CAIRO TO SUEZ
THE “dromedary” of Egypt and Syria is not the two-humped animal described
by that name in books of natural history, but is, in fact, of the same
family as the camel, to which it stands in about the same relation as a
racer to a cart-horse. The fleetness and endurance of this creature are
extraordinary. It is not usual to force him into a gallop, and I fancy
from his make that it would be quite impossible for him to maintain that
pace for any length of time; but the animal is on so large a scale, that
the jogtrot at which he is generally ridden implies a progress of perhaps
ten or twelve miles an hour, and this pace, it is said, he can keep up
incessantly, without food, or water, or rest, for three whole days and
nights.
Of the two dromedaries which I had obtained for this journey, I mounted
one myself, and put Dthemetri on the other. My plan was to ride on with
Dthemetri to Suez as rapidly as the fleetness of the beasts would allow,
and to let Mysseri (who was still weak from the effects of his late
illness) come quietly on with the camels and baggage.
The trot of the dromedary is a pace terribly disagreeeble to the rider,
until he becomes a little accustomed to it; but after the first half-hour
I so far schooled myself to this new exercise, that I felt capable of
keeping it up (though not without aching limbs) for several hours
together. Now, therefore, I was anxious to dart forward, and annihilate
at once the whole space that divided me from the Red Sea. Dthemetri,
however, could not get on at all. Every attempt which he made to trot
seemed to threaten the utter dislocation of his whole frame, and indeed I
doubt whether anyone of Dthemetri’s age (nearly forty, I think), and
unaccustomed to such exercise, could have borne it at all easily;
besides, the dromedary which fell to his lot was evidently a very bad
one; he every now and then came to a dead stop, and coolly knelt down, as
though suggesting that the rider had better get off at once and abandon
the attempt as one that was utterly hopeless.
When for the third or fourth time I saw Dthemetri thus planted, I lost my
patience, and went on without him. For about two hours, I think, I
advanced without once looking behind me. I then paused, and cast my eyes
back to the western horizon. There was no sign of Dthemetri, nor of any
other living creature. This I expected, for I knew that I must have far
out-distanced all my followers. I had ridden away from my party merely
by way of gratifying my impatience, and with the intention of stopping as
soon as I felt tired, until I was overtaken. I now observed, however
(this I had not been able to do whilst advancing so rapidly), that the
track which I had been following was seemingly the track of only one or
two camels. I did not fear that I had diverged very largely from the
true route, but still I could not feel any reasonable certainty that my
party would follow any line of march within sight of me.
I had to consider, therefore, whether I should remain where I was, upon
the chance of seeing my people come up, or whether I would push on alone,
and find my way to Suez. I had now learned that I could not rely upon
the continued guidance of any track, but I knew that (if maps were right)
the point for which I was bound bore just due east of Cairo, and I
thought that, although I might miss the line leading most directly to
Suez, I could not well fail to find my way sooner or later to the Red
Sea. The worst of it was that I had no provision of food or water with
me, and already I was beginning to feel thirst. I deliberated for a
minute, and then determined that I would abandon all hope of seeing my
party again in the Desert, and would push forward as rapidly as possible
towards Suez.
It was not, I confess, without a sensation of awe that I swept with my
sight the vacant round of the horizon, and remembered that I was all
alone, and unprovisioned in the midst of the arid waste; but this very
awe gave tone and zest to the exultation with which I felt myself
launched. Hitherto, in all my wandering, I had been under the care of
other people—sailors, Tatars, guides, and dragomen had watched over my
welfare, but now at last I was here in this African desert, and I
_myself, and no other, had charge of my life_. I liked the office well.
I had the greatest part of the day before me, a very fair dromedary, a
fur pelisse, and a brace of pistols, but no bread and no water; for that
I must ride—and ride I did.
For several hours I urged forward my beast at a rapid though steady pace,
but now the pangs of thirst began to torment me. I did not relax my
pace, however, and I had not suffered long when a moving object appeared
in the distance before me. The intervening space was soon traversed, and
I found myself approaching a Bedouin Arab mounted on a camel, attended by
another Bedouin on foot. They stopped. I saw that, as usual, there hung
from the pack-saddle of the camel a large skin water-flask, which seemed
to be well filled. I steered my dromedary close up alongside of the
mounted Bedouin, caused my beast to kneel down, then alighted, and
keeping the end of the halter in my hand, went up to the mounted Bedouin
without speaking, took hold of his water-flask, opened it, and drank long
and deep from its leathern lips. Both of the Bedouins stood fast in
amazement and mute horror; and really, if they had never happened to see
a European before, the apparition was enough to startle them. To see for
the first time a coat and a waistcoat with the semblance of a white human
head at the top, and for this ghastly figure to come swiftly out of the
horizon upon a fleet dromedary, approach them silently and with a
demoniacal smile, and drink a deep draught from their water-flask—this
was enough to make the Bedouins stare a little; they, in fact, stared a
great deal—not as Europeans stare, with a restless and puzzled expression
of countenance, but with features all fixed and rigid, and with still,
glassy eyes. Before they had time to get decomposed from their state of
petrifaction I had remounted my dromedary, and was darting away towards
the east.
Without pause or remission of pace I continued to press forward, but
after a while I found to my confusion that the slight track which had
hitherto guided me now failed altogether. I began to fear that I must
have been all along following the course of some wandering Bedouins, and
I felt that if this were the case, my fate was a little uncertain.
I had no compass with me, but I determined upon the eastern point of the
horizon as accurately as I could by reference to the sun, and so laid
down for myself a way over the pathless sands.
But now my poor dromedary, by whose life and strength I held my own,
began to show signs of distress; a thick, clammy, and glutinous kind of
foam gathered about her lips, and piteous sobs burst from her bosom in
the tones of human misery. I doubted for a moment whether I would give
her a little rest, a relaxation of pace, but I decided that I would not,
and continued to push forward as steadily as before.
The character of the country became changed. I had ridden away from the
level tracts, and before me now, and on either side, there were vast
hills of sand and calcined rocks, that interrupted my progress and
baffled my doubtful road, but I did my best. With rapid steps I swept
round the base of the hills, threaded the winding hollows, and at last,
as I rose in my swift course to the crest of a lofty ridge, Thalatta!
Thalatta! by Jove! I saw the sea!
My tongue can tell where to find a clue to many an old pagan creed,
because that (distinctly from all mere admiration of the beauty belonging
to Nature’s works) I acknowledge a sense of mystical reverence when first
I look, to see some illustrious feature of the globe—some coastline of
ocean, some mighty river or dreary mountain range, the ancient barrier of
kingdoms. But the Red Sea! It might well claim my earnest gaze by force
of the great Jewish migration which connects it with the history of our
own religion. From this very ridge, it is likely enough, the panting
Israelites first saw that shining inlet of the sea. Ay! ay! but
moreover, and best of all, that beckoning sea assured my eyes, and proved
how well I had marked out the east for my path, and gave me good promise
that sooner or later the time would come for me to rest and drink. It
was distant, the sea, but I felt my own strength, and I had _heard_ of
the strength of dromedaries. I pushed forward as eagerly as though I had
spoiled the Egyptians and were flying from Pharaoh’s police.
I had not yet been able to discover any symptoms of Suez, but after a
while I descried in the distance a large, blank, isolated building. I
made towards this, and in time got down to it. The building was a fort,
and had been built there for the protection of a well which it contained
within its precincts. A cluster of small huts adhered to the fort, and
in a short time I was receiving the hospitality of the inhabitants, who
were grouped upon the sands near their hamlet. To quench the fires of my
throat with about a gallon of muddy water, and to swallow a little of the
food placed before me, was the work of a few minutes, and before the
astonishment of my hosts had even begun to subside, I was pursuing my
onward journey. Suez, I found, was still three hours distant, and the
sun going down in the west warned me that I must find some other guide to
keep me in the right direction. This guide I found in the most fickle
and uncertain of the elements. For some hours the wind had been
freshening, and it now blew a violent gale; it blew not fitfully and in
squalls, but with such remarkable steadiness that I felt convinced it
would blow from the same quarter for several hours. When the sun set,
therefore, I carefully looked for the point from which the wind was
blowing, and found that it came from the very west, and was blowing
exactly in the direction of my route. I had nothing to do, therefore,
but to go straight to leeward; and this was not difficult, for the gale
blew with such immense force, that if I diverged at all from its line I
instantly felt the pressure of the blast on the side towards which I was
deviating. Very soon after sunset there came on complete darkness, but
the strong wind guided me well, and sped me, too, on my way.
I had pushed on for about, I think, a couple of hours after nightfall,
when I saw the glimmer of a light in the distance, and this I ventured to
hope must be Suez. Upon approaching it, however, I found that it was
only a solitary fort, and I passed on without stopping.
On I went, still riding down the wind, when an unlucky accident occurred,
for which, if you like, you can have your laugh against me. I have told
you already what sort of lodging it is that you have upon the back of a
camel. You ride the dromedary in the same fashion; you are perched
rather than seated on a bunch of carpets or quilts upon the summit of the
hump. It happened that my dromedary veered rather suddenly from her
onward course. Meeting the movement, I mechanically turned my left wrist
as though I were holding a bridle-rein, for the complete darkness
prevented my eyes from reminding me that I had nothing but a halter in my
hand. The expected resistance failed, for the halter was hanging upon
that side of the dromedary’s neck towards which I was slightly leaning.
I toppled over, head foremost, and then went falling and falling through
air, till my crown came whang against the ground. And the ground too was
perfectly hard (compacted sand), but the thickly-wadded headgear which I
wore for protection against the sun saved my life. The notion of my
being able to get up again after falling head-foremost from such an
immense height seemed to me at first too paradoxical to be acted upon,
but I soon found that I was not a bit hurt. My dromedary utterly
vanished. I looked round me, and saw the glimmer of a light in the fort
which I had lately passed, and I began to work my way back in that
direction. The violence of the gale made it hard for me to force my way
towards the west, but I succeeded at last in regaining the fort. To
this, as to the other fort which I had passed, there was attached a
cluster of huts, and I soon found myself surrounded by a group of
villainous, gloomy-looking fellows. It was a horrid bore for me to have
to swagger and look big at a time when I felt so particularly small on
account of my tumble and my lost dromedary; but there was no help for it,
I had no Dthemetri now to “strike terror” for me. I knew hardly one word
of Arabic, but somehow or other I contrived to announce it as my absolute
will and pleasure that these fellows should find me the means of gaining
Suez. They acceded, and having a donkey, they saddled it for me, and
appointed one of their number to attend me on foot.
I afterwards found that these fellows were not Arabs, but Algerine
refugees, and that they bore the character of being sad scoundrels. They
justified this imputation to some extent on the following day. They
allowed Mysseri with my baggage and the camels to pass unmolested, but an
Arab lad belonging to the party happened to lag a little way in the rear,
and him (if they were not maligned) these rascals stripped and robbed.
Low indeed is the state of bandit morality when men will allow the sleek
traveller with well-laden camels to pass in quiet, reserving their spirit
of enterprise for the tattered turban of a miserable boy.
I reached Suez at last. The British agent, though roused from his
midnight sleep, received me in his home with the utmost kindness and
hospitality. Oh! by Jove, how delightful it was to lie on fair sheets,
and to dally with sleep, and to wake, and to sleep, and to wake once
more, for the sake of sleeping again!