linger as long as was proper. It was growing late--we were very tired
and were overfull of undigested story and tangled chronology. Also the
scarab men and flies were especially bad just there. We were willing to
take a bare look at that majestic pair who have watched the sun rise
morning after morning while a great city vanished away from around them,
and then go steaming away across the sands for the Nile and the cool
rest of the hotel.
Such a time as we had settling with those donkey-boys--the old
white-turbaned sheik, owner of the donkeys, squatting and smoking
indifferently while the storm raged about him. But it was over at last,
and the boatmen sang again--a quiet afterlude of that extraordinary
day--and collected baksheesh on the farther shore.
XLII
THE HIGHWAY OF EGYPT
There could hardly be a daintier boat than the _Memnon_. It just holds
our party; it is as clean and speckless as possible, and there is an
open deck the full width of the tiny steamer, with pretty rugs and lazy
chairs, where we may lounge and drowse and dream and look out on the
gently passing panorama of the Nile.
For we have left Luxor, and are floating in this peaceful fashion down
to Cairo, resting in the delight of it, after those fierce
temple-hunting, tomb-visiting days. Not that we are entirely through
with temples and the like. Here and there we tie up to the bank, and go
ashore and scamper away on donkeys to some tumbled ruin, but it is a
diversion now, not a business, and we find such stops welcome. For the
most part we spend our days just idling, and submitting to the spell of
Egypt, which has encompassed us and possessed us as it will encompass
and possess any one who has a trace of the old human tendency to drift
and dream.
It has been said of Boston that it is less a locality than a state of
mind. I wish _I_ had said that--of Egypt. I will say it now, and without
humor, for of this land it is so eminently true. A mere river-bank; a
filament of green; a long slender lotus-stem, of which the Delta is the
flower--_that_ is Egypt. Remote--shut in by the desert and the dead
hills--it is far less a country and a habitation than a psychological
condition which all the mummied ages have been preparing--which the
traveller from the earliest moment is bound to feel. It has lived so
long! It had made and recorded its history when the rest of the world
was dealing in nursery-tales! The glamour of that stately past has
become the spell, the enchantment of to-day. The magic of the lotus
grows more potent with the years.
It is such a narrow land! Sometimes the lifeless hills close in on one
side or the other to the water's edge. Nowhere is the fertile strip
wide, for its fertility depends wholly on the water it receives from the
Nile, and when that water is drawn up by hand with a goat-skin pail and
a well-sweep--a _shaduf_, as they call it--it means that fields cannot
be very extensive, even if there were room, which as a rule there is
not.
[Illustration: THINK OF WATERING A WHOLE WHEAT-FIELD WITH A WELL-SWEEP
AND A PAIL]
Think of watering a whole wheat-field with a well-sweep and a pail!
Furthermore, where the banks are high the water is sometimes lifted
three times between the Nile and the surface, and much of it is wasted
in transit. It is the oldest form of irrigation; the hieroglyphics show
that it was in use in Egypt five thousand years ago. It is also still
the most popular form in Upper Egypt. We saw a good many of the
_sakkieh_--primitive and wasteful water-wheels propelled by a buffalo or
a camel or a cow--and at rare intervals a windmill, where some
Englishman has established a plantation, but it is the _shaduf_ that
largely predominates.
The mud villages among the date-palms are unfailingly picturesque; the
sail-boats of the Nile--_markab_ they call them--drifting down upon us
like great butterflies, have a charm not to be put in words; the life
along the shores never loses its interest; the sun sets and the sun
rises round the dreamy days with a marvel of color that seems each time
more wonderful. Then there is the moonlight. But I must not speak of
Egyptian moonlight or I shall lose my sense of proportion altogether,
for it is like no other light that ever lay on sea or land.
We do not travel through the night, but anchor at dusk until daybreak.
It is curious to reflect that one sees the entire country on a trip like
this, if he rises early. We do rise early, most of us--though the cool
nights (nights are always cool in Egypt) and the stillness are an
inducement to sleep--and we are usually very hungry before breakfast
comes along. One may have coffee on the deck if he likes--the
picturesque Arab will bring it joyfully, especially where there is a
baksheesh at the end. It is good coffee, too, and the food is good;
everything is good on the _Memnon_ except the beverages and the cigars.
The wine could be improved and the cigars could be thrown away. I paid a
shilling for one that was as hard as a stick and crumbled to dust when I
bit it. Never mind the flavor. That brand was called "The Scarab." It
should have been named "The Mummy"--it had all the characteristics.
The pilot commands this boat--the captain merely conducts the excursion.
The captain wears European dress and speaks English, but the pilot is
Arab throughout--dark-faced, heavily turbaned, silent--watching the
water like a sphinx. Now and then he makes a motion and says a word to
the steersman at his side. Whenever we lie up or strike safe water he
locates Mecca, prostrates himself, and prays. I should think his
emotions would be conflicting at times. Doctrinally, of course, it is
his duty to pray for the boat to sink and exterminate this crowd.
Professionally, it is his duty to take us safely to Cairo. Poor old
Abbas! how are you going to explain to the prophet by-and-by?
We may not reach Cairo, however. The Nile is shallow at this season, and
already we have scraped the sand more than once. It is a curious
river--full of currents and shifting sand--the water getting scantier as
you descend. That seemed strange to us until we realize that its entire
flow comes from the far interior; that it has no feeding tributaries,
while the steady evaporation, the irrigation, and the absorption of
these burning sands constitute a heavy drain. It is hard to grasp a
condition like that, or what this river means--has always meant--to the
dwellers along its shores. Not alone an artery of life, it is life
itself--water, food, clothing, cleanliness.
They don't take as much advantage of that last blessing as they
should--nor of the next to the last. It is true that most of them have
some semblance of clothing, but not all of them. In this interior Nile,
as we may call the district between Luxor and Cairo, early principles to
some extent still prevail. At first we saw boys--donkey-boys and the
like--without any perceivable clothing, and more lately we have seen
men--brown-skinned muscular creatures loading boats--utterly destitute
of wardrobe. Yet, somehow, these things did not shock us--not greatly.
They seemed to go with the sun, and the dead blue sky and the other
scenery. A good deal depends on surroundings.
* * * * *
Our stops were not all brief. We put in a full day at Abydos, where
there is a splendid temple built by Seti I., and Rameses the Great (of
course), and where the donkeys are as poor as they are good in Luxor.
Not that they were wretched in appearance, or ill-cared for, but they
were a stiff-necked, unwilling breed. Mine had a way of stopping
suddenly and facing about toward home. Twice I went over his head during
these manoeuvres, which the others thought entertaining.
But they had their troubles, too. The distance to the temple was
long--eight miles, I should think--and part of the way the road was an
embankment several feet high. Some of the donkeys seemed to think it
amusing to suddenly decide to go down this embankment and make off over
the desert. We were a scattering, disordered cavalcade, and what with
the flies and distracting donkey-boys who were perpetually at one's side
with "Mister, good donkey--fine donkey--baksheesh, mister," the trip was
a memorable one. Once when my donkey, whose name was "Straight Flush"
and should have been "Two-spot" got behind the party, I caught my
attendant, not only twisting his tail, but biting it.
It was a good excursion, on the whole. We had luncheon in the great hall
of the temple, and I could not help wondering who had held the first
feast in that mighty place where we were holding the last, to date.
We feel at home now in a temple, especially when we see the relief of
our faithful Rameses, and of Osiris, king of the underworld, and his
kind. We have become familiar and even disrespectful toward these great
guardians of the past. This makes it hard on Gaddis at times; especially
after luncheon, when we are in a sportive mood.
"Zis is ze temple of Rameses ze Great"--he begins.
"Ah, so it is--we suspected it all along."
"Here you will see hees seventy-two son--"
"Sure enough--our old friends."
"And hees fourteen wive."
"Happy man, but why a king and so few?"
"An' here all zose seventy-two son carry gift to Osiris--"
"King of the underworld--so they do, we would recognize that gang
anywhere."
Truly, it is time we were giving up temples; we are no longer serious.
But in this temple of Seti I., at Abydos, we sometimes forgot to jest.
Frivolous and riotous as we have become, we were silent in the presence
of one splendid decoration of Seti offering sacrifice before the sacred
boat, and again where we confronted in a corridor that precious and
beautiful relief carving, the Tablet of Egypt's Kings. The cartouche of
every king down to Seti I. is there--with one exception: the name of
Amenophis IV., the king who abandoned his faith and worshipped his
mother's gods, has no place in that royal company. Otherwise the story
is as complete as it is impressive, and I recognized something of what
that document means to those of Egypt who know (like Gaddis), when I put
out a finger to touch the exquisite work and he whispered, "No, please."
What record will there be of our history thirty-five centuries from now?
Not a book of all those printed to-day will last any considerable
fraction of that period. A tablet like this sets one to wondering if we
should not get an appropriation to preserve at least the skeleton of our
chronology on plates of bronze to be stored in some deep vault safe from
the ravages of fire and flood and earthquake.
We also stopped at Assuit, or Asyut, or Suit--I like these Egyptian
names--you can spell them any way you please. Every one of them has all
the spellings you can think of; you could not invent a new one if you
tried. It is at Assuit they make the spangled shawls, and the natives
flock down to the boat-landing to sell them. Gaddis had probably
telegraphed ahead that a floating asylum of Americans was on the way and
they had assembled accordingly. Long before we were in trading distance
they began to dance about and gesticulate--the sheen of their fabrics
blazing in the sun--crying the prices which they did not expect to get.
Some of our ladies were quite eager, and began to make offers when we
were still many yards from shore. I suppose they thought the supply was
limited. By the time we touched the landing the wildest trading was
already going on. Shawls rolled in a ball were being flung aboard for
examination, and flung back wildly with preposterous under-bids, only
to come hurtling back again with a fierce protest of refusal. For a time
it was a regular game of snowball and fireworks. There were canes to
sell, too, and fly-whips--beautiful ivory-handled things. Commerce
swelled to high tide. In the midst of the melee somebody happened to
notice, what we had not seen before, another steamer lying a little way
ahead--an English party, we were told--the ladies and gentlemen quietly
reading or pityingly regarding our exhibition. I know, now, that the
English have no sense of humor. Another American boat would have been in
spasms of delight at our antics. Also, the Englishman's Egypt is not as
ours, and he does not enjoy it as much. How could he, without loading
up, as we did, with those wonderful Assuit shawls?
Only one more stop along the Nile will I record. This was at Tell
al-Amarna, where, in the desert a little beyond the green, lies all that
is left of the city built by the heretic king, Amenophis IV., who
abandoned Amen-Ra for the sun-worship of his Mesopotamia mother, Queen
Thi.
It was a splendid granite city once, but it is all gone now. Only a
little of the floor of the palace is left, Queen Thi's apartment, Gaddis
said, but it held for us a curious interest. For it is painted, or
perhaps enamelled, in colors, and the decorations, still in a good state
of preservation, are not Egyptian in design, but Syrian or Persian! The
Princess who had left her land to marry an Egyptian king could not
forsake her gods and her traditions, and that old floor remains to-day
after thirty-five centuries to tell the story of her loyalty and her
love.
* * * * *
We should have made other stops, perhaps, but we met disaster. The Nile
was low, as I have said, and a hundred miles below Cairo we awoke one
morning to find our boat hard and fast aground. We had, in fact,
grounded the evening before, and Abbas and his men had been working all
night, putting out anchors and pulling on ropes, a picturesque group, to
the chorus "Ali sah--ali ya seni--ali hoop!" which is an appeal to the
god of the Nile, Gaddis said, in this case unavailing. We were there to
stay for the summer, unless we took train to Cairo, so after breakfast
Gaddis and I went ashore with Abraham, still semi-officially attached to
our party, and walked three miles to the nearest railway station to see
what might be done. It was a fine walk, even though a warm one, across
the Egyptian fields, and I saw some papyrus plant and bought a distaff
and spindle from a man who was sitting by the road spinning after the
fashion of the earliest race of men.
It was Fachen that we reached, an Arab town to which tourists never
come, and the donkeys we arranged for there, to carry our party from the
shore landing to the station, were a nondescript lot without saddle or
bridle--with no gear, in fact, except a remnant of rope tied around the
neck. Then we walked back opposite the boat, another three miles, and
sat on the bank, and sweat and waved our hands and called to those
people, half a mile away in mid-stream, who for some reason could not
see our signals.
It was not uninteresting, though. The natives came to inspect us--an
unusual opportunity for them--and some women came down to the Nile with
great stone jars for water. Those jars must hold eight or ten gallons,
and are heavy enough empty, yet those women will balance them on their
heads and go stepping away chatting lightly, indifferent to their great
burdens. They were barefooted and wore anklets which I wanted to buy,
but Gaddis did not seem interested, and I could not transact a delicate
business like that without careful interpretation.
Our people saw us at last and came for us in a boat. Then there was a
bustle of preparation; a loading into the markab which we had engaged to
take us ashore; a good-bye to our pretty, unfortunate little _Memnon_; a
drifting down to the donkey landing, and a sorry-looking procession to
the railway.
Our guides had difficulty settling with donkey-men, who, never having
had tourists before, had engaged, no doubt, at their usual rates; then
suddenly they had awakened to the idea that they were missing the chance
of a fortune. The baksheesh we gave them must have opened their eyes.
Probably they had never received so much at one time before. At all
events, they came back for a new settlement, surrounded Gaddis and
Abraham, and for a while we thought inferno had broken loose. Gaddis
finally resorted to a stick, but Abraham, who is as big as a camel,
first delivered an admonition, and then ran bodily upon the whole crowd
and swept them like chaff from the platform.
The wait at Fachen was not overlong, but it became a trifle tedious
after the novelty of the place had passed. We telegraphed Cairo of our
coming, and Abraham entertained us with a few marvels to while away the
time. He said that the stone used in building the pyramids had been
brought across the Nile; that such stone was light like pumice-stone
when quarried; that it floated across, and that the water it soaked up
solidified and turned it into hard, heavy stone on the other side. The
Credulous One believed this statement. He said the _Memnon_ had grounded
on a reef of crocodiles, at this season asleep, tucked up in the bed of
the Nile. The Credulous One believed that, too. Several of the party
did. He said that all telegrams in Egypt are sent in English, for the
reason that the Arabic characters get tangled up in the wires. I
believed that myself. He would have enlightened us further, only the
train came just then.
We had to change at Wasta, where it was night, and I shall never forget
that fevered scene of Arab faces and flaring lamps, and heat, and
thirst--the one hot night in Egypt--as we wandered about that Egyptian
station waiting for the Cairo express. Suddenly we came upon another
party of our ship-dwellers, whose boat, ahead of ours, had grounded too.
Finding them there in that weird place was all like something in a
fever. Then we were on the express at last, roaring away through the
dust and dark and heat to Cairo--a flight out of Egypt so modern that
one could imagine the gates of the dead centuries behind us rushing
together with a bang.
XLIII
OTHER WAYS THAT ARE EGYPTIAN
The Reprobates were at Shepheard's when we returned, enjoying Egypt
thoroughly. Shepheard's is a good place in which to enjoy Egypt. Some of
the sights there are quite wonderful, and American refreshments are
connected with an electric bell.
The Reprobates had done Upper Egypt, however. They had done it in one
day. They had left Cairo in the evening, telegraphing ahead for
carriages to meet the train at Luxor, where they had arrived next
morning. They had driven directly from the train to Karnak, from Karnak
to the temple of Luxor, from Luxor to the hotel for luncheon. In the
afternoon they had soared over to the Valley of the Kings; from the
Kings they had dropped down on the House of Hatasu, the temples of
Rameses and others; they had come coursing back by the Colossi of Memnon
in time to catch the Cairo express, which landed them at Shepheard's
about daybreak. The Reprobates had enjoyed Upper Egypt very much, though
I could see they regretted the necessity of devoting all that time to it
when Shepheard's still remained partially unexplored.
I had hardly landed in my room when a call-boy from the office came up
to say that a police-officer was below, asking for me. For a moment I
wondered a little feverishly what particular thing it was he wanted me
for. Then the boy said, "Pyramid police," which brought a gleam of
light. "Oh, why--yes, of course--show him up!"
And now, while we are waiting for him, I am going to record a
circumstance which I suppose a good many readers--especially those
familiar with the East--may find it difficult to believe. Nevertheless,
it is authentic and provable.
In Egypt, baksheesh is a national institution. Everybody takes it--every
Egyptian, I mean; if I should begin by saying I had met an exception to
this rule I could not expect any one who knows Cairo to read any
further. This by-the-way.
It was during our first stop in Cairo, and we had been there a day or
two before we made our official visit to the Pyramids and Sphinx. We
went in carriages then, attended by two guides. For some reason,
however, our protectors left us to shift pretty much for ourselves when
we got there, and it was a pretty poor shift. The fortune-tellers and
scarab-sellers and donkey-men and would-be guides swarmed about us and
overran us and would not be appeased. When we repulsed them temporarily
they rallied and broke over us in waves, and swept us here and there,
until we became mere human flotsam and jetsam on that tossing Egyptian
tide.
It was all like a curiously confused dream. Members of our party would
suddenly turn up, and as suddenly disappear again: there would be
moments of lull when we seemed about to collect, then, presto! without
any apparent cause there would occur wild confusion and despair.
It was no use. Laura and I wanted to go inside the Great Pyramid, and we
did not want to climb it. It was impossible to do one, and it was about
equally impossible not to do the other. Out of the confusion of things
at last I remembered a young officer of the police, whom I had met
riding home that first night on the trolley--a mere lad of nineteen or
twenty, but a big fellow, who spoke excellent English and said he was
Superintendent of the Pyramid Police. I decided now to see if this was
true, and, if so, to ask his advice in our present difficulties.
I remembered that the police station was near the trolley terminus, and
we gradually fought our way back there. Yes, there he was, at his desk,
a handsome Soldierly figure in a tall red fez. He rose and bowed,
remembering us immediately.
We would like to look about a little, I said, and to go inside the big
Pyramid, but we preferred to be alive when we got through; also fairly
decent as to appearance. Couldn't he pick us out a guard or two, who
would keep the enemy in check, and see us through?
He bowed with easy grace.
"I will accompany you myself," he said.
Now, I already knew the custom of Egypt, and I began to make a hasty
estimate of my ready money, wondering if I had sufficient for a
baksheesh of this rank. It was by no means certain. However, there would
be ship-dwellers about: I could borrow, perhaps.
I decided presently that whatever the duty imposed, it was worth it.
With that big uniformed fellow at our side we were immune to all that
hungry horde of Arab vultures. We walked through unscathed. Our
protector procured the entrance tickets for us; he selected two strong
men to push and pull us up the long, dark, glassy-slick passage that
leads to the sepulchre of Khufu in the very heart of the Pyramid; he
went with us himself into that still mysterious place, explaining in
perfect English how five or six thousand years ago the sarcophagus of
the great king was pushed up that incline; he showed us the mortises in
the stone where uprights were set to hold the great granite coffin when
the laborers stopped to rest. It was a weird experience in the cool,
quiet darkness of that mightiest of tombs with the flaring candles and
eager sure-footed Arabs; it seemed to belong in Rider Haggard's story of
_She_. Then, after we had seen the old black sarcophagus, which is empty
now, and had remained a little in that removed place, trying to imagine
that we were really in the very centre of the big Pyramid, we made our
way out again to light and the burning desert heat. I settled with our
Arabs with little or no difficulty, which is worth something in itself,
and when we had found a quiet place I thanked our guardian and tendered
him what I thought a liberal honorarium--fairly liberal, even for
America.
He drew back a little.
"Oh no," he said, "I beg your pardon."
I had not made it large enough then. I glanced about for some of the
party who would have funds.
"I am sorry," I began, "it is not more. I will--"
"I beg your pardon," he repeated, "but I could not accept anything for
what is but my duty. I am only very glad to do what I may for you. I
will do something more, if you wish."
Then, of course, I knew it _must_ be a dream, and that I would wake up
presently in Shepheard's Hotel to find that we hadn't started for the
Pyramids yet. Still, I would keep up the blessed trance a moment longer.
"You mean that you will not allow me to acknowledge your great favor to
us?" I said in that polite manner for which our ship is justly famous.
"Not in money," he said. "The Government pays me a salary for my work
and this is only part of my work. It has also given me pleasure."
I surreptitiously pinched myself in certain tender places to see if I
couldn't wake up. It was no use. He persisted in his refusal, and
presently produced an ancient corroded coin, Greek or Roman, such as is
sometimes found among the debris.
"I should like to offer you this," he said. "I found it myself, so I am
sure it is genuine."
Ah, this was the delicate opportunity.