English occupation of Egypt. Since Napoleon's day they have looked upon
the Nile country as sure to be theirs some time. They built the Suez
Canal when the English were opposed to the scheme. They remember when
their influence was dominant. The French tradesmen, the French milliners
and dressmakers in Cairo, still oppose a stubborn resistance to the
English way of counting. They give the prices of their goods and render
their accounts in Egyptian piasters, or in napoleons and francs; they
refuse to comprehend shillings and pounds. And here, by-the-way,
Americans would gladly join their side of the controversy. England
alone, among the important countries of the world, has a currency which
is not based upon the decimal system. The collected number of sixpences
lost each year in England, by American travellers who mistake the
half-crown piece for two shillings, would make a large sum. The
bewilderment over English prices given in a coin which has no existence
is like that felt by serious-minded persons who read _Alice in
Wonderland_ from a sense of duty. Talk of the English as having no
imagination when the guinea exists!
France lost her opportunity in Egypt when her fleet sailed away from
Alexandria Harbor in July, 1882. Her ships were asked to remain and take
part in the bombardment; they refused, and departed. The English, thus
being left alone, quieted the country later by means of an army of
occupation. An English army of occupation has been there ever since.
At present it is not a large army. The number of British soldiers in
1890 is given as three thousand; the remaining troops are Egyptians,
with English regimental officers. During the winter months the
short-waisted red coat of Tommy Atkins enlivens with its cheerful blaze
the streets of Cairo at every turn. The East and the West may be said to
be personified by the slender, supple Arabs in their flowing draperies,
and by these lusty youths of light complexion, with straight backs and
stiff shoulders, who walk, armed with a rattan, in the centre of the
pavement, wearing over one ear the cloth-covered saucer which passes for
a head-covering. Tommy Atkins patronizes the donkeys with all his heart.
One of the most frequently seen groups is a party of laughing
scarlet-backed youths mounted on the smallest beasts they can find, and
careering down the avenues at the donkey's swiftest speed, followed by
the donkey-boys, delighted and panting. As the spring comes on, Atkins
changes his scarlet for lighter garments, and dons the summer helmet.
This species of hat is not confined to the sons of Mars; it is worn in
warm weather by Europeans of all nationalities who are living or
travelling in the East. It may be cool. Without doubt, aesthetically
considered, it is the most unbecoming head-covering known to the
civilized world. It has a peculiar power of causing its wearer to appear
both ignoble and pulmonic; for, viewed in front, the most distinguished
features, under its tin-pan-like visor, become plebeian; and, viewed
behind, the strongest masculine throat looks wizened and consumptive.
[Illustration: A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, CAIRO]
The English have benefited Egypt. They have put an end to the open
knavery in high places which flourished unchecked; they have taught
honesty; they have so greatly improved the methods of irrigation that a
bad Nile (_i.e._, a deficient inundation) no longer means starvation;
finally, they have taken hold of the mismanaged finances, disentangled
them, set them in order, and given them at least a start in the right
direction. The natives fret over some of their restrictions. And they
say that the English have, first of all, taken care of their own
interests. In addition, they greatly dislike seeing so many Englishmen
holding office over them. But this last objection is simply the other
side of the story. If the English are to help the country, they must be
on the spot in order to do it; and it appears to be a fixed rule in all
British colonies that the representatives of the government, whether
high or low, shall be made, as regards material things, extremely
comfortable. Egypt is not yet a British colony; she is a viceroyalty
under the suzerainty of the Porte. But practically she is to-day
governed by the English; and, to the American traveller at least
(whatever the French may think), it appears probable that English
authority will soon be as absolute in the Khedive's country as it is now
in India.
In Cairo, in 1890, the English colony played lawn-tennis; it attended
the races; when Stanley returned to civilization it welcomed him with
enthusiasm; and when, later, Prince Eddie came, it attended a gala
performance of _Aida_ at the opera-house--a resurrection from the time
of Ismail ordered by Ismail's son for the entertainment of the
heir-presumptive (one wonders whether Tufik himself found entertainment
in it).
In the little English church, which stands amid its roses and vines in
the new quarter, is a wall tablet of red and white marble--the memorial
of a great Englishman. It bears the following inscription: "In memory of
Major-General Charles George Gordon, C.B. Born at Woolwich, Jan. 28,
1833. Killed at the defence of Khartoum, Jan. 26, 1885." Above is a
sentence from Gordon's last letter: "I have done my best for the honor
of our country."
St. George of Khartoum, as he has been called. If objection is made to
the bestowal of this title, it might be answered that the saints of old
lived before the age of the telegraph, the printer, the newspaper, and
the reporter; possibly they too would not have seemed to us faultless if
every one of their small decisions and all their trivial utterances had
been subjected to the electric-light publicity of to-day. Perhaps Gordon
was a fanatic, and his discernment was not accurate. But he was
single-hearted, devoted to what he considered to be his duty, and brave
to a striking degree. When we remember how he faced death through those
weary days we cannot criticise him. The story of that rescuing army
which came so near him and yet failed, and of his long hoping in vain,
only to be shot down at the last, must always remain one of the most
pathetic tales of history.
SOUVENIRS
As the warm spring closes, every one selects something to carry
homeward. Leaving aside those fortunate persons who can purchase the
ancient carved woodwork of an entire house, or Turkish carpets by the
dozen, the rest of us keep watch of the selections of our friends while
we make our own. Among these we find the jackets embroidered in silver
and gold; the inevitable fez; two or three blue tiles of the thirteenth
century; a water-jug, or kulleh; a fly-brush with ivory handle; attar of
roses and essence of sandal-wood; Assiout ware in vases and stoups; a
narghileh; the gauze scarfs embroidered with Persian benedictions; a
koursi inlaid with mother-of-pearl; Arabian inkstands--long cases of
silver or brass, to be worn like a dagger in the belt; a keffiyeh, or
delicate silken head-shawl with white knotted fringe; the Arabian
finger-bowls; the little coffee-cups; images of Osiris from the tombs; a
native bracelet and anklet; and, finally, a scarab or two, whose
authenticity is always exciting, like an unsolved riddle. A picture of
these mementos of Cairo would not be complete for some of us without two
of those constant companions of so many long mornings--the dusty,
shuffling, dragging, slipping, venerable, abominable mosque shoes.
HOMEWARD-BOUND
"We who pursue
Our business with unslackening stride,
Traverse in troops, with care-fill'd breast,
The soft Mediterranean side,
The Nile, the East,
And see all sights from pole to pole,
And glance and nod and bustle by,
And never once possess our soul
Before we die."
So chanted Matthew Arnold of the English of to-day. And if we are to
believe what is preached to us and hurled at us, it is a reproach even
more applicable to Americans than to the English themselves. One
American traveller, however, wishes to record modestly a disbelief in
the universal truth of this idea. Many of us are, indeed, haunted by our
business; many of us do glance and nod and bustle by; it is a class, and
a large class. But these hurried people are not all; an equal number of
us, who, being less in haste, may be less conspicuous perhaps, are the
most admiring travellers in the world. American are the bands who
journey to Stratford-upon-Avon, and go down upon their knees--almost--when
they reach the sacred spot; American are the pilgrims who pay reverent
visits to all the English cathedrals, one after the other, from Carlisle
to Exeter, from Durham to Canterbury. In the East, likewise, it is the
transatlantic travellers who are so deeply impressed by the strangeness
and beauty of the scenes about them that they forget to talk about their
personal comforts (or, rather, the lack of them).
There is another matter upon which a word may be said, and this is the
habit of judging the East from the stand-point of one's home customs,
whether the home be American or English. It is, of course, easy to find
faults in the social systems of the Oriental nations; they have laws and
usages which are repugnant to all our feelings, which seem to us
horrible. But it is well to remember that it is impossible to comprehend
any nation not our own unless one has lived a long time among its
people, and made one's self familiar with their traditions, their
temperament, their history, and, above all, with the language which they
speak. Anything less than this is observation from the outside alone,
which is sure to be founded upon misapprehension. The French and the
English are separated by merely the few miles of the Channel, and they
have, to a certain extent, a common language; for though the French do
not often understand English, the English very generally understand
something of French. Yet it is said that these two nations have never
thoroughly comprehended each other either as nations or individuals; and
it is even added that, owing to their differing temperaments, they will
never reach a clear appreciation of each other's merits; demerits, of
course, are easier. Our own country has a language which is, on the
whole, nearer the English tongue perhaps than is the speech of France;
yet have we not felt now and then that English travellers have
misunderstood us? If this is the case among people who are all
Occidentals together, how much more difficult must be a thorough
comprehension by us of those ancient nations who were old before we were
born?
[Illustration: SOUVENIRS OF CAIRO]
The East is the land of mystery. If one cares for it at all, one loves
it; there is no half-way. If one does not love it, one really (though
perhaps not avowedly) hates it--hates it and all its ways. But for those
who love it the charm is so strong that no surprise is felt in reading
or hearing of Europeans who have left all to take up a wandering
existence there for long years or for life--the spirit of Browning's
"What's become of Waring?"
All of us cannot be Warings, however, and the time comes at last when we
must take leave. The streets of Cairo have been for some time adorned
with placards whose announcements begin, in large type, "Travellers
returning to Europe." We are indeed far away when returning to Europe is
a step towards home. We wait for the last festival--the Shem-en-Neseem,
or Smelling of the Zephyr--the annual picnic day, when the people go
into the country to gather flowers and breathe the soft air before the
opening of the regular season for the Khamsin. Then comes the journey by
railway to Alexandria. We wave a handkerchief (now fringed on all four
sides by the colored threads of the laundresses) to the few friends
still left behind. They respond; and so do all the Mustaphas, Achmets,
and Ibrahims who have carried our parcels and trotted after our donkeys.
Then we take a seat by the window, to watch for the last time the flying
Egyptian landscape--the green plain, the tawny Nile, the camels on the
bank, the villages, and the palm-trees, and behind them the solemn line
of the desert.
At sunset the steamer passes down the harbor, and, pushing out to sea,
turns westward. A faint crescent moon becomes visible over the
Ras-et-Teen palace. It is the moon of Ramadan. Presently a cannon on the
shore ushers in, with its distant sound, the great Mohammedan fast.
CORFU AND THE IONIAN SEA
[Illustration]
Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore.
Ah, singing birds, your happy music pour;
Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;
Flit to these ancient gods we still adore:
"It may be we shall touch the happy isle!"
--_Translated by Andrew Lang._
Not long before Christmas, last year, I found myself travelling from
Ancona down the Adriatic coast of Italy by the fast train called the
Indian Mail. There was excitement in the very name, and more in the
conversation of the people who sat beside me at the table of a queer
little eating-house on the shore, before whose portal the Indian Mail
stopped late in the evening. We all descended and went in. A dusky
apartment was our discovery, and a table illuminated by guttering
candles that flared in the strong currents of air. Roast chickens were
stacked on this table in a high pile, and loaves of dark-colored bread
were placed here and there, with portly straw-covered flasks of the wine
of the country. No one came to serve us; we were expected to serve
ourselves. A landlord who looked like an obese Don Juan was established
behind a bench in a distant corner, where he made coffee with
amiability and enthusiasm for those who desired it. It was supposed
that we were to go to him, before we returned to the train, and pay for
what we had consumed; and I hope that his trust in us was not misplaced,
for with his objection to exercise, and his dim little lamp which
illuminated only his smiles, there was nothing for him but trust. The
Indian Mail carries passengers who are outward-bound for Constantinople,
Egypt, and India; his confidence rested perhaps in the belief that
persons about to embark on such dangerous seas would hardly begin the
enterprise by crime. To other minds, however, it might have seemed the
very moment to perpetrate enormities. As we attacked the chickens, I
perceived in the flickering glare that all my companions were English.
Everybody talked, and the thrill of the one American increased as the
names of the steamers waiting at Brindisi were mentioned--the
_Hydaspes_, the _Coromandel_, the _Cathay_, the _Mirzapore_: towards
what lands of sandal-wood, what pleasure-domes of Kubla-Khan, might not
one sail on ships bearing those titles! The present voyagers, however,
were all old travellers; they took a purely practical view of the
Orient. Nevertheless, their careless "Cairo," "Port Said," "Bombay,"
"Ceylon," "Java," were as fascinating as the shining balls of a juggler
when a dozen are in the air at the same moment. My right-hand neighbor,
upon learning that my destination was Corfu, good-naturedly offered the
information that the voyage was an easy one. "Corfu, however, is _not_
what it has been!"
"But, Polly, it is looking up a little, now that the Empress of Austria
is building a villa there," suggested a sister correctively.
After this outburst of talk, we all climbed back into the waiting train,
and went flying on towards the south, following the lonely, wild-looking
coast, with the wind from the Adriatic crying over our heads like a
banshee. It was midnight when we reached Brindisi. At present this, the
ancient Brundusium, is the jumping-off place for the traveller on his
way to the East; here he must leave the land and trust himself to an
enigmatical deep. But if he wishes to have the sensation in full force,
he must not delay his journey; for, presently, the Indian Mail will rush
through Greece and meet the steamers at Cape Colonna; and then, before
long, there will be another spurt, and Pullman trains will go through to
Calcutta, with a ferry over the Bosporus.
At Brindisi I became the prey of five barelegged boatmen, who, owing to
the noise of the wind and the water, communicated with each other by
yells. The Austrian-Lloyd steamer from Trieste, outward-bound for
Constantinople, which carried the friends I was expecting to meet, was
said to be lying out in the stream, and I enjoyed the adventure of
setting forth alone on the dark sea in search of her, in a small boat
rowed by my Otranto crew. During the transit there was not much time to
think of Brundusium, with its memories of Horace and Virgil. But there
was another opportunity to reflect upon the question, perplexing to the
unskilled mind--namely, Why it is that an American abroad is constantly
called upon to praise the wharves, piers, and landing-stages, and with
the same breath to condemn as disgraces to civilization the like
nautical platforms of his own country, when he is so often obliged, on
foreign shores, to embark and disembark by means of a tossing small boat
or a crowded tender, whereas at home, with the aid of those same
makeshift constructions for whose short-comings he is supposed to blush,
he walks on board of his steamship with no trouble whatever?
Early the next morning, awakening on a shelf in a red velvet cupboard, I
was explaining to myself vaguely that the cupboard was a dream, when
there appeared through the port-hole a picture of such fairy-tale beauty
that the dream became lyrical--it began to sing:
"Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live!"
At last those famous lines were actualities, for surely this was the sea
of the Jumblies, and those heights without doubt were "the hills of
Chankly Bore." (There are people, I believe, who do not care for the
Jumblies. There are persons who do not care for Alice in Wonderland, nor
for Brer Rabbit, when he played on his triangle down by the brook.)
The sea which I saw was of a miraculously blue tint; in the distance the
cliffs of a mountainous island rose boldly from the water, their color
that of a violet pansy; a fishing-boat with red sails was crossing the
foreground; over all glittered an atmosphere so golden that it was like
that of sunset in other lands, though the sky, at the same time, had
unmistakably the purity of early morning. Later, on the deck, during the
broadly practical time of after breakfast, this view, instead of
diminishing in attraction, grew constantly more fair. The French
novelist of to-day, Paul Bourget, describes Corfu as "so lovely that one
wants to take it in one's arms!" Another Frenchman, who was not given to
the making of phrases, no less a personage than Napoleon Bonaparte, has
left upon record his belief that Corfu has "the most beautiful situation
in the world." What, then, is this beauty? What is this situation?
[Illustration: PART OF THE TOWN OF CORFU]
First, there is the long and charming approach, with the snow-capped
mountains of Albania, in European Turkey, looming up against the sky at
the end; then comes the landlocked harbor; then the picturesque old
town, its high stone houses, all of creamy hue, crowded together on the
hill-side above the sea-wall, with here and there a bell-tower shooting
into the blue. Below is the busy, many-colored port. Above towers the
dark double fortress on its rock. And, finally, the dense, grove-like
vegetation of the island encircles all, and its own mountain-peaks rise
behind, one of them attaining a height of three thousand feet. There are
other islands of which all this, or almost all, can be said--Capri, for
instance. But at Corfu there are two attributes peculiar to the region;
these are: first, the color; second, the transparency. Although the
voyage from Brindisi hardly occupies twelve hours, the atmosphere is
utterly unlike that of Italy; there is no haze; all is clear. Some of us
love the Italian haze (which is not in the least a mist), that soft veil
which makes the mountains look as if they were covered with velvet. But
a love of this softness need not, I hope, make us hate everything that
is different. Greece (and Corfu is a Greek island) seemed to me all
light--the lightest country in the world. In other lands, if we climb a
high mountain and stand on its bald summit at noon, we feel as if we
were taking a bath in light; in Greece we have this feeling everywhere,
even in the valleys. Euripides described his countrymen as "forever
delicately tripping through the pellucid air," and so their modern
descendants trip to this day. This dry atmosphere has an exciting effect
upon the nervous energy, and the faces of the people show it. It has
also, I believe, the defect of this good quality--namely, an
over-stimulation, which sometimes produces neuralgia. In some respects
Americans recognize this clearness of the atmosphere, and its influence,
good and bad; the air of northern New England in the summer, and of
California at the same season, is not unlike it. But in America the
transparency is more white, more blank; we have little of the coloring
that exists in Greece, tints whose intensity must be seen to be
believed. The mountains, the hills, the fields, are sometimes bathed in
lilac. Then comes violet for the plains, while the mountains are rose
that deepens into crimson. At other times salmon, pink, and purple
tinges are seen, and ochre, saffron, and cinnamon brown. This
description applies to the whole of Greece, but among the Ionian Islands
the effect of the color is doubled by the wonderful tint of the
surrounding sea. I promise not to mention this hue again; hereafter it
can be taken for granted, for it is always present; but for this once I
must say that you may imagine the bluest blue you know--the sky, lapis
lazuli, sapphires, the eyes of some children, the Bay of Naples--and the
Ionian Sea is bluer than any of these. And nowhere else have I seen such
dear, queer little foam sprays. They are so small and so very white on
the blue, and they curl over the surface of the water even when the sea
is perfectly calm, which makes me call them queer. You meet them miles
from land. And all the shores are whitened with their never-ceasing
play. It is a pygmy surf.
It was eleven o'clock in the morning when our steamer reached her
anchorage before the island town. Immediately she was surrounded by
small boats, whose crews were perfectly lawless, demanding from
strangers whatever they thought they could get, and obtaining their
demands, because there was no way to escape them except by building a
raft. Upon reaching land one forgets the extortion, for the windows of
the hotel overlook the esplanade, and this open space amiably offers to
persons who are interested in first impressions a panoramic history of
two thousand five hundred years in a series of striking mementos. Let me
premise that as regards any solid knowledge of these islands, only a
contemptible smattering can be obtained in a stay so short as mine.
Corfu and her sisters have borne a conspicuous part in what we used to
call ancient history. Through the Roman days they appear and reappear.
In the times of the Crusaders their position made them extremely
important. Years of study could not exhaust their records, nor months of
research their antiquities. To comprehend them rightfully one must
indeed be an historian, an archaeologist, and a painter at one and the
same time, and one must also be good-natured. Few of us can hope to
unite all these. The next best thing, therefore, is to go and see them
with whatever eyes and mind we happen to possess. Good-nature will
perhaps return after the opening encounter with the boatmen is over.