The Cataracts — Fogs — Keneh — A gang of convicts — Nile thieves —
Domestic merchants — Shadoofs — Taxation — Ossioot — The Conscription —
Female relations — Coffee shops.
Arrived at Korosko, we at once made our crew aware that they must make
every exertion to reach Cairo as speedily as possible, and that if they
really worked hard, they would receive much higher pay for the journey
down; and we began by offering them five dollars to reach Assuan in
thirty hours. This they accomplished. At nine o’clock, February 1st, we
anchored at Philæ.
It was a beautiful calm morning, as we left Philæ on our way down to the
Cataracts. Not a ripple ruffled the waters, as we glided slowly down
from our moorings to the little village of Mahatta, where the cataract
authorities were to be taken on board. We turned round to take a last
look at the beautiful temples on the “romantic isle,” and the grotesque
rocks surrounding it. It was an enchanting scene, though we viewed it
with different feelings from those we had experienced on that most
pleasant Sunday when we were last there. The sun was just rising behind
the mountains, while a haze rose from the still waters almost hiding the
beauteous prospect.
The Reis and the pilot came on board just above the Cataracts, and we
were struck by the respect and the sympathy in our misfortune which they
expressed.
These men immediately took possession of the oars, leaving our own crew
at liberty to take care of the boat with their long poles. After rowing
most vigorously to the rapids, pulling till they were actually in the
falls, they dropt their oars. The kitchen and whole head of the boat
were immediately hidden by the surge, which rose like two waves on each
side of us, pouring into the boat, and wetting everybody and everything.
The prow of the boat rose again and again, pitched, and then giving a
swerve, clashed up against the rocks, breaking several oars on that
side, and overturning all the men who were at them. In less time than it
takes to tell it, all was over, and we were lying quietly against the
bank of lupins and beans, where we were detained on our way up, and all
the men were employed in baling out the water.
In a few hours we arrived at Assuan, where we only stayed to get our
letters, and then set off again. Our voyage was as pleasant as it could
become under the melancholy circumstances that had preceded it, though
for some days our progress was but slow. On the 3rd of February we
passed the Temple of Komombo, which we beheld from the river in all the
glory of its numerous pylons and columns.
We found the temperature cool—rather too much so at night. Sometimes the
voyage was enlivened by our passing other diabeheehs, containing parties
of our countrymen, some bound for one place, some for another, and all
apparently intent on enjoying life in the East in the most approved
Oriental fashion.
After passing the temples of Edfo, the grottoes of Eilethya, and the
quarries of Gebel Silsilis, we arrived, at rather a late hour, at Esneh.
Here I rested for a short time in one of the large _cafés_, indulging in
a narghileh and a cup of thick coffee, whilst Mahomet entertained the
company, who were pouring in from the different mosques, with an account
of our tour.
At about eight o’clock we left Esneh; but scarcely had we started, when
our crew became clamorous to return, and refused to go on, demanding a
rest of four and twenty hours. This was not in the bond, and we would
not hear of it. We knew that it was merely a scheme to extort money, and
therefore were very decided in our proceedings, threatening the men, if
they returned, to confiscate the bread, of which we had brought for them
a liberal supply, and complain to the proper authorities of their breach
of contract.
This menace staggered them, and in a few hours it was evident that they
preferred bread to stick, for they resumed their oars, and worked with
an energy I had never seen them display. The consequence was, that we
were at Thebes by nine o’clock, where we rested for the night.
Before sunrise the next morning we arrived opposite where Carnac was;
but we could see nothing of it, owing to the height of the banks. The
morning was cold, rainy, misty, and in every way most disagreeable.
Luxor, or rather as much of it as we could see for the fog, looked dirty
and uninviting. Thebes, Memnonia, Medeenet Haboo, and the sphinxes were
concealed by the thick stream that rose from the calm waters. How very
different was all this from the aspect under which we had before beheld
the same scene!
At a late hour, and in hard rain, we arrived at Keneh, where I paid a
visit to five Americans, who had been wrecked the day before on a
neighbouring sand-bank, in the middle of the night, and were glad to
escape with their lives—and their nightgowns.
Keneh is the great Goolah manufactory, and our servants supplied
themselves with about two hundred and fifty, between them. The small
branch of the river by which we had previously approached this village
was then almost dry.
While inspecting the town, I came upon twelve men, who were fastened
together not only by their legs, but also by a chain passing through a
ring attached to an iron collar round their necks; in addition to which
they carried a log of wood, their hands being in the stocks.
Daireh assured me that they were conscripts, so secured to prevent
escape; but this seemed so incredible that I made inquiries from a
source in which I could place confidence, and found that they were
convicts in course of transit, by order of government, to Khartoum, or
rather to Fazokl.
With our dragoman and my sister, we next visited the market-place, where
half a dozen field-pieces were being manœuvred by about fifty soldiers,
who were presided over by two or three wretchedly-dressed officers
sitting in arm-chairs.
While at the Consul’s, waiting for letters, my sister was invited to
visit the hareem. A respectable-looking old gentlewoman—probably sister
to Garf Hossein—received her, and she was conducted to a spacious,
uncomfortable, and badly-furnished room, where there were several women,
badly-dressed, possessed of scarcely any personal recommendation, except
fine eyes. Presently other ladies joined the circle, making about a
dozen in all. They could not understand a word that was said to them;
they were, however, very respectful, and produced coffee, pipes, and an
inferior kind of sherbet. This was her fourth visit of a similar nature;
but this hareem was but a humble affair compared to the others.
We resumed our voyage, and began to make considerable progress. The men,
tired with rowing all night, stopped, at five o’clock in the morning,
near some mountains overhanging the river. They dared not have halted
there during the night, for fear of the thieves that are said to lurk
among the rocks.
Our Reis related marvellous anecdotes of such gentry coming by hundreds
in boats, and boarding the diabeheehs that were sailing unsuspiciously
along, or had anchored for the night. The latest date of any outrage of
this nature, was in Mehemet Ali’s reign, when a boat was plundered, and
the robbers gave their names and cards, with a receipt of the stolen
grain, lest the boatmen might be accused of the theft.
We continued to make much progress, as Daireh had found out a new moving
power, which, though not likely to supersede steam, proved a good
substitute for it. This was the exhibition of a bottle of brandy; it had
the most extraordinary effect upon our rowers, and we arrived at Ekmire
on the afternoon of the next day.
Our Reis took two men from each boat, and went in the jolly-boat to
purchase some indigo-stained cloth for dresses. All our men, by the way,
are merchants, and make investments in every town they come to, in the
produce for which it happens to be famed. At Assuan, charcoal, baskets,
&c.; at Eilethya, henna; at Esneh, coffee, baskets, henna, butter, and
eggs; at Keneh, goolahs and the best tombac for narghilehs; at Girgeh,
turkeys, fowls, and butter particularly cheap and good; at Ossioot, the
best native linen shirtings; and the best blue dresses at Ekmire.
The shadoofs are much more numerous here than I have observed them
anywhere, as many as twenty-five being visible in half a mile, many of
them double, and four between the water and the land, employing eight
men.
I have often wondered why they do not dig a hole of considerable depth,
which would make one shadoof last several months. Now as the river is
constantly going down, every other shadoof is already useless, and its
fellahs are obliged to exert themselves to fabricate another, which, in
its turn, will be left high and dry the week after next, while at its
neighbour, the men are bucketting up the last few skinfulls with all
possible expedition, knowing that they must pass to-morrow in building a
tier below.
An English peasant, with the smallest intelligence, would construct one
of the necessary depth, and lengthen the rope as the river fell, but the
Egyptian makes one that will last a week, and next week will make
another to last another week. The difference, however, between these two
men lies in the certainty with which one can point to his position next
week, and the uncertainty of the other on the same subject.
Indeed, it is not at all improbable that the Egyptian, after drawing
water all day, instead of returning to his wife and family at night, is
sent to play at soldiers at the Kaisoon palace at Cairo, or is marched
till he finds himself standing in a shower of wooden clubs, weighed with
iron, and native spears of peculiar sharpness, waiting for orders to
charge the Shellook, above Fazokl, or he may be hurried off till he
finds himself shivering with cold and sea-sickness on board the Pasha’s
fleet, or suffocated by the smell of oil, and terrified by the flying
machinery, in the Pasha’s cotton factory.
The Englishman knows that no power can force him against his will to
become a soldier, sailor, cotton-manufacturer, or anything else.
This is one of the smallest of the evils of despotic government. The
sense of insecurity, however, pervades all classes. The Cairenes spend
more on their persons than a Parisian exquisite; the Fellah hardly cares
to gather his only crop; the Nubian is quite as indifferent to plant
date-trees that he knows are to be taxed; and the Bedouin will with
difficulty be persuaded to convey you through the desert, though you pay
him one third more than the tariff, because his appearance at the town
from which you start, or the one at which you arrive, is sure to produce
some misunderstanding about taxing.
The aspect of the river varies very little; the banks are some ten feet
higher, and the opposite shore more sandy than usual, but this is all
the change since we were there, three months ago. The weather, too,
seems rarely to alter; the breezes from the south being so frequent as
to suggest the idea of their being unalterable.
We got a-ground about four times a-day, and then the crew of the other
boat came to help to get us off, or _vice-versâ_, the men dashing into
the water to assist more effectually. On one occasion, one fellow, it
appears, could not make up his mind to immerse his limbs in so cold an
element, and he got abused by his more hardy associates. Words soon led
to blows, and in a short time there was a fight, and it took the Reis
and six men to part the combatants. The former laid about him lustily
with a rope, which fell on the naked shoulders of one of the
belligerents with startling effect. In about five minutes afterwards,
the men were all saying their prayers on the top of our cabin, as calmly
as if nothing had happened.
On arriving at Ossioot we proceeded to pay a visit to the Governor,
renowned for his knowledge of geography. The road had improved since I
last had seen it, a few months ago; instead of running as a kind of mud
embankment, or viaduct through sheets of water and banks of mud, it now
runs between two fields of corn, about two feet high, as far as the eye
can reach, with groves of mimosas, acacias, and palm-trees, making a
pleasant shade for hundreds of camels, buffaloes, and goats which
tethered by the leg to a stake, only eat the clover assigned to them.
The trees have not shared in this improvement, owing to the dust and
sun; and they contrast conspicuously with the green of the
wheat-sprouts.
Ossioot might put forward claims to the picturesque, visible in the
glaring white of the Governor’s offices, hareem, and palace, set off by
the large mimosas and gum-trees, which by their fragrance are extremely
suggestive of an English green-house. Eleven minarets rose from the dark
verdure, and the river ran through the bridge, which was covered with
soldiers, government officers, Coptic clerks, with their ink-bottles in
their girdles, and wearing black turbans on their heads; and Arab
merchants in their magnificent black cloth mantles, with richly
caparisoned horses or asses, waiting till their owners had transacted
their business in this eastern Rialto.
An hour afterwards I repassed the bridge, and it had become a veritable
Bridge of Sighs. The conscription, that curse of despotic governments,
was in full career in Egypt, and Ossioot being the head-quarters of the
recruits, they were arming in vast numbers. We counted eight batches of
twenty-five at one time, fastened together by ropes, attached to iron or
wooden handcuffs. They seemed indifferent, or stupid; and were between
twelve and forty years of age—at least two-thirds were under eighteen.
They were accompanied by a dozen janissaries, with loaded muskets, and
were followed by hundreds of women, in whose faces might be traced every
shade of feeling.
There was rage, venting itself in imprecations from the feeble
grandmother, now deprived of her only protection, and left a beggar in
the streets. There was the wailing sorrow of mothers mourning the
deprivation of their eldest sons or of the youngest and most beloved
Benjamin. There was the tender grief of the newly-wedded bride, and the
frantic despair of the young mother, at one blow robbed of the father of
her children and the support of their existence.
And lastly there was the cool indifference of the passers-by; who
remember how they had to endure the loss of father, husband, son, or
brother, and no one pitied them. We must, however, add that there was
the intense indignation of two Englishmen: who, while pitying the fate
of these poor victims of despotism, felt a sensible satisfaction in
remembering the blessings of the liberal Government, that made their
home the envy of surrounding nations.
But the procession moves on, till the poor fellows arrive at the
Government offices. Then comes a long halt, for every man must be
examined; and those will escape who have put out the right eye, or cut
off the fore-finger of the right hand. In three hours the procession
resumes its march—minus about seventy, rejected—the women accompanying
them, and shouting, kissing, yelling and sobbing, till the well-laden
diabeheeh turns slowly down the stream in the direction of Cairo; then
they return, and as they retrace their steps on the shady road to their
native town, they besmear their faces and clothes with mud to denote
their desolate state.
The Pasha of Egypt is said to have issued orders for recruiting, to the
extent of twenty thousand men: of these Ossioot must provide one
hundred, and the neighbourhood three hundred more. Ismael Pasha whom I
found as affable as handsome, and as learned as ever, told me that he
had been perfectly disgusted at the daily scenes in which he was obliged
to be an actor, in the exercise of his disagreeable duties. On the first
day he let off an only son, and a young man just married—since when, if
the Arabs are to be credited, no second son or unmarried man has been
taken. He said: you will be surprised to learn that in six months these
identical boys will return to this place, to escort with loaded muskets,
their brothers, cousins, and friends—and that they are, at this very
moment, in the enjoyment of the best supper they have ever eaten,
rapidly forgetting all that they have left behind them.
Every picture, however dark, has a bright side; it is so in this
instance. The grief of a Moslem mother may be as acute as that of a
Christian, but she will never suffer in her circumstances for the
deprivation of her children; for by Moslem, as well as by Egyptian rule,
she must be supported by her family. As long as one man remains in it,
he is obliged to provide for the whole of his helpless female relatives.
Daireh assured me, that in this way he had to provide for fifteen women.
No Moslem can ever starve; no Moslem will let a beggar pass him without
giving five paras for “the God’s sake.” I noticed a woman with a child
taking alms fifteen times in one bazaar, while I was buying some pipes;
the sum thus obtained would keep her comfortably for a fortnight. What
prevents professional begging I cannot say, but except the Dervishes, no
one begs unless forced to do so, and then not a day longer than is
absolutely necessary.
I visited the city at night, and found it the most beautiful sight I had
ever beheld, except the Nubian sunsets. All the streets were completely
deserted, but the native bazaar, which was so full of life that it
reminded me of the lower streets in some of our largest towns. Crowds of
women were selling eggs, butter, and fowls; there were stalls where hot
cutlets, and “biftecs” were frizzling, with a savoury odour that made
one’s mouth water; and there were coffee-rooms, the clubs of Egypt,
filled with narghileh and chibouque smokers, who ought to have been at
home, according to their wives.
I went into one of these coffee-shops which are also used as hotels, and
discovered a very large apartment in the rear with a mud divan all
round, in which some twenty men were reposing, wrapt in their capotes.
With the assistance of my servant, I entered into conversation with some
of them, and soon learnt as a reason for their being here, that one man
had quarrelled with his wife, another was a widower, this one was
unmarried, that was about to become a father when the house is
invariably surrendered to the female relations, and another was alone at
home, his wife having gone to her home for a few nights. They came in
one by one, smoked a pipe, drank a cup of coffee, fell asleep, and
snored in almost as short a time as is taken by the description. They
pay about five paras for a narghileh, the same for a cup of coffee, and
the same for the couch—total fifteen paras, not quite one penny.
As I rode back, there was an exquisite sense of stillness over
everything; sheep, camels, buffaloes, and even dogs seemed asleep, a
thick haze rose from the well-watered meadows all around: and the death-
like silence that pervaded the scene was preserved till I reached the
river, when I easily distinguished sounds of music and dancing
proceeding from our crew who were making merry in a coffee house of the
lowest order.