train of royal visitors, of the orchids, the orchestras, and the
wax-lights, are followed at Gezireh by a tale of murder which is
singularly ghastly. Ismail's Minister of Finance was his foster-brother
Sadyk, with whom he had lived upon terms of closest intimacy all his
life. The two were often together; frequently they drove out to Gezireh
to spend the night. One afternoon in 1878 Ismail's carriage stopped at
the doorway of the palace in Cairo occupied by his minister. Sadyk came
out. "Get in," Ismail was heard to say. "We will go to Gezireh. There
are business matters about which I must talk with you." The two men went
away together. Sadyk never came back. When the carriage reached Gezireh,
Ismail gave orders that it should stop at the palace, instead of going
on to the kiosk, where they generally alighted. He himself led the way
within, crossing the reception-room to the small private salon which
overlooks the Nile. Here he seated himself upon a sofa, drawing up his
feet in the Oriental fashion, which was not his usual custom. Sadyk was
about to follow his example, when he found himself seized suddenly from
behind. The doors were now locked from the outside, leaving within only
the two foster-brothers and the man who had seized Sadyk. This was a
Nubian named Ishak, a creature celebrated for his strength. He now
proceeded to murder Sadyk after a fashion of his own country, a process
of breaking the bones of the chest and neck in a manner which leaves on
the skin no sign. Sadyk fought for his life; he dragged the Nubian over
the white velvet carpet, and finally bit off two of his fingers. But he
was not a young man, and in the end he was conquered. During this
struggle Ismail remained motionless on the sofa, with his feet drawn up
and his arms folded. A steamer lay at anchor outside, and during the
night Sadyk's body was placed on board; at dawn the boat started up the
river. At the same hour Ismail drove back to Cairo, where, in the course
of the morning, it was officially announced that the Minister of
Finance, having been detected in colossal peculations, had been banished
to the White Nile, and was already on his way thither. Sadyk's body
rests somewhere at the bottom of the river. But Ismail's little drama of
banishment and the steamer were set at naught when, after he had left
Cairo, Ishak the Nubian returned, with his mutilated hand and his story.
Such is the tale as it is told in the bazaars. Ismail's motive in
murdering a man he liked (he was incapable of true affection for any
one) is found in the fact that he could place upon the shoulders of the
missing minister the worst of the financial irregularities which were
trying the patience of the European powers. It did him no good. He was
deposed the next year.
During the spring of 1890 Gezireh awoke to new life for a time. A French
company had purchased the place, with the intention of opening it as an
Egyptian Monte Carlo. But Khedive Tufik, who has prohibited gambling
throughout his domain, forbade the execution of this plan. So the
tarnished silks remain where they were, and the faded gilded ceilings
have not been renewed. When we made our last visit, during the heats of
early summer, the blossoms were as beautiful as ever, and the ghosts
were all there--we met them on the marble stairs: the European princes,
led by poor Eugenie; the sultanas, with their jewels and their band;
Ismail, with his drooping eyelids; and Sadyk, followed by the Nubian.
TUFIK
The present Khedive (or Viceroy) is thirty-eight years of age. Well
proportioned, with fine dark eyes, he may be called a handsome man; but
his face is made heavy by its expression of settled melancholy. It is
said in Cairo that he has never been known to laugh. But this must apply
to his public life only, for he is much attached to his family--to his
wife and his four children; in this respect he lives strictly in the
European manner, never having had but this one wife. He is a devoted
father. Determined that the education of his sons should not be
neglected as his own education was neglected by Ismail, he had for them,
at an early age, an accomplished English tutor. Later he sent them to
Geneva, Switzerland; they are now in Vienna. Tufik's chief interest, if
one may judge by his acts, is in education. In this direction his
strongest efforts have been made; he has improved the public schools of
Egypt, and established new ones; he has given all the support possible
to that greatest of modern innovations in a Mohammedan country, the
education of women. With all this, he is a devout Mohammedan; he is not
a fanatic; but he may be called, I think, a Mohammedan Puritan. He
receives his many European and American visitors with courtesy. But they
do not talk about him as they talked about Ismail; he excites no
curiosity. This is partly owing to his position, his opinions and
actions having naturally small importance while an English army is
taking charge of his realm; but it is also owing, in a measure, to the
character of the man himself. One often sees him driving. On Sunday
afternoons his carriage in semi-state leads the procession along the
Gezireh Avenue. First appear the outriders, six mounted soldiers; four
brilliantly dressed saises follow, rushing along with their wands high
in the air; then comes the open carriage, with the dark-eyed, melancholy
Khedive on the back seat, returning mechanically the many salutations
offered by strangers and by his own people. Behind his carriage are four
more of the flying runners; then the remainder of the mounted escort,
two and two. At a little distance follows the brougham of the
Vice-reine; according to Oriental etiquette, she never appears in public
beside her husband. Her brougham is preceded and followed by saises, but
there is no mounted escort. The Vice-reine is pretty, intelligent, and
accomplished; in addition, she is brave. Several years ago, when the
cholera was raging in Cairo, and the Khedive, almost alone among the
upper classes, remained there in order to do what he could for the
suffering people, his wife also refused to flee. She stayed in the
plague-stricken town until the pestilence had disappeared, exerting her
influence to persuade the frightened women of the lower classes to
follow her example regarding sanitary precautions. Tufik is accused of
being always undecided; he was not undecided upon this occasion at
least. It is probable that some of his moments of indecision have been
caused by real hesitations. And this brings us to Arabi.
Arabi (he is probably indifferent to the musical sound of his name) was
the leader of the military revolt which broke out in Egypt in 1881--a
revolt with which all the world is familiar, because it was followed by
the bombardment of Alexandria by the English fleet. Arabi had studied at
El Azhar; he knew the Koran by heart. To the native population he seemed
a wonderful orator; he excited their enthusiasm; he roused their
courage; he almost made them patriotic. The story of Arabi is
interesting; there were many intrigues mixed with the revolt, and a
dramatic element throughout. But these slight impressions--the idle
notes merely of one winter--are not the place for serious history. Nor
is the page completed so that it can be described as a whole. Egypt at
this moment is the scene of history in the actual process of making, if
the term may be so used--making day by day and hour by hour. Arabi has
been called the modern Masaniello. The watchword of his revolt was,
"Egypt for the Egyptians"; and there is always something touching in
this cry when the invaded country is weak and the incoming power is
strong. But it may be answered that the Egyptians at present are
incapable of governing themselves; that the country, if left to its own
devices, would revert to anarchy in a month, and to famine, desolation,
and barbarism in five years. Americans are not concerned with these
questions of the Eastern world. But if a similar cry had been
successfully raised about two hundred years ago on another
coast--"America for the Americans"--would the Western continent have
profited thereby? Doubtless the original Americans--those of the red
skins--raised it as loudly as they could. But there was not much
listening. The comparison is stretched, for the poor Egyptian fellah is
at least not a savage; but there is a grain of resemblance large enough
to call for reflection, when the question of occupation and improvement
of a half-civilized land elsewhere is under discussion. The English put
down the revolt, and sent Arabi to Ceylon, a small Napoleon at St.
Helena. The rebel colonel and his fellow-exiles are at present enjoying
those spicy breezes which are associated in our minds with foreign
missions and a whole congregation singing (and dragging them fearfully)
the celebrated verses. Arabi has complained of the climate in spite of
the perfumes, and it is said that he is to be transferred to some other
point in the ocean; there are, indeed, many of them well adapted for the
purpose. The English newspapers of to-day are dotted with the word
"shadowed," which signifies, apparently, that certain persons in Ireland
are followed so closely by a policeman that the official might be the
shadow. Possibly the melancholy Khedive is shadowed by the memory of the
exile of Ceylon. For Tufik did not cast his lot with Arabi. He turned
towards the English. To use the word again, though with another
signification, though ruler still, he has but a shadowy power.
[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN DANCING-GIRL]
THE ARAB MUSEUM
Near the city gate named the Help of God, on the northeastern border of
Cairo, is the old mosque El Hakim. Save its outer walls, which enclose,
like the mosques of Touloun and Amer, a large open square, there is not
much left of it; but within this square, housed in a temporary building,
one finds the collection of Saracenic antiquities which is called the
Arab Museum.
This museum is interesting, and it ought to be beautiful. But somehow it
is not. The barrack-like walls, sparsely ornamented with relics from the
mosques, the straight aisles and glass show-cases, are not inspiring;
the fragments of Arabian wood-carving seem to be lamenting their fate;
and the only room which is not desolate is the one where old tiles lie
in disorder upon the floor, much as they lie on broken marble pavements
of the ancient houses which, half ruined and buried in rubbish, still
exist in the old quarters. Why one should be so inconsistent as to find
no fault with Gizeh, where rows of antiquities torn from their proper
places confront us, where show-cases abound, and yet at the same time
make an outcry over this poor little morsel at El Hakim, remains a
mystery. Possibly it is because the massive statues and the solid little
gods of ancient Egypt do not require an appropriate background, as do
the delicate fancies of Saracenic taste. However this may be, to some of
us the Arab Museum looks as if a New England farmer's wife had tried her
best to make things orderly within its borders, poor soul, in spite of
the strangeness of the articles with which she was obliged to deal. It
must, however, be added that the museum will not make this impression
upon persons who are indifferent to the general aspect of an aisle, or
of a series of walls--persons who care only for the articles which adorn
them--the lovers of detail, in short. And it is well for all of us to
join this class as soon as our feet have crossed the threshold. For we
shall be repaid for it. The details are exquisite.
The Arab Museum has been established recently. Every one is grateful to
the zeal which has rescued from further injury so many specimens of a
vanishing art. One covets a little chest for the Koran which is made of
sandal-wood. It is incrusted with arabesques carved in ivory, and has
broad hasps and locks of embossed silver. There are many koursis, or
small, stool-like tables; one of these has panels of silver filigree,
and fretted medallions bearing the name of the Sultan Mohammed ebn
Kalaoon, thus showing that it once belonged to the mosque at the Citadel
which was built by that Memlook ruler--the mosque whose minarets are
ornamented with picturesque bands of emerald-hued porcelain. The
illuminated Korans are not here; they are kept in the Public Library in
the Street of the Sycamores. Perhaps the most beautiful of the museum's
treasures are the old lamps of Arabian glass. In shape they are vases,
as they were simply filled with perfumed oil which carried a floating
wick; the colors are usually a pearly background, faintly tinged
sometimes by the hue we call ashes of roses; upon this background are
ornaments of blue, gold, and red; occasionally these ornaments are
Arabic letters forming a name or text. These lamps were made in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; the glass, which has as marked
characteristics of its own as Palissy ware, so that once seen it can
never be confounded with any other, has a delicate beauty which is
unrivalled.
HELIOPOLIS
Like the pyramids, Heliopolis belongs to Cairo. On the way thither, one
first traverses the pleasant suburb of Abbasieh. How one traverses it
depends upon his taste. The most enthusiastic pedestrian soon gives up
walking in the city of the Khedive save in the broad streets of the new
quarter. The English ride, one meets every day their gallant mounted
bands; but these are generally residents and their visitors, and the
horses are their own; for the traveller there are only the street
carriages and the donkeys. The carriages are dubiously loose-jointed,
and the horses (whose misery has already been described) have but two
gaits--the walk of a dying creature and the gallop of despair; unless,
therefore, one wishes to mount a dromedary, he must take a donkey. But
the "must" is not a disparagement; the white and gray donkeys of
Cairo--the best of them--are good-natured, gay-hearted, strong, and even
handsome. They have a coquettish way of arching their necks and holding
their chins (if a donkey can be said to have a chin), which always
reminded me of George Eliot's description of Gwendolen's manner of
poising her head in _Daniel Deronda_. George Eliot goes on to warn other
young ladies that it is useless to try to imitate this proud little air,
unless one has a throat like Gwendolen's. And, in the same spirit, one
must warn other donkeys that they must be born in Cairo to be beautiful.
Upon several occasions I recognized vanity in my donkey. He knew
perfectly when he was adorned with his holiday necklaces--one of
imitation sequins, the other of turquoise-hued beads. I am sure that he
would have felt much depressed if deprived of his charm against
magic--the morsel of parchment inscribed with Arabic characters which
decorated his breast. His tail and his short mane were dyed fashionably
with henna, but his legs had not been shaved in the pattern which
represents filigree garters, and whenever a comrade who had this
additional glory passed him, he became distinctly melancholy, and
brooded about it for several minutes. There is nothing in the world so
deprecating as the profile of one of these Cairo donkeys when he finds
himself obliged, by the pressure of the crowd, to push against a
European; his long nose and his polite eye as he passes are full of
friendly apologies. The donkey-boy, in his skull-cap and single garment,
runs behind his beast. These lads are very quick-witted. They have ready
for their donkeys five or six names, and they seldom make a mistake in
applying them according to the supposed nationality of their patrons of
the moment, so that the Englishman learns that he has Annie Laurie; the
Frenchman, Napoleon; the German, Bismarck; the Italian, Garibaldi; and
the Americans, indiscriminately, Hail Columbia, Yankee Doodle, and
General Grant.
In passing through the Abbasieh quarter, we always came, sooner or
later, upon a wedding. The different stages of a native marriage
require, indeed, so many days for their accomplishment that nuptial
festivities are a permanent institution in Cairo, like the policemen and
the water-carts, rather than an occasional event, as in other places.
One day, upon turning into a narrow street, we discovered that a long
portion of it had been roofed over with red cloth; from the centre of
this awning four large chandeliers were suspended by cords, and at each
end of the improvised tent were hoops adorned with the little red
Egyptian banners which look like fringed napkins. In the roadway, placed
against the walls of the houses on each side, were rows of wooden
settees; one of these seats was occupied by the band, which kept up a
constant piping and droning, and upon the others were squatted the
invited guests. Every now and then a man came from a gayly adorned door
on the left, which was that of the bridegroom, bringing with him a tray
covered with the tiny cups of coffee set in their filigree stands; he
offered coffee to all. In the meanwhile, in the centre of the roadway
between the settees, an Egyptian, in his long blue gown, was dancing.
The expression of responsibility on his face amounted to anxiety as he
took his steps with great care, now lifting one bare foot as high as he
could, and turning it sidewise, as if to show us the sole; now putting
it down and hopping upon it, while he displayed to us in the same way
the sole of the other. This formal dancing is done by the guests when no
public performers are employed. Some one must dance to express the
revelry of the occasion; those who are invited, therefore, undertake the
duty one by one. When at last we went on our way we were obliged to ride
directly through the reception, our donkeys brushing the band on one
side and the guests on the other; the dancer on duty paused for a
moment, wiping his face with the tail of his gown.
The road leading to Heliopolis has a charm which it shares with no other
in the neighborhood of Cairo: at a certain point the desert--the real
desert--comes rolling up to its very edge; one can look across the sand
for miles. The desert is not a plain, the sand lies in ridges and
hillocks; and this sand in many places is not so much like the sand of
the sea-shore as it is like the dust of one of our country roads in
August. The contrast between the bright green of the cultivated fields
(the land which is reached by the inundation) and those silvery,
arrested waves is striking, the line of their meeting being as sharply
defined as that between sea and shore. I have called the color silvery,
but that is only one of the tints which the sand assumes. An artist has
jotted down the names of the colors used in an effort to copy the hues
on an expanse of desert before him; beginning with the foreground, these
were brown, dark red, violet, blue, gold, rose, crimson, pale green,
orange, indigo blue, and sky blue. Colors supply the place of shadows,
for there is no shade anywhere; all is wide open and light; and yet the
expanse does not strike one in the least as bare. For myself, I can say
that of all the marvels which one sees in Egypt, the desert produced the
most profound impression; and I fancy that, as regards this feeling, I
am but one of many. The cause of the attraction is a mystery. It cannot
be found in the roving tendencies of our ancestor, since he was
arboreal, and there are no trees in the strange-tinted waste. The old
legend says that Adam's first wife, Lilith, fled to Egypt, where she was
permitted to live in the desert, and where she still exists:
"It was Lilith, the wife of Adam;
Not a drop of her blood was human."
Perhaps it is Lilith's magic that we feel.
[Illustration: THE INUNDATION NEAR CAIRO]
Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, the On of the forty-first chapter of
Genesis, is five miles from Cairo. Nothing of it is now left above
ground save an obelisk and a few ruined walls. The obelisk, which is the
oldest yet discovered, bears the name of the king in whose reign it was
erected; this gives us the date--5000 years ago; that is, more than a
millennium before the days of Moses. At Heliopolis was the Temple of the
Sun, and the schools which Herodotus visited "because the teachers are
considered the most accomplished men in Egypt." When Strabo came hither,
four hundred years later, he saw the house which Plato had occupied;
Moses here learned "all the wisdom of the Egyptians." Papyri describe
Heliopolis as "full of obelisks." Two of these columns were carried to
Alexandria 1937 years ago, and set up before the Temple of Caesar.
According to one authority, this temple was built by Cleopatra; in
any case, the two obelisks acquired the name of Cleopatra's Needles, and
though the temple itself in time disappeared, they remained where they
had been placed--one erect, one prostrate--until, in recent years, one
was given to London and the other to New York. One recites all this in a
breath in order to bring up, if possible, the associations which rush
confusedly through the mind as one stands beside this red granite column
rising alone in the green fields at Heliopolis. No myth itself, it was
erected in days which are to us mythical--days which are the jumping-off
place of our human history; yet they were not savages who polished this
granite, who sculptured this inscription; ages of civilization of a
certain sort must have preceded them. Beginning with the Central Park,
we force our minds backward in an endeavor to make these dates real.
"Homer was a modern compared with the designers of this pillar," we say
to ourselves. "The Mycenae relics were _articles de Paris_ of centuries
and centuries later." But repeating the words (and even rolling the
_r's_) are useless efforts; the imagination will not rise; it is crushed
into stupidity by such a vista of years. As reaction, perhaps as
revenge, we flee to geology and Darwin; here, at least, one can take
breath.
Near Heliopolis there is an ostrich yard. The giant birds are very
amusing; they walk about with long steps, and stretch their necks. If
allowed, they would tap us all on the head, I think, after the fashion
of the ostriches in that vivid book, _The Story of an African Farm_.
FRENCH AND ENGLISH
Gerard de Nerval begins his volume on Egypt by announcing that the women
of Cairo are so thickly veiled that the European (_i.e._, the
Frenchman?) becomes discouraged after a very few days, and, in
consequence, goes up the Nile. This, at least, is one effort to explain
why strangers spend so short a time in Cairo. The French, as a nation,
are not travellers; they have small interest in any country beyond their
own borders. A few of their writers have cherished a liking for the
East; but it has been what we may call a home-liking. They give us the
impression of having sincerely believed that they could, owing to their
extreme intelligence, imagine for themselves (and reproduce for others)
the entire Orient from one fez, one Turkish pipe, and a picture of the
desert. Gautier, for instance, has described many Eastern landscapes
which his eyes have never beheld. Pictures are, indeed, much to
Frenchmen. The acme of this feeling is reached by one of the Goncourt
brothers, who writes, in their recently published journal, that the true
way to enjoy a summer in the country is to fill one's town-house during
the summer months with beautiful paintings of green fields, wild
forests, and purling brooks, and then stay at home, and look at the
lovely pictured scenes in comfort. French volumes of travels in the East
are written as much with exclamation-points as with the letters of the
alphabet. Lamartine and his disciples frequently paused "to drop a
tear." Later Gallic voyagers divided all scenery into two classes; the
cities "laugh," the plains are "amiable," or they "smile"; if they do
not do this, immediately they are set down as "sad." One must be bold
indeed to call Edmond About, the distinguished author of _Tolla_,
ridiculous. The present writer, not being bold, is careful to abstain
from it. But the last scene of his volume on Egypt (_Le Fellah_,
published in 1883), describing the hero, with all his clothes rolled
into a gigantic turban round his head, swimming after the yacht which
bears away the heroine--a certain impossible Miss Grace--from the
harbor of Port Said, must have caused, I think, some amused reflection
in the minds of English and American readers. It is but just to add that
among the younger French writers are several who have abandoned these
methods. Gabriel Charmes's volume on Cairo contains an excellent account
of the place. Pierre Loti and Maupassant have this year (1890) given to
the world pages about northwestern Africa which are marvels of actuality
as well as of unsurpassed description.