thebes. A simple conventional travellers' entry, as if they had
returned from an ordinary journey--nothing to hint at the great
achievement which brought them such honour and lasting fame.
_Sunday, 15th._--Made a sketch, a little after sunrise, of the
chain of hills on the west bank of the Nile, then crossed the
river to see the ruins of Denderah. Horses were waiting on the
other side, and would have been most enjoyable if the weather
had been cool; but, under a fierce sun, absolutely incessant
prancing and waltzing ("he make 'fantasia,'" quoth Hosseyn) was
fatiguing after a bit. Was so much struck with the beauties of
the mountains, as seen from the left bank, that I resolved to
stay a couple of days to paint them. The temple is extremely
fine, and in parts unusually well preserved--_the sculpture_,
that is, for the colour is almost entirely lost. These
sculptures, being of a late period (Roman), are clumsy enough;
on the other hand the general scheme of decoration is more
artistic, more varied in distribution and rhythm than in most of
the temples. On the external wall I remarked here, as at Edfou
and at Medinet Haboo, massive and very handsome gargoyles--half
a lion, couchant, on a large bracket, the water flowing from a
spout between the paws--a more important feature in the
architectural aspect of the wall than in northern countries, and
calculated for five months' rain rather than for five minutes',
which is the average annual fall here, I believe. This temple
boasts a portrait of Cleopatra on a large scale, but, like those
of Armout and Karnak, it is absolutely conventional, and any
pretence of detecting an individuality is mere humbug. One
fancies at first one has discovered some peculiarity in the
features, but on a candid examination one must own that the same
peculiarities occur in other faces on the same wall, or that
they are owing to the mutilation to which two-thirds of the
figures in all Egyptian temples has been assiduously subjected.
In a lateral chamber of the temple, on the ceiling, is a most
striking mystical design, representing the firmament and the sun
fecundating the land of Egypt. It is fantastic and poetic in the
extreme; it would delight Rossetti. In the evening made another
sketch, and then rode to Keneh to dine with the Consul--a most
interesting glimpse into a real old-fashioned Muslim interior.
Si Syed Achmet (forty-five years British Agent in this town and
at Khossayr) is a very wealthy old gentleman with large property
in this part of the world. He is of the blood of the Prophet, a
good and pious Muslim, tolerant and full of kindliness. A son,
three nephews and a daughter form his immediate family circle,
living with him in the house to which I was bidden--a bald,
uninteresting place enough. It is entered from a narrow,
irregular triangular court, ornamented on one side with some
good brick and wood work, but ugly and plain on the others, and
disfigured by something between a ladder and a staircase which
leads to the clean but singularly naked room in which we were to
spend the evening. This room was whitewashed, but so roughly
bedaubed that the plain deal cupboards, the doors of which
formed the only embellishment (?) of the walls, were all
besmeared with ragged edges of white. Three windows, innocent of
glass, and protected by a close, plain trellis-work of ordinary
white wood, lighted the room, which boasted in the way of
furniture the usual ugly divans, three red muslin curtains, a
small deal table, two lanterns and two candles in candlesticks.
Shortly after my arrival and most kindly reception by the old
gentleman, who had come up from the country expressly _ad hoc_,
dinner was served. The son, as the eldest, sat at table; the
nephews waited on us; we squatted, I on a cushion, they on the
floor, round a very low table on which was a large, round, brass
tray, containing four plates, some wooden spoons, and a great
many small loaves of bread arranged round it in a circle; a soup
tureen, into which, after washing of hands, everybody plunged
his spoon, was the central feature. After the soup, came in
rapid succession several dishes containing savoury messes which
were really very good, though perhaps too rich, but which I was
entirely unable to enjoy in the sight of a number of hands,
shining with gravy, mopping in succession at the dishes with
crusts of bread, or fetching out a coveted morsel with fingers
too recently licked. It is a delicate and hospitable attention
to put a bit with your own hand on to your guest's plate--an
attention of which I was the frequent but unworthy recipient.
After the made dishes had been done justice to, half a
sheep--head and all--was put on the table and _clawed_ asunder
by Hosseyn. The roast being disposed of, the sweets appeared,
and were eaten out of the common dish with spoons, like the
soup: I was not sorry when it was over, for I had gone through
all the sensations of a sea voyage. I observe that Arabs make a
point of eating with as much noise and smacking of lips as
possible; it is as if they were endeavouring to convey a sort of
oblique expression of thanks to Providence by manifesting their
relish of the blessings vouchsafed. When dinner was over, and a
by no means superfluous washing of hands had been gone through,
we had pipes and coffee. Hosseyn having gone to dine, I was now
thrown on my own extremely limited stock of Arabic for
conversation; and as I had about exhausted that during my ride
to Keneh with one of the nephews, I was hard put to it. However,
I just managed to get through a few broken sentences, to the
great satisfaction of Achmet, who informed me that he had been
for forty years the servant of the English, of whom he thought
very highly, chiefly because, as he expressed it, they have "one
word"--a satisfactory character to leave behind. In the evening
the governor (Mudir) came to see me with a tail of employes and,
if you please, a pocket-handkerchief, of which he was not a
little conscious, holding it in his hand rolled into a neat
tube, which he occasionally drew with dignity across the basis
of the official nose. The Consul for France and Prussia also
came and made his salaam. My borrowed and temporary plumes have
been of real use to somebody here, for the Mudir, hearing that
an Englishman (whom he erroneously supposed to be somebody) was
on board a viceroy's steamer, immediately gave the crew two
months' pay--an alacrity not sufficiently often displayed in
this country, if I am not much misinformed. The dancing-girls
who came to entertain us in the evening were no doubt better
than those of Lougsor, though, with one exception, at least as
ugly; but some of them were gorgeously attired (from the
dancing-dog point of view), and all were a mass of gold
necklaces and coins and glittering headgear, which produced at a
certain distance and in the doubtful light a prodigiously fine
effect of colour. The dancing was a little more varied than that
of the Lougsor women, chiefly, no doubt, because they got more
to drink; but, _en somme_, I am confirmed in my first impression
that it is an eminently ugly performance, though a very
remarkable gymnastic feat. Of course a graceful and good-looking
girl may do a good deal to redeem it by personal charm, and this
was in some degree the case with Zehneb, who is a noted dancer
and the _fine fleur_ of the profession. She is pretty though
coarse in feature, and not without grace; but has a
semi-European smack about her dress and ways that spoils her in
my eyes--hers, by-the-bye, are splendid. Just as the "fantasia"
was at its height, a ragged, dust-soiled, old beggar came,
chattering and grinning, into the room, and at once installed
himself, uninvited but unhindered, on the divan, from which
comfortable post he proceeded to witness the performance and
apparently thoroughly to enjoy his evening. The contrast between
his beggar's garb and the scrupulously cleanly attire of his
neighbours was very curious. He is a fakeer, as I am told;
everybody feeds him, no doors are closed to him; he is not, I
believe, exactly an idiot, but is certainly in his second
childhood--"rimbambito," as the Italians say. On one side of him
squatted a sweet little brown girl, Achmet's daughter, of about
five or six, in a pink cotton shift and with anklets hanging
about her little naked feet. On the other side, a little further
off, was an umber-coloured dancing-girl, with bright bold eyes
painted round with black, covered with a mass of gold coins on
her head, in her hair, on her ears, and round her neck, and
wearing a blue silk dress all bespangled with gold. He looked
like a dust-heap between them. It was a queer picture, taken out
of the "Thousand and One Nights"; from which work also, I
presume, the numerous one-eyed people that I see everywhere in
Egypt, are copied. (I prefer this view to that of unimaginative
pedants who, attaching undue importance to facts, inform me that
this blindness is self-inflicted, to avoid conscription.) My
ride home was a fitting close to such an evening; a fantastic
procession we made, headed by a handful of torch and lantern
bearers, brandishing enormous staves; after which "Meine
Wenigkeit" on a sumptuously caparisoned steed, the consul's
nephew, the captain, Hosseyn, a cawass, all of them on horses,
others on donkeys, and odd men bustling about amongst us and
dispersing the few stragglers that were to be found at that late
hour in the streets. The fitful flare of the torches, dressing
in fugitive, fantastic lights the gateways and dim walls of the
slumbering town, had a very fine effect. More curious still was
our ride _through_ a quarter of a mile of _dourah_ that stood at
least ten or twelve feet high all round us; the train of light
and shower of sparks in the tall graceful corn was of a
surprising aspect. Except that nothing took fire, it was as if
Samson's foxes had been let loose in front of us.
_Monday, 16th._--Sketched. In the evening, yielding, I own, with
some reluctance, to a pressing invitation, returned to Keneh to
dine with Si Achmet. Had, except the roast, exactly the same
dinner as on the previous day, which leads me to conjecture that
the _repertoire_ of Arab cookery is limited. After dinner we
rode out to see the moolid, which is just beginning here. It is
_the_ great moolid of Central Egypt, and to it, but only towards
the end, flock people from all parts of the country till the
concourse is enormous. It must be an interesting sight when in
full swing, but as yet there is little or nothing worth seeing
except the tomb of the sheykh in whose honour the moolid is held
(Sheykh Abd-er-Rahim, the "Genani") to which I was taken by my
host. The building was like most others of the same class in
Egypt: a square chamber with a dome, and windows through which
the coffin, placed conspicuously in the centre, can be seen by
the pious crowds outside. On entering, I was conducted, after
taking off my boots, to a post of honour, on the ground of
course, in the midst of a grave circle of worthies who were
squatting in the _ruelle_ between one side of the coffin and the
wall. On my right was one of the civic functionaries, on my left
the priest attached to the tomb. The spectacle before me was
wonderful both in colour and form, though composed in great part
of the simplest elements. It was like the finest Delacroix in
aspect and tone, but with a gravity and stateliness of form very
foreign to that brilliant but epileptic genius. To the left of
me, covered with a showy embroidered cloth, stood behind a
railing the sarcophagus of the saint, illuminated from above by
various lanterns hung from the ceiling (the central one, and the
handsomest, the gift of Lady Duff Gordon) and from the corners
by gigantic candles, standing in candlesticks of proportionate
dimensions; at the same corners stood great banners of sober but
rich tone, which added much to the general colour. On each side
of the carpet at the head of which I squatted, squatted, in far
more picturesque attire, some of the notables of Keneh, half
hidden in the shadow, their large turbans cast on the rich
carpet they sat on. At the further end stood and stared, with
the solemnity of a chorus in an opera, a motley, dazzling group
of lesser folk; magnificent, too, in the flow of their
draperies, the grace of the half untwisted turbans wreathed
round their necks or hanging from their shoulders, the
stateliness of their forms, and the fiery glow of colour in
which they burnt under the clustered lanterns. Unfortunately, I
could not gaze with attention as undivided as I could have
wished, because the gentleman on my right insisted on making
conversation, the very meagrest form of which exercise absorbed
for the time my powers of attention. Hosseyn, who is very pious,
bled me of an enormous baksheesh for the shrine of the saint.
_Tuesday, 17th._--Completed my sketches in the morning. In the
evening, Si Achmet, his son, and three nephews, one of whom I
neither knew nor had invited (this is entirely Arabic--I might,
also, have taken any one with me to dine with them) came to dine
on board. It was a very droll ceremony--the Arabs had, with one
exception, probably never sat at a table on a chair before, but
they were so entirely simple as not to be (also, by-the-bye,
with one exception) at all ridiculous. Ottilio had, perhaps with
a little malice, arranged the napkins in a most artistic and
intricate fashion; these edifices so impressed my friends that
they did not sit down opposite to their plates but on one side
of them. I set them at once comparatively at their ease by
requesting them, through Hosseyn, to consider themselves at home
and eat with their fingers, forgiving me if I followed the
custom of my country; the proposal was received with great
satisfaction by the old gentleman and his son, who fell to in
their own way, the father muttering his appreciation of the
dishes in low, sonorous ejaculations: "Allah!"--"Mash
Allah!"--"Ou Allah!"--"Ameer! Ameer!" &c. &c. &c. The son, a man
of about forty, with a broken nose and a very strong squint, and
whose movements carried a general impression of contemplative
dreaminess, always verging on surprise, ate with his usual
deliberation and spent his odd moments in contemplating a
shining bunch of fingers, which he periodically and slowly
licked with the utmost impartiality; he did not mix in the
conversation. Of the three cousins on my left, two made a very
fair attempt at using the knife and fork, though it must have
been a virgin effort; the third, who had been a great deal with
English people when he was consul at Khossayr, ate his dinner
and put down his wine like the best European; I suspect, in
fact, that he was brought as a show man. Achmet, in a climax of
gratification, exclaimed towards the end of dinner, "By Allah!
if the Ameer comes to my house another year, he shall be served
after the Frankish custom." Arabs appear to be much devoted to
_limonade gazeuse_--without being the forbidden fruit of wine
itself, it dwells in bottles, and has a sort of air of crime
about it which no doubt pleases them; my left-hand neighbour
took off at least two bottles during dinner.
Hosseyn, whose father was a great friend of Si Achmet, proved
invaluable; he hopped about like a delighted child, filling the
glasses, cutting the meat of the two digitarians, and generally
making conversation--a great relief to me. In the evening one of
the nephews asked for some tea to take home, which I gave him;
another pocketed all the tobacco that was brought them to make
cigarettes. Arabs are hospitable and generous, and I like them
much, but they are indiscreet in the extreme. "Arabs," says
Hosseyn, "have no face; they never take shame." I have seen
instances of this which I won't put down; one only, for it is
very droll: my squinting friend with the pensive look asked Lady
Ely last year if she would just procure for him from the Queen a
title, or an order, as a mark of her regard. I am the bearer of
a letter to her from him now, which I have no doubt is a
reminder. Slew a sheep again.
_Wednesday, 18th._--Left Keneh early, and with regret; the
place, the people and the scenery have left many pleasing
pictures in my memory. I little expected at starting the
annoyance that awaited me! As we approached the spot where
Sheykh Selim receives his devout visitors, I sent word to the
captain that I did not wish to lose any time in landing, but
that the bag of money which had been collected for the saint was
to be delivered, and we were to go on. I had scarcely uttered
this almost sacrilegious order, when the steamer, which had been
judiciously steered within ten yards of a flat, shelving bank,
ran hard and fast into the mud, with the apparent intention of
sticking there permanently, the engine being utterly powerless
to get her out. Nobody on board doubted for an instant but that
Sheykh Selim had stopped us in his resentment; the captain
instantly dispatched sailors with money to propitiate him, and
after a few futile attempts on the part of five or six of the
crew (to loud cries of "Help us, O Prophet! help us, O Sheykh
Selim!") to heave out a vessel that was four or five feet in the
mud, jumped himself into a boat, and hurried, of course
accompanied by Hosseyn, and leaving his vessel to take care of
herself, to beseech the sheykh to get us off. Their conversation
was afterwards reported to me by one who was present. "What is
this, O Sheykh, that thou hast done to us? in what have we been
wanting towards thee? did I not give thee a shirt when we last
came by? and the tobacco, was it not good? was the roast meat
not sufficient? why are we thus punished?"--to whom the sheykh:
"Don't be a fool! why do you come to me about your boat? am I a
sailor? how do you expect me to get her off--or on? Allah got
her on the sand, not I, who am a man like yourselves." The
captain: "Allah is indeed great, but if he ran us aground it was
on thy instigation--thou knowest it, O Sheykh!" &c. &c. In this
strain the conversation lasted at least twenty minutes, during
which time and for the rest of the day I was literally sick with
disgust and anger at the lot of them. Everything that ought not
to be done under the circumstances, including losing the anchor
(which is still at the bottom of the river), was done before
evening; everything that should have been done was left undone.
Next morning (Thursday, 19th) we obtained (by force, after the
fashion of this country) through the governor of the
neighbouring town a gang of two hundred Arabs, magnificent
fellows some of them, who, at last, by heaving and tugging,
contrived to get her off--not without the most unearthly
_charivari_ I ever heard. In the morning I made a sketch;
reached Bellianeh in the evening, appeased, at last, and rather
amused at the abject condition of the captain, to whom I had
conveyed my mind (he had never seen me angry before), and who
swore that in future one hundred sheykhs should not take him out
of his course. My misadventure will benefit my successors in the
good ship _Sheberkheyt_--_a quelque chose malheur est bon._
_Friday, 20th._--Started at seven on horseback to see Abydos,
and had a delightful morning. The weather was fresh and clear,
and the canter of six or seven miles across a fine open plain to
the foot of the mountains where the ruins lie was most
enjoyable. The temples, very strikingly situated on a slope
which sweeps down from a grand amphitheatre of bastion-like
rocks, have a great advantage over all those that I have yet
seen, viz. that their sculptures have almost entirely escaped
mutilation, and are in admirable preservation. This is the more
fortunate, that they are of a very fine period, and most
delicate in workmanship; the type of the faces has considerable
beauty and refinement. The colours, notably in the more recently
excavated temple of Osiris, are often extremely well preserved,
and I am confirmed in my conjecture, that they must have been
much less beautiful in their freshness than now that time has
toned and tuned them. In the larger temple are some very
beautiful wagon-head vaults _cut in the thickness of two layers
of stone_, the upper ones laid on end to get more thickness of
material. They are charmingly decorated with cartouches and
stars on a blue ground, and divided by a band of hieroglyphs
running like a ridge-rib along the head of the vault. The stars
on Egyptian ceilings are always pentagonal, and placed very near
together. At the temple I was joined by the obligato governor, a
puffy Turk with a tight, shiny face that had a look of having
been stung all over by a wasp; he was heavy and stupid, and I
left him in the hands of Hosseyn, galloping ahead myself with
the mounted cawass, a very picturesque Arnout on a very good
horse. _N.B._--Never come to the East again without an English
saddle; the back-board of a Turkish saddle is in the long run an
intolerable nuisance, as are also, though in a less degree, the
shovel-stirrups in which one's feet are imprisoned. In the
afternoon reached Sohag, a sail, or rather a steam, of three or
four hours, in time for a most pleasant evening's walk.
_Saturday, 21st._--Got to Syoot in the afternoon, and was very
glad to catch Lady Duff Gordon on her way up the river. Was
received with great hospitality by the American and Spanish
consuls, wealthy Copts of this town who kindly put their
carriages at my disposal and, better still, their
donkeys--splendid Arabian donkeys, looking, in their trappings,
like cardinals' mules. Nothing is more pleasant than the swift
amble of a good donkey from the Hejaz. Dined in the evening with
Mr. Wonista, the consul for Spain, quite "a la Franca" with
knives and forks and the whole thing. A curious house, and the
rooms small but of enormous height, so that they looked as if
they had been set _on end_ by mistake. The walls were bare
whitewash, but the furniture was of the most gorgeous brocade,
as were also the curtains; there was a European carpet all over
the floor and as many candles on the walls (in glass bells) as
in a _cafe chantant_. I met there a Scotch clergyman belonging
to the American Mission (Episcopalian) which is very active in
Egypt. After dinner the singer from Lady Duff Gordon's boat was
sent for, and in a short time arrived with some of the crew who
acted as chorus; it is this chorus, I find, that gives the
approving murmur after each strophe. He sang well, but his
performance of course lost three-fourths of its charm by not
being heard in its proper place and surroundings. I remember
once in the Sabine hills hearing unexpectedly at a distance, in
the silent dimness of night, the droning song of a _piffera_;
nothing could be more strangely pathetic than this voice rising
in the utter silence from out of the heart of the valley
below--yet those same sounds heard close in the broad daylight
would have seemed uncouth and strident. Arab singing has a
similar quality, and is equally dependent on time and place for
its full effect. Whilst the performance was at its height, and
the minstrel was tuning his note to the most ambitious
_fioriture_, I heard in the room overhead some European
part-singing of a melancholy order, and was informed that the
Scotch minister had been invited by a few proselytes to retire
upstairs "to worship and explain an obscure passage in the
Gospel." On the invitation of the master of the house, I went up
and joined the congregation, who thought it right to favour me
with another psalm. The clergyman then read in Arabic, and
expounded in the same language a chapter from the Bible, and I
must say did it (I speak of his manner only, for Koran and Bible
Arabic is so different from the current idiom, here at all
events, that I did not understand four words in the whole
sermon) in a very simple and impressive way. He had, too, an
admirable accent. He tells me that in spite of vehement
opposition from the Coptic prelates he finds a good deal of
sympathy amongst the people.
_Sunday, 22nd._--Lovely day. Strolled about with a gun. This
place is full of "sparrows of paradise," a little bird of an
exquisite golden green. Since I was here last, the aspect of the
country has changed very much and for the better. Where I saw, a
few weeks back, nothing but pools and mud, is now a vast expanse
of clover and grass of an intense green, sunny and brilliant to
a wonderful degree. The plain looks like one immense jewel, and
contrasts deliciously with the tawny sand-rock which walls it in
on the west, behind the gleaming white domes of the cemetery.
Dined with the other consul in the evening. Same sort of house,
but much larger. No Scotch clergyman this time, but an
Anglo-Arab who teaches in the Coptic school, and, embracing
Coptic views, inveighs bitterly against the converts to
Protestantism. At sunset, to my agreeable surprise, the
Sterlings turned up, _musique en tete_, the singer in the bows
quavering a jubilant strain, and the vessel magnificent with
fresh paint.
_Monday, 23rd._--Killed a sheep. Sketched. Had the consuls and
the Scotch missionary to dine with me. The latter brought me
some newspapers, which I read greedily.
_Tuesday, 24th._--Sketched. At last an evening to myself!--these
festive gatherings are an ineffable bore, if the truth were
told.
_Wednesday, 25th._--Completed my sketches with one exception--a
study of my beautiful grey (_hechtgrau_) donkey. Unless I make a
study at Sakkara, which is just possible, this will be the end
of my work on the Nile. In twenty-two skies which I have painted
there is not a vestige of a cloud, such has been the divinely
serene weather I have had all along. This evening, indeed,
faint, shining flakes of vapour were drawn across the sky,
breaking and tempering the last rays of the sun; but by a
curious piece of luck they did not appear till I was just giving
the last touches to my day's work. Saw a beautiful and original
effect at sunset. Just as the sun was about to sink behind the
hills, a dahabieh drifted past with its sails spread, and
reaching up into the region where the light was still golden,
whilst the face of the water was darkened, and the long, low
banks were already shadowy and grey, the burning sail was
reflected in the night of the river, and looked astonishingly
beautiful. It was like the mellow splendour of the rising moon.
I delight in seeing the sailors climbing the tall, oblique yards
of the Nile boats. Sometimes five or six of them perch on one
yard at the same time, looking at a distance like great birds.
_Thursday, 26th._--Finished my donkey and started; as I get
further north, the weather is much cooler--the mornings and
evenings are quite fresh, though not so cold but that I can
sketch in the shade an hour after sunrise in summer clothes. The
natives, however, seem to take a severe view of the temperature,
and leave nothing unmuffled but their mouths, with which they
occasionally blow their fingers in the most approved winter
fashion. Was more struck than before with Gebel Aboofada--the
infinite and strongly marked strata of which it is made up
writhe and heave in a very grand and fantastic manner. Some of
the Egyptian mountains are ruled like a copy book from head to
foot, and are very monotonous.
At the foot of Aboofada, I saw, for an instant, my first and
last crocodile; a small one. They are very seldom seen from a
steamer below the cataracts, as the noise frightens away the few
there are. I had looked forward to getting a shot at one, and
was a good deal disappointed at finding none up the river. It is
curious how rapidly time lends its perspective to the past.
Every now and then a boat from the cataracts laden with dates
comes floating down the river, and the melancholy chant of the
Nubian sailors, as they strain at the oars, already falls on my
ear as a sudden memory of an almost distant past--not a month
old.
Arrived at Roda this evening. I have been reading, amongst other
things, a book everybody else read thirty years ago, "Les
Natchez," and am greatly disappointed with it. I am especially
struck with the extraordinary contrast between the masterful
sobriety and simplicity of the style, and the far-fetched
affectation of the ideas which are, more often than not,
distorted, tawdry and inflated, sometimes disgusting and not
seldom maudlin in the extreme. This singular discrepancy between
form and matter is especially French, and may frequently be
traced in the works of their painters and sculptors. No living
people has so sensitive a perception of form or so artistic an
epiderm, but an ineradicable self-consciousness develops in them
a theatrical attitude of mind which too often betrays itself in
their artistic and literary conceptions. It is the absolute
consent between conception and execution which constitutes one
of the chief sources of delight in the art of the Greeks, to
whom they are fond, too rashly, of comparing themselves.[41]
I notice in the Natchez a peculiar use of comparisons. That mode
of adding light and colour to an idea which consists in
suggesting analogies, has always been the delight of poets; but
Chateaubriand (whose analogies, by the way, are often singularly
far fetched and unfortunate) occasionally, in a morbid endeavour
to be original, seeks his effects in a suggestion of
dissimilarities; I remember an instance: he has been describing
with minute and gratuitously sickening detail a mangled heap of
dead and dying warriors after a ferocious encounter. "How
different," he exclaims, but in more flowery terms, "is a
haycock in a field with girls rolling down it!" Few will be
disposed to contradict him. His exorbitant personal vanity which
continues to peep through everywhere, and makes even his
unbounded praise of his country seem an oblique tribute to
himself, is droll and nauseating at the same time.
Took a stroll in the evening, and met an English baby! pink and
delicate like a flower; with cape and cockade complete--a pretty
sight.
Thick folds of rose and violet-coloured cloud hung along the
horizon at sunset, and looked autumnal. I have left eternal
summer behind me.
_Friday, 27th._--Such a morning as the evening of yesterday
foreboded; rather chilly and misty, and as near an approach to
winter as Upper Egypt may be expected to afford. The sky was
veiled on all sides with soft grey clouds, wrinkled and fretted
like the grey sands when the sea has left them. It was a fitting
background to the desolate tombs of Beni Hassan, which I visited
an hour or two after sunrise. The range of hills on the face of
which these tombs are excavated is not unlike Gebel Aboofada in
its configuration, except that the strata with which it is
scored are more level and regular. This monotony is, however,
relieved by the sky-line, which is extremely fine. Along the
foot of these hills runs a level strip of barren land, broken
abruptly in its whole length by a steep bank which rises like a
ruined wall from the plain below, and which is, when the Nile is
exceptionally high, the bank of the river itself. Standing, as
it now does, nearly a mile inland, and crested with two deserted
villages, it has a grand but uncanny aspect. I had long been
eager to see the tombs, which show what is considered by many to
be the first rudiment of the Doric order. The similarity, more
striking even than I expected, is so great that, taken with our
knowledge of the early and frequent intercourse of the Greeks
with Egypt and of the assimilating power of their genius, it
certainly offers a strong _prima facie_ presumption in favour of
this view. It may be objected that the echinus, the conical form
of the shaft and its entasis, all three inseparable features and
especial beauties of the Greek order, are wanting here, though
they are present in the earliest specimen of the style preserved
in Greece, the temple of Corinth. This argument would deserve
more consideration if it could be conceived that the order as
seen at Corinth was a spontaneous conception, and not a
development of some more elementary form which, whether native
or imported at a remote period, has not been handed down to us.
In point of fact, the chamfering of a simple stone pier into an
octagon and then further to a polygon of sixteen, or more,
sides (specimens of the two forms are seen side by side in two
of the tombs of Beni Hassan) is so elementary an effort of
architecture and one so obvious, that its independent and
spontaneous adoption by two different nations would be matter
for no surprise. On the other hand, it is to be remarked that
these tombs and the early temple at Karnak already mentioned are
the only instances of this style known in Africa--that not only
are they isolated in themselves, but they form a step to no
further developments--a link in no chain; that in character and
conception they have nothing in common with any of the great
monuments of Egypt, to which indeed they are antagonistic in
feeling; that they stand side by side with other monuments of
the _same_ date (about 2000 B.C.?) of a developed and absolutely
different type--a type certainly indigenous and based on the
imitation of natural forms which is especially characteristic of
Egyptian architecture; and lastly, that the tombs of Beni Hassan
show certain dissonances, such as one might expect to find in
the case of an unintelligent and unperceptive manipulation of a
foreign style. In the face of these considerations, I find it
difficult to resist a suspicion that the view generally received
exactly reverses the truth of the case, and that these tombs are
not indeed the prototypes of the Doric temple, but rather the
results, themselves, of contact at some remote period between
the Egyptians and that branch of the great Aryan family which,
at long intervals, and in successive waves, covered the shores
of the Egean Sea, and one of the latest offshoots of which
poured down into Greece from the heights of Thessaly under the
name of Dorians. I believe the earliest Egyptian _record_ of the
pressure of Greeks in this country goes no further back than
1500 B.C.; but a peaceful intercourse between the two races may
have existed over a long period, without necessarily finding a
place in public records.
The (quasi) Doric tombs are divided into a nave and aisles by
two rows of piers, carrying an architrave and disposed at right
angles to the portico, agreeably carrying out the likeness of a
Greek temple. The circles which intersect the extremity of the
other group of tombs are _parallel_ to the portico, and have a
deplorable effect, much heightened by the shape of the ceiling,
which is that of a very flat pediment. The architrave follows
the line of the roof, but at a still more open angle. It would
be difficult to conceive anything more hideous. Nearly all the
tombs are decorated with frescoes of a rude kind, but displaying
frequently an amount of freedom unusual in Egyptian art.
Our guide was a splendid fellow, looking, in his flowing robes,
like a figure from the "School of Athens" on the "Disputa." The
longer I live, the more I am struck by the identity of Raphael's
frescoes with the noblest aspects of Nature.
To Benisoef in the evening. Passed some travellers; nothing
looks so gay and pretty as a dahabieh with its colours flying
and its sails spread.
_Saturday, 28th._--Lovely morning once again. Reached Sakkara
early, but found that the road to the Pyramids was obstructed by
water, so moved on at once to Ghizeh, opposite to Old Cairo,
where I shall remain till to-morrow morning; meanwhile I have
sent on Hosseyn to secure a room at the inn, and to fetch the
means of leaving a pleasant memory of me on board the
_Sheberkheyt_.
I have stripped the walls of my cabin of the paintings I had
hung round them, and they look desolate and like the coffin of
my now past journey. A most enjoyable journey it has been, full
of pleasant things to remember; full, too, I hope, of artistic
profit and teaching. I have been indeed fortunate, for, as I now
see more clearly than ever, in a dahabieh I could not have
achieved a third of the journey, and in a passenger steamer I
could not have done a stroke of work. Every study I take home I
owe entirely to the viceroy's munificent kindness.
_Sunday, 29th._--Left for Boulay, my destination--gave a parting
sheep to the crew, distributed _largesse_, shook hands all
round, and drove off to the hotel.
FOOTNOTES:
[41] See Chap. IV. p. 239.