_Winter in Egypt--A soft and balmy air--A Rainstorm on the Nile--An Asylum for Invalids--The Month of Flowers--The “Khamseen”
What is it?--A blast as from a Furnace--Singular effects of the South Wind--A Sun like Copper and a Sky like Brass--A cloud of
Sand--Eating Dirt--Fleeing from the Khamseen--How the Laboring classes live--Hungry but not Cold--Oriental Houses--An Excursion to
Heliopolis--Habits of the Bedouins--A Fastidious People--Life in a Bedouin Encampment--Among the Obelisks--How they were brought
Five Hundred Miles--The Madonna-Tree._
THE winter climate of Egypt is one of the most charming in the world and some persons say it is the most delightful to be found
anywhere. I met invalids there who had been at all the famous resorts of the West Indies, at the Sandwich Islands, in the south of
France, in Spain, anywhere and everywhere, and they give the credit of superiority to Egypt.
Unfortunately the winter of 1873-4 was very bad, the worst ever known in Cairo, so the old residents said. There was a great deal of
rain; altogether during the winter it rained on seventeen days; sometimes only for a few minutes, and again there were several hours
of pouring rain. Ordinarily there will be from six to ten showers in the course of the winter, and for the rest of the time there
is the clear sky of Egypt, day after day, and night after night. I was there nearly four months and aired my umbrella only twice in
that time though there were two other occasions when I would have been glad to air it; I was caught in heavy showers with no better
protection than my cane, and {668}was forced to go home in a condition like that of a cat after an involuntary bath.
While I was up the Nile there was one slight shower of five minutes or so one evening and that was all; at the same time there was a
heavy rain in Cairo that converted all the streets into lanes of mud and made it very difficult to get around. And in Alexandria it
is much worse as the rain falls there many a time when not a drop is known in Cairo. The farther you go to the South in Egypt the
drier you find the climate until you get beyond the desert country and into the region of the tropical rains.
Among the invalids who go there there are some who are greatly benefited, while others find no relief or are positively injured. At
my hotel there were several ailing persons; some with difficulties of the chest, others with bad circulation of the blood, others
with cerebral affections, others recovering from broken or sprained limbs, and others with a shortness of bank account. For the last
Cairo is not to be recommended, as it is an expensive place and the habits of the country require cash payments unless you can find
somebody willing to give you credit.
As for the other sufferers, some grow rapidly better, and some grow rapidly worse until sent away by the doctors, and I have known
two cases of chest difficulty where one man recovered almost entirely, and the other afflicted almost exactly as his neighbor was
obliged to leave in a fortnight under penalty of furnishing a fee to the coroner if he remained longer.
A resident physician says that bronchial affections, chronic diseases of the mucous membrane, debilitated circulation and scrofulous
diseases of all kinds are more likely to be subdued in Egypt than most other maladies. Some consumptives have been entirely restored
by a voyage on the Nile and where a man is in search of a dry atmosphere he can find it for three or four months without trouble,
provided he can undertake the voyage on the river so as to spend a fortnight or three weeks in Nubia about the beginning of the
year. He will thus avoid the few rains of Cairo and get back to the city in season for the delightful weather at the end of March.
There is an end to the delightful winter climate of Cairo, a climate with which I was enchanted and regretted exceedingly to
{669}leave. In all the winter I did not need an overcoat except when going out for a carriage ride, I did not need a fire in my room
and there was no place for making one even had I wanted it. Every day I was able to sit at an open window and write--sometimes with
my coat off--and the thermometer from eleven o’clock till an hour before sunset was rarely lower than 68°. The nights are cool and
the mornings particularly so, but as I do not rise early except upon compulsion the morning freshness did not incommode me.
It is necessary to be very cautious about the night air, and one should not go out in the evening without wrapping the throat in
something that will keep off the dew. But whatever the nights may be, the days are warm and one can sit in the open air, without
danger and with positive comfort, provided there is no wind blowing! The trees were in full leaf, and during the month of March
there was an abundance of flowers. But early in April comes the _Khamseen_.
“What is that?” you may possibly ask.
Well, early in April, though sometimes not till the middle or end of that month, there comes a wind from the south, a hot
debilitating wind that makes you feel as stupid as a dead horse, and as cross as a bear whose ears and tail were cropped yesterday.
The mercury goes above par in the shade, and is at a premium of twenty-five or thirty per cent, in the sun. Every drop of moisture
has been wrung from the atmosphere in its passage over the desert, and the blast upon you feels like the breath of a furnace.
Everything dries up--furniture cracks; the leaves fall from the trees; the hair crackles and emits sparks in combing; your newspaper
will rustle and crack as though held over the flame of a lamp; the sheet of the letter you are writing will curl up, and before
you are at the end of a word of three syllables, the first part of it will have the ink as dry as though baked in a kiln; and a wet
cloth hung at the window dries up almost instantaneously. If you are in the house, you think you will walk out, and if you walk out
you will wish you had staid in. It is time for you to settle your hotel bill, and get away from Cairo.
This wind is called here the “_Khamseen_,” but is better known to the outer world as the _simoon_ or _sirocco_. It begins generally
{670}by blowing a single day, and then you have several days of pleasant weather; then you will have two, three, or four days of
wind in succession, and then an interval of about the same length before another blast sets in. The natives say there are usually
about fifty days of it altogether, and hence its name, _Khamsecn_ being the Arabic word for fifty. Some years it is very mild--not
more than thirty days of it--and the next year it may be mild or it may be worse. I didn’t propose to stay there to find out. I had
one day of the _Khamseen_, and that satisfied my curiosity.
In addition to the heat, the air is full of the finest sand so that the sun looks like a ball of burning copper, and the sky becomes
yellow. The sand finds its way everywhere; the furniture of the room will be covered with it; you find it in your soup and in nearly
every dish that you eat; and I was told that it will get inside your watch-cases, even though you wrap your timepiece in buckskin,
and lay it away in the bottom of your trunk till the sirocco is over. If you have a hollow tooth you can take enough sand out of it
at the end of the _Khamseen_ to fill an hour-glass.
Dost thou like the picture? Methinks I hear your emphatic negation.
Strangers generally leave when this desert wind comes, and those of the residents who can afford it make a trip to Europe, or if not
there, to Alexandria. On the sea-coast there is less wind, and the air is several degrees cooler than at Cairo.
Alexandria is quite a pleasure resort in the summer; the court generally goes there to put in the warm weather, and sniff the
breezes of the Mediterranean, and the foreign representatives do likewise. The season at Cairo ends when the court takes its
departure; the city of the Caliphs becomes dull and uncomfortable. What a contrast to the most delightful winter on the face of the
globe!
A great deal has been written about the sufferings of the lowest classes in Egypt, and we have had some wonderful pictures of native
distress painted by travellers. The house of the _fellah_ is a mud hovel, his clothes are scanty and his food is coarse. He is not
liberally paid for his labor, and he eternally begs for “backsheesh,” not that he expects always to get it, but from
{671}
[Illustration: 0688]
{673}force of habit. He might have a cleaner house if he would, but as for his clothes they are more superfluous than necessary. If
it were not for the prejudices of education, he might go in nakedness and would not suffer; he would be warm enough in the day time
without any clothing, and if he remained in doors at night he would be equally comfortable. A strip of cloth around his loins would
be enough to protect him under ordinary circumstances, and if he wants to get himself up luxuriously, he can mount a long shirt of
blue cotton, and the thing is accomplished.
[Illustration: 0691]
The laboring classes doubtless suffer from hunger--were there ever any laboring classes anywhere that did not?--but they do not
suffer from cold and wet. Hunger here is not accompanied by its two great allies, cold and rain, and to my mind it is robbed of much
of its terror. Is not the condition of the poor ten times as bad in our great cities in winter as in summer, solely for the reason
that there must be heat and shelter along with food to keep away suffering? When I look upon this careless people and remember the
advantages of their climate, I think they are to be envied perpetually by the poor of London or New York.
The court is one of the characteristics of an Oriental house. Even the meanest hovels of the lowest classes have something of the
kind. The passage from the doorway into the court is {674}usually so contrived that no view can be had from the street into it;
this is sometimes done by the erection of a wall, or by giving a turn to the passage that leads into the court. Some houses have
one court, others two, and three are not uncommon. If a house has but one court, it is generally an open space or quadrangle, round
which the apartments for the inmates, and in country places also the sheds for the cattle, are arranged. In the very poorest of
these there is merely one apartment, and a shed for cattle, and the court or yard is surrounded with a hedge of thorny boughs,
having only one court, of a far superior kind. Entering into the courtyard you see around you a number of little buildings, not
deficient in convenience, and occasionally presenting a certain air of elegance--though frequently constructed on no regular plan.
In these are found various little chambers, one piled upon the other, the half-roof of which always forms a terrace for walking,
from which a little flight of steps or ladder leads to the dwelling-house, or to the upper terrace. This court is well paved; on one
side doors lead to the apartments of the family, and on the other to those of the servants. They are often beautified with a number
of fragrant trees and marble fountains, and compassed round with splendid apartments and divans. The divans are floored and adorned
on the sides with a variety of inlaid marbles wrought in interlacing patterns. They are placed on all sides of the court, so that
at one or other of them, shade or sunshine can always be enjoyed at pleasure. In the summer season, or when a large company is to be
received, the court is usually sheltered from the heat and inclemencies of the weather by a curtain or awning, which, being expanded
upon ropes from one wall to the other, may be folded or unfolded at pleasure.
I spent a day delightfully and profitably in making an excursion from Cairo to Heliopolis, where, in remote antiquity an imperial
city stood, but whose site is now only marked by a few mounds, and by an obelisk supposed to be the oldest in Egypt. The road leads
through fertile gardens, and irrigated fields of corn and rice, and past many Bedouin encampments.
The Arabs are peculiarly sensitive to noisome smells, and in a city they may frequently be observed hurrying along with their
{675}nostrils closed by a corner of the kerchief, to avoid the effluvia which surrounds them. This is one reason why they always
prefer pitching their tents without, to residing within the walls.
[Illustration: 0693]
The real Bedouin visits the city only to make purchases at the bazaars, and he is the most picturesque of all the moving figures in
an Eastern crowd. Strong, but slender in frame, his striped abba hangs easily in heavy folds over his shoulder, and his dark skin
and prominent features, and keen black eye, all mark the unchanged son of the desert, who belongs not to the city, but passes
through it, indifferent to its conveniences and luxuries, and despising its customs like his ancestors. In my journey up the Nile
I saw many encampments of genuine Bedouins, and I always found that an Arab in his encampment is a different being from what he is
when wandering in the desert. Within the former his time is idly passed, smoking, drinking coffee, and sleeping; yet his steed was
always ready caparisoned at the door of his tent; beside him in the sand was planted his spear, and at the call of his chief he was
ready to vault into his saddle, and rush forth to battle with all the fire of his nation.
From Cairo to Heliopolis the distance is only five or six miles, and a donkey ride of less than two hours brought us to the foot
of the solitary obelisk that exists to remind us of the once famous “city of the sun.” The obelisk is of red granite, and must have
come from the quarries of Syene five hundred miles away. It measures sixty-seven feet in height, and its base is buried several feet
in earth, gradually deposited by successive overflows of the Nile. It is covered with hieroglyphics and bears the name of Osirtesen
I., the most illustrious member of the XIIth Dynasty, who reigned over both Upper and Lower Egypt. Who executed it, or sculptured
it, or how it was transported to its present site, and erected, are questions not yet answered.
{676}A taste for story-telling is still one of their leading characteristics. They know no greater pleasure than to assemble
together in their encampment, and seated in front of one of their number, smoke, and listen with the most intense interest to the
exploits of warriors, the adventures of lovers, or the enchantment of sorcerers, until want of breath and want of sleep put an end
to the tales.
[Illustration: 0694]
{677}Hard by there is an old sycamore tree--called the Madonna’s tree--under which, tradition says, Mary rested with her infant
when flying from Herod. It looks like a stunted tree of enormous growth, as if several trees springing up side by side had grown
together. That the tree as it now stands is of very great age, there can be no manner of doubt.
[Illustration: 5695]
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[Illustration: 0696]