smaller silhouettes of the great river--the shadoofs or irrigating
machines, the rows of palm-trees, the lateen yards clustered near a
port, and always and forever the women coming down the bank to get water
from the yellow tide. These processions of women are the most
characteristic "Nile scene with figures" of the present day. I am not
sure but that one of their jars, or the smaller gray kulleh (which by
evaporation keeps the water deliciously cool), would evoke "Egypt" more
quickly in the minds of most of us than even the portrait of Cleopatra
herself on the back wall at Denderah. If one is staying in Cairo after
the tremendous voyage is over, one wanders to the banks every now and
then to gaze anew at the broad, monotonous stream. It comes from the
last remaining unknown territory of our star, and this very year has
seen that space grow smaller. Round about it stand to-day five or six of
the civilized nations, who have formed a battue, and are driving in the
game. The old river had a secret, one of the three secrets of the world;
but though the North and South Poles still remain unmapped, the annual
rise of its waters will be strange no longer when Lado is a second
Birmingham. How will it seem when we can telephone to Sennaar (perhaps
to that ambassador beloved by readers of the Easy Chair), or when there
is early closing in Darfur?
[Illustration: THE DOCK AT OLD CAIRO
From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
At Cairo, when one rides or drives, one almost always crosses the Nile;
but Cairo herself does not cross. Her more closely built quarters do not
even come down to the shore. The Nile and Cairo are two distinct
personalities; they are not one and indivisible, as the Nile and Thebes
are one, the Nile and Philae.
The river at Cairo has a dull appearance. Its only beauty comes from the
towering snow-white sails of the dahabeeyahs and trading craft that
crowd the stream. It is true that these have a great charm.
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE
In the old quarters this is Arabian. The beauty lies largely in the
latticed balconies called mouchrabiyehs, which overhang the narrow
roadways. These bay-windows sometimes stud the facades thickly, now
large, now small, but always a fretwork of delicate wood-carving. Often
from the bay projects a second and smaller oriel, also latticed. This is
the place for the water jar, the current of air through the lattices
keeping the water cool. An Arabian house has no windows on the
ground-floor in its outer wall save small air-holes placed very high,
but above are these mouchrabiyehs, which are made of bits of cedar
elaborately carved in geometrical designs. The small size of the pieces
is due to the climate, the heats of the long summer would warp larger
surfaces of wood; but the delicacy and intricacy of the carving are a
work of supererogation due to Arabian taste. From the mouchrabiyehs the
inmates can see the passers-by, but the passers-by cannot see the
inmates, an essential condition for the carefully guarded privacy of the
family.
There is in Cairo a personage unconnected with the government who, among
the native population, is almost as important as the Khedive himself;
this is the Sheykh Ahmed Mohammed es Sadat, the only descendant in the
direct line of the Prophet Mohammed now living. He has the right to many
native titles, though he does not put them on his quiet little
visiting-card, which bears only his name and a mysterious monogram in
Arabic. By Europeans he is called simply the Sheykh (the word means
chief) es Sadat. The ancestral dwelling of the sheykh shares in its
master's distinction. It is pointed out, and, when permission can be
obtained, visited. It is a typical specimen of Saracenic domestic
architecture, and has always remained in the possession of the family,
for whom it was first erected eight hundred years ago. There are in
Cairo other Arabian houses as beautiful and as ancient as this. By
diplomatic (and mercenary) arts I gained admittance to three, one of
which has walls studded with jasper and mother-of-pearl. But these
exquisite chambers, being half ruined, fill the mind with wicked
temptations. One longs to lay hands upon the tiles, to bargain for an
inscription or for a small oriel with the furtive occupants, who have no
right to sell, the real owners being Arabs of ancient race, who would
refuse to strip their walls, however crumbling, for unbelievers from
contemptible, paltry lands beyond the sea. The house of the Sheykh es
Sadat may not leave one tranquil, for it is tantalizingly picturesque,
but at least it does not inspire larceny; the presence of many servitors
prevents that. To reach this residence one leaves (gladly) the Boulevard
Mohammed Ali, and takes a narrower thoroughfare, the Street of the
Sycamores, which bends towards the south. This lane winds as it goes,
following the course of the old canal, the Khaleeg, and one passes many
of the public fountains, or sebeels, which are almost as numerous in
Cairo as the mosques. A fountain in Arab signification does not mean a
jet of water, but simply a place where water can be obtained. The
sebeels are beautiful structures, often having marble walls, a dome, and
the richest kind of ornament. The water is either dipped with a cup from
the basin within, or drawn from the brass mouth-pieces placed
outside. Nothing could represent better, I think, the difference between
the East and the West than one of these elaborate fountains, covering,
in a crowded quarter, the space which might have been occupied by two or
three small houses, adorned with carved stone-work, slabs of porphyry,
and long inscriptions in gilt, and an iron town pump, its erect
slenderness taking up no space at all, and its excellent if unbeautiful
handle standing straight out against the sky.
[Illustration: MOUCHRABIYEHS IN THE OLD QUARTER]
A narrow lane, leaving the Street of the Sycamores, burrows still more
deeply into the heart of the quarter, and at last brings us to a porch
which juts into the roadway, masking, as is usual in Cairo, the real
doorway, which is within. Upon entering, one finds himself in a
quadrilateral court, which is open to the sky. An old sycamore shades
several latticed windows, among them one which contains three of the
smaller oriels; this portion of the second story rests upon an antique
marble column. On one side of the column is the low, rough archway
leading to the porch; on the other, the high decorated marble entrance
of the reception-hall. For in Arabian houses all the magnificence is
kept for the interior. In the streets one sees only plain stone walls,
which are often hidden under a stucco of mud, more or less peeled off,
so that they look half ruined. In the old quarters of Cairo, among the
private houses, one obtains, indeed (unless one has an invitation to
enter), a general impression of ruin. At the back of the sheykh's court
is the stairway to the hareem, the entrance masked by a gayly colored
curtain. Across another side extends the private mosque, only half
hidden by an ornamented grating. One can see the interior and the high
pulpit decked with the green flag of the Prophet. The walls which
encircle the court, and which are embellished here and there with Arabic
inscriptions, are of differing heights, as they form parts of separate
structures which have been erected at various periods through the eight
centuries. The place is, in fact, an agglomeration of houses, and some
of the older chambers are crumbling and roofless. The central court
(which shows its age only in a picturesque trace or two) is adorned with
at least twenty beautiful mouchrabiyehs, some large, some small, and no
two on the same level. A charm of Saracenic architecture is that you can
always make discoveries, nothing is stereotyped; of a dozen delicate
rosettes standing side by side under a balcony, no two are carved in the
same design.
[Illustration: INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOUSE, CAIRO
From a photograph by Abdullah Freres, Cairo]
In a room which stretches back to the garden--and which at the time of
our visit was empty, save for a row of antique silver-gilt coffee-pots
standing on the marble floor--there is a long, low window, like a band
in the wall, formed of small carved lattices. The hand of Abbey only, I
think, could reproduce the beauty of this casement; but instead of the
charming seventeenth-century English girls whom he would wish to place
there, realism would demand the hideous eunuchs, with their gold chains
and scarf-pins; or else (and this would be better) the dignified old
Arab in a white turban who sat cross-legged in the court with his long
pipe, his half-closed eyes expressing his disdain for the American
visitors. The courtesy of the master of the house, however, made up for
his servitor's scorn. The sheykh is a tall man, somewhat too portly,
with amiable dark eyes, and a gleam of humor in his face. One scans his
features with interest, as if to catch some reflection of the Prophet;
but the rays from an ancestor who walked the earth twelve hundred years
ago are presumably faint. There is nothing modern in the sheykh's
attire; his handsome flowing gown is of silk; he wears a turban,
slippers, and an India shawl wound round his waist like a sash. When the
air is cool, he shrouds himself in a large outer cloak of fine dark
blue cloth, which is lined with white fur. Sometimes Signor Ahmed
carries in his hand the Mohammedan rosary. This string of beads appears
to be used as Madame de Stael used her "little stick," as the English
called it (in Italy, more poetically, they named it "a twig of laurel").
Corrinne must always have this beside her plate at dinner to play with
before she conversed, or rather declaimed. Her maid, in confidence,
explained that it was necessary to madame "to stimulate her ideas." One
often sees the rosary on duty when two Turks are conversing. After a
while, their subjects failing them, they fall into silence. Then each
draws out his string from a pocket, and they play with their beads for a
moment or two, until, inspiration reviving, they begin talking again.
One hopes that poor Ahmed Mohammed has not been driven to his string too
often as mental support during dumb visits from Anglo-Saxon tourists,
who can do nothing but stare at him. The sheykh's reception-hall is
forty feet wide and sixty feet long. The ceiling, which has the
Saracenic pendentives in the corners and under the beams, is of wood,
gilded and painted and carved in the characteristic style which one
vainly tries to describe. Travellers have likened it to an India shawl;
to me it seemed to approach more nearly the wrong side of a Persian
scarf, which shows the many-hued silken ravellings. The effect, as a
whole, though extraordinarily rich, is yet subdued. The walls are
encrusted with old blue tiles which mount to the top. At one end of the
room there is a beautiful wall-fountain. And now comes the other side of
the story. To enjoy all this beauty, you must not look down; for, alas!
the marble floor is tightly covered with a modern French carpet; chairs
and tables of the most ordinary modern designs have taken the place of
the old divans; and these tables, furthermore, are ornamented with
hideous bouquets of artificial flowers under glass. Finally, the tiles
which have fallen from the lower part of the walls have not been
replaced by others; a coarse fresco has been substituted. What would not
one give to see the sheykh, who is himself a purely Oriental figure,
seated in this splendid hall of his fathers as it once was, on one of
the now superseded divans, the marbles of his floor uncovered save for
his discarded Turkish rugs, the fountain sending forth its rose-water
spray, perfume burning in the silver receivers, and no encumbering
furniture save piles of brocaded cushions and a jar or two on the gilded
shelf.
But we shall never see this. In 1889, 180,594 travellers crossed Egypt
by way of the Suez Canal. In this item of statistics we have the reason.
THE PYRAMIDS
For those who have fair eyesight the pyramids of Gizeh are a part of
Cairo; their gray triangles against the sky are visible from so many
points that they soon become as familiar as a neighboring hill. In
addition, they have been pictured to us so constantly in paintings,
drawings, engravings, and photographs that one views them at first more
with recognition than surprise. "There they are! How natural!" And this
long familiarity makes one shrink from arranging phrases about them.
One thing, however, can be said: when we are in actual fact under them,
when we can touch them, our easy acquaintance vanishes, and we suddenly
perceive that we have never comprehended them in the least. The strange
geometrical walls effect a spiritual change in us; they free us from
ourselves for a moment, and unconsciously we look back across the past
to which they belong, and into the future, of which they are a part
much more than we are, as unmindful of our own little cares and
occupations, and even our own small lives, as though we had never been
chained to them. It is but a fleeting second, perhaps, that this mental
emancipation lasts, but it is a second worth having!
One drives to the pyramids in an hour, over a macadamized road. The
perennial stories about trouble with the Bedouins belong to the past.
Soldiers and policemen guard the sands as they guard the Cairo streets,
and the proffer of false antiquities is not more pressing, perhaps, than
the demands of the beggars in town. These three pyramids of Gizeh are
those we think of before we have visited Egypt. But there are others;
including the small ones and those which are ruined, seventy have been
counted in twenty-five miles from Cairo to Meydoom, and pyramids are to
be seen in other parts of Egypt. The stories concerning Gizeh and the
travellers who, from Herodotus down, have visited the colossal tombs,
are innumerable. I do not know why the one about Lepsius should seem to
me amusing. This learned man and his party, who were sent to Egypt by
King Frederick William of Prussia in 1842, celebrated that king's
birthday by singing in chorus the Prussian national anthem in the centre
of Cheops. The Bedouins in attendance reported outside that they had
"prayed all together a loud general prayer."
In connection with the pyramids, the English may be said to have devoted
themselves principally to measurements. The genius of the French, which
is ever that of expression, has invented the one great sentence about
them. So far, the Americans have done nothing by which to distinguish
themselves; but their time will come, perhaps. One fancies that Edison
will have something to do with it. In the meanwhile modernity is already
there. There is a hotel at the foot of Cheops, and one hardly knows
whether to laugh or to cry when one sees lawn-tennis going on there
daily.
But no matter what lies before us--even if they should pave the desert,
and establish an English tramway (or a line of American horse-cars) to
the Sphinx--these mighty masses cannot be belittled. There is something
in the pyramids which overawes our boasted civilization. In their
presence this seems trivial; it seems an impertinence.
THE COPTS
The most interesting of the Coptic churches are at Old Cairo, a mother
suburb, where the first city was founded by the conquering Arabian army.
Here, ensconced amid hill-like mounds of rubbish, concealed behind mud
walls, hidden at the end of blind alleys, one finds the temples of these
native Christians, who are the descendants of the converts of St. Mark.
The exterior walls have no importance. In truth, one seldom sees them,
for the churches are within other structures. Some of them form part of
old fortified convents; one is reached by passing through the
dwelling-rooms of an inhabited house; another is up-stairs in a Roman
tower. You arrive somehow at a door. When this is opened, you find
yourself in a church whose general aspect is rough, and whose aisles are
adorned with dust and sometimes with dirt. But these temples have their
treasures. Chief among them are the high choir screens of dark wood,
elaborately carved in panels, and decorated with morsels of ivory which
have grown yellow from age. The sculpture is not open-work; it does not
go through the panel; it is done in relief. The designs are Saracenic,
but these geometrical patterns are interrupted every now and then by
Christian emblems and by the Coptic cross. The style of this
wood-carving is unique; no other sculpture resembles it. If it does not
quite attain beauty, it is at least very odd and rich. There are also
carved doors representing Scriptural subjects, marble pulpits, singular
bronze candlesticks, brass censers adorned with little bells,
silver-gilt gospel-cases, embroidered vestments, silver marriage-diadems,
ostrich eggs in metal cases, and old Byzantine paintings, often
representing St. George, for St. George is the patron saint of the
Copts.
[Illustration: A DONKEY RIDE]
These people esteem themselves to be the true descendants of the ancient
Egyptians, as distinguished from the conquering race of Arabians who
have now overrun their land. It is a comical idea, but they call upon
us to note their close resemblance to the mummies. Early converts to
Christianity, they have remained faithful to their belief amid the
Mohammedan population all about them. It must be mentioned, however,
that they had been pronounced heretics by the Council of Chalcedon
before the Arabian conquest; for they had refused to worship the human
nature of Christ, revering His divine nature alone. They are the
guardians of the Christian legends of Egypt. In a crypt under one of
their churches they show two niches. One, they say, was the
sleeping-place of Joseph, and the other of the Virgin and Child, during
the flight into Egypt. Near Heliopolis is an ancient tree, under whose
branches the Holy Family are supposed to have rested when the sunshine
was too hot for further travelling.
There are between four and five hundred thousand Copts in Egypt. It may
be mentioned here that the Christians of the country, including all
branches of the faith, number to-day about six hundred thousand, or
one-tenth of the population. The Copts are the book-keepers and scribes;
they are also the jewellers and embroiderers. Their ancient tongue has
fallen into disuse, and is practically a dead language. They now use
Arabic, like all the rest of the nation; but the speech survives in
their church service, a part of which is still given in the old tongue,
though it is said that even the priests themselves do not always
understand what they are saying, having merely learned the sentences by
heart, so that they can repeat them as a matter of form. Copts have been
converted to Protestantism during these latter days by the American
missionaries.
They are not, in appearance, an attractive people. Their convents and
churches, at least in Cairo and its neighborhood, are so hidden away,
inaccessible, and dirty that they are but slightly appreciated by the
majority of travellers, who spend far more of their time among the
mosques of Mohammed. But both the people and their ancient language are
full of interest from an historical point of view. They form a field for
research which will give some day rich results. A little has been done,
and well done; but much still remains hidden. It has yet to be dug out
by the learned. Then it must be translated by the middle-men into those
agreeable little histories which, with agreeable little tunes, agreeable
little stories, and agreeable little pictures, are the delight of the
many.
KIEF
The large modern cafes of Cairo are imitations of the cafes of Paris.
They are uninteresting, save that one sees under their awnings, or at
the little tables within, the stambouline in all its glory and
ugliness--that is, the heavy black frock-coat with stiff collar, which,
with the fez or tarboosh, is the appointed costume for all persons who
are employed by the government. The stranger, observing the large number
of men of all ages in this attire, is led to the conclusion that the
government must employ many thousands of persons in Cairo alone; but
probably there is a permitted usage in connection with it, like that
mysterious legend--"By especial appointment to the Queen"--which one
sees so often in England inscribed over the doors of little shops in
provincial High Streets, where the inns have names which to Americans
are as fantastic as anything in "Tartarin;" the "White Horse;" the "Crab
and Lobster;" the "Three Choughs;" and the "Five Alls."
The native cafes have much more local color than the homes of the
stambouline. Outside are rows of high wooden settees, upon which the
patrons of the establishment sit cross-legged, their slippers left on
the ground below. One often sees a row of Arabs squatting here, holding
no communication with each other, hearing nothing, seeing nothing,
enjoying for the moment an absolute rest. This period of daily repose,
called kief, is a necessity for Egyptians. It has its overweight, its
excess, in the smoking of hasheesh, which is one of the curses of the
land; but thousands of the people who never touch hasheesh would
understand as little how to get through their day without this
interregnum as without eating; in fact, eating is less important to
them.
The Egyptian often takes his rest at the cafe. When the American sees
Achmet and Ibrahim, who have attended to some of his errands for
infinitesimal wages--men whose sole possessions are the old cotton gowns
on their backs--when he sees them squatted in broad daylight at the
cafe, smoking the long pipes and slowly drinking the Mocha coffee, it
appears to him an inexplicable idleness, an incurable self-indulgence.
It is idleness, no doubt, but associations should not be mixed with the
subject. To the American the little cup of after-dinner coffee seems a
luxury. He does not always stop to remember that Achmet's coffee is,
very possibly, all the dinner he is to have; that it has been preceded
by nothing since daylight but a small piece of Egyptian bread, and that
it will be followed by nothing before bedtime but a mouthful of beans or
a lettuce-stalk. The daily rest is by no means taken always at the cafe.
Egyptians also take it at the baths, where, after the final douche, they
spend half an hour in motionless ease. For those who have not the paras
for the cafe or the bath, the mosques offer their shaded courts. When
there is no time to seek another place, the men take their rest wherever
they are. One often sees them lying asleep, or apparently asleep, in
their booths at the bazaars. The very beggars draw their rags round
them, cover their faces, and lie down close to a wall in the crowded
lanes.
[Illustration: AN ARAB CAFE
From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]
At the cafes, during another stage of the rest, games are played, the
favorites being dominos, backgammon, and chess. Sometimes a story-teller
entertains the circle. He narrates the deeds of Antar and legends of
adventure; he also tells stories from the Bible, such as the tale of the
flood, or of Daniel in the den of lions. Sometimes he recites, in
Arabic, the poems of Omar Khayyam.
"I sent my soul through the invisible,
Some letter of that after-life to spell;
And by-and-by my soul returned to me,
And answered, 'I myself am heaven and hell!'"
This verse of the Persian poet might be taken as the motto of kief; for
if the heaven or hell of each person is simply the condition of his own
mind, then if he is able every day to reduce his mind, even for a
half-hour only, to a happy tranquillity which has forgotten all its
troubles, has he not gained that amount of paradise?
II
[Illustration]
[Illustration: arabic]