MY WINTER ON THE NILE
By Charles Dudley Warner
Eighteenth Edition
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company
1876
TO MR. A. C. DUNHAM, AND THE VOYAGERS ON THE DAHABEËH “RIP VAN WINKLE,”
THIS IMPERFECT RECORD OF THEIR EXPERIENCE IS DEDICATED.
O Commander of the Faithful. Egypt is a compound of black earth and
green plants, between a pulverized mountain and a red sand. Along the
valley descends a river, on which the blessing of the Most High reposes
both in the evening and the morning, and which rises and falls with the
revolutions of the sun and moon. According to the vicissitudes of
the seasons, the face of the country is adorned with a silver wave, a
verdant emerald, and the deep yellow of a golden harvest.
From Amrou, Conqueror of Egypt, to the Khalif Omar.
CONTENTS
PREFATORY NOTE.
CHAPTER I.—AT THE GATES OF THE EAST.
CHAPTER II.—WITHIN THE PORTALS.
CHAPTER III.—EGYPT OF TO-DAY.
CHAPTER IV.—CAIRO.
CHAPTER V.—IN THE BAZAAR.
CHAPTER VI.—MOSQUES AND TOMBS.
CHAPTER VII.—MOSLEM WORSHIP.—THE CALL TO PRAYER.
CHAPTER VIII.—THE PYRAMIDS.
CHAPTER IX.—PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE.
CHAPTER X.—ON THE NILE.
CHAPTER XI.—PEOPLE ON THE RIVER BANKS.
CHAPTER XII.—SPENDING CHRISTMAS ON THE NILE.
CHAPTER XIII.—SIGHTS AND SCENES ON THE RIVER.
CHAPTER XIV.—MIDWINTER IN EGYPT.
CHAPTER XV.—AMONG THE RUINS OF THEBES.
CHAPTER XVI.—HISTORY IN STONE.
CHAPTER XVII.—KARNAK.
CHAPTER XVIII.—ASCENDING THE RIVER.
CHAPTER XIX.—PASSING THE CATARACT OF THE NILE.
CHAPTER XX.—ON THE BORDERS OF THE DESERT.
CHAPTER XXI—ETHIOPIA.
CHAPTER XXII.—LIFE IN THE TROPICS. WADY HALFA.
CHAPTER XXIII.—APPROACHING THE SECOND CATARACT.
CHAPTER XXIV.—GIANTS IN STONE.
CHAPTER XXV.—FLITTING THROUGH NUBIA.
CHAPTER XXVI.—MYSTERIOUS PHILÆ.
CHAPTER XXVII.—RETURNING.
CHAPTER XXVIII.—MODERN FACTS AND ANCIENT MEMORIES.
CHAPTER XXIX.—THE FUTURE OF THE MUMMY'S SOUL.
CHAPTER XXX.—FAREWELL TO THEBES.
CHAPTER XXXI.—LOITERING BY THE WAY.
CHAPTER XXXII.—JOTTINGS.
CHAPTER XXXIII.—THE KHEDIVE.
CHAPTER XXXIV.—THE WOODEN MAN.
CHAPTER XXXV.—ON THE WAY HOME.
CHAPTER XXXVI.—BY THE RED SEA.
CHAPTER XXXVII.—“EASTWARD HO!”
PREFATORY NOTE.
“My Winter on the Nile,” and its sequel, “In the Levant,” which record
the experiences and observations of an Oriental journey, were both
published in 1876; but as this volume was issued only by subscription,
it has never reached the large public which is served by the general
book trade.
It is now republished and placed within the reach of those who have read
“In the Levant.” Advantage has been taken of its reissue to give it a
careful revision, which, however, has not essentially changed it. Since
it was written the Khedive of so many ambitious projects has given way
to his son, Tufik Pasha; but I have let stand what was written of Ismail
Pasha for whatever historical value it may possess. In other respects,
what was written of the country and the mass of the people in 1876
is true now. The interest of Americans in the land of the oldest
civilization has greatly increased within the past few years, and
literature relating to the Orient is in more demand than at any previous
time.
The brief and incidental allusion in the first chapter to the
peculiarity in the construction of the oldest temple at Pæstum—a
peculiarity here for the first time, so far as I can find, described in
print—is worthy the attention of archaeologists. The use of curved
lines in this so-called Temple of Neptune is more marked than in the
Parthenon, and is the secret of its fascination. The relation of this
secret to the irregularities of such mediaeval buildings as the Duomo at
Pisa is obvious.
Hartford, October, 1880. C. D. W.
0020
CHAPT. I.—AT THE GATES OF THE EAST.
The Mediterranean—The East unlike the West—A World risked for a Woman—An
Unchanging World and a Pickle Sea—Still an Orient—Old Fashions—A Journey
without Reasons—Off for the Orient—Leaving Naples—A Shaky Court—A
Deserted District—Ruins of Pæstum—Temple of Neptune—Entrance to
Purgatory—Safety Valves of the World—Enterprising Natives—Sunset on the
Sea—Sicily—Crete—Our Passengers—The Hottest place on Record—An American
Tourist—An Evangelical Dentist—On a Secret Mission—The Vanquished
Dignitary
CHAPT. II.—WITHIN THE PORTALS.
Africa—Alexandria—Strange Contrasts—A New World—Nature—First View of
the Orient—Hotel Europe—Mixed Nationalities—The First Backsheesh—Street
Scenes in Alexandria—Familiar Pictures Idealized—Cemetery Day—A Novel
Turn Out—A Moslem Cemetery—New Terrors for Death—Pompey's Pillar—Our
First Camel—Along the Canal—Departed Glory—A set of Fine Fellows—Our
Handsome Dragomen—Bazaars—Universal Good Humor—A Continuous
Holiday—Private life in Egypt—Invisible Blackness—The Land of Color and
the Sun—A Casino
CHAPT. III.—EGYPT OF TO-DAY.
Railways—Our Valiant Dragomen—A Hand-to-Hand Struggle—Alexandria
to Cairo—Artificial Irrigation—An Arab Village—The Nile—Egyptian
Festivals—Pyramids of Geezeh—Cairo—Natural Queries.
CHAPT. IV.—CAIRO.
A Rhapsody—At Shepherd's—Hotel life, Egyptian plan—English Noblemen—Life
in the Streets—The Valuable Donkey and his Driver—The “swell tiling”
in Cairo—A hint for Central Park—Eunuchs—“Yankee Doodles” of Cairo—A
Representative Arab—Selecting Dragomen—The Great Business of Egypt—An
Egyptian Market-Place—A Substitute for Clothes—Dahabeëhs of the Nile—A
Protracted Negotiation—Egyptian wiles
CHAPT. V.—ON THE BAZAAR.
Sight Seeing in Cairo—An Eastern Bazaar—Courteous Merchants—The Honored
Beggar—Charity to be Rewarded—A Moslem Funeral—The Gold Bazaar—Shopping
for a Necklace—Conducting a Bride Home—A Partnership matter—Early
Marriages and Decay—Longings for Youth
CHAPT. VI.—MOSQUES AND TOMBS.
The Sirocco—The Desert—The Citadel of Cairo—Scene of the Massacre of
the Memlooks—The World's Verdict—The Mosque of Mohammed Ali—Tomb of the
Memlook Sultans—Life out of Death
CHAPT. VII.—MOSLEM WORSHIP—THE CALL TO
PRATER.
An Enjoyable City—Definition of Conscience—“Prayer is better
than Sleep”—Call of the Muezzin—Moslems at Prayer—Interior of a
Mosque—Oriental Architecture—The Slipper Fitters—Devotional Washing—An
Inman's Supplications
CHAPT. VIII.—THE PYRAMIDS.
Ancient Sepulchres—Grave Robbers—The Poor Old Mummy—The Oldest Monument
in the World—First View of the Pyramids—The resident Bedaween—Ascending
the Steps—Patent Elevators—A View from the Top—The Guide's
Opinions—Origin of “Murray's Guide Book”—Speculations on the
Pyramids—The Interior—Absolute Night—A Taste of Death—The
Sphinx—Domestic Life in a Tomb—Souvenirs of Ancient Egypt—Backsheesh!
CHAPT. IX.—PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE.
A Weighty Question—The Seasons Bewitched—Poetic Dreams Realized—Egyptian
Music—Public Garden—A Wonderful Rock—Its Patrons—The Playing Band—Native
Love Songs—The Howling Derweeshes—An Exciting Performance—The Shakers
put to Shame—Descendants of the Prophet—An Ancient Saracenic Home—The
Land of the Elea and the Copt—Historical Curiosities—Preparing for
our Journey—Laying in of Medicines and Rockets—A Determination to be
Liberal—Official life in Egypt—An Interview with the Bey—Paying for our
Rockets—A Walking Treasury—Waiting for Wind
CHAPT. X.—ON THE NILE.
On Board the “Rip Van Winkle”—A Farewell Dinner—The Three Months Voyage
Commenced—On the Nile—Our Pennant's Device—Our Dahabeëh—Its Officers
and Crew—Types of Egyptian Races—The Kingdom of the “Stick”—The false
Pyramid of Maydoon—A Night on the River—Curious Crafts—Boat Races on
the Nile—Native Villages—Songs of the Sailors—Incidents of the Day—The
Copts—The Patriarch—The Monks of Gebel é Tayr—Disappointment all Round—A
Royal Luxury—The Banks of the Nile—Gum Arabic—Unfair Reports of us—Speed
of our Dahabeëh—Egyptian Bread—Hasheesh-Smoking—Egyptian Robbers—Sitting
in Darkness—Agriculture—Gathering of Taxes—Successful Voyaging
CHAPT.
XI.—PEOPLE ON THE RIVER BANK.
Sunday on the Nile—A Calm—A Land of Tombs—A New Divinity—Burial of
a Child—A Sunday Companion on Shore—A Philosophical People—No Sunday
Clothes—The Aristocratic Bedaween—The Sheykh—Rare Specimens for the
Centennial—Tracts Needed—Woman's Rights—Pigeons and Cranes—Balmy Winter
Nights—Tracking—Copying Nature in Dress—Resort of Crocodiles—A Hermit's
Cave—Waiting for Nothing—Crocodile Mummies—The Boatmen's Song—Furling
Sails—Life Again—Pictures on the Nile.
CHAPT. XII.—SPENDING CHRISTMAS ON
THE NILE.
Independence in Spelling—Asioot—Christmas Day—The American Consul—A
Visit to the Pasha—Conversing by an Interpreter—The Ghawazees at
Home—Ancient Sculpture—Bird's Eye View of the Nile—Our Christmas
Dinner—Our Visitor—Grand Reception—The Fire Works—Christmas Eve on the
Nile
CHAPT. XIII.—SIGHTS AND SCENES ON THE RIVER.
Ancient and Modern Ruins—“We Pay Toll—Cold Weather—Night
Sailing—Farshoot—A Visit from the Bey—The Market-Place—The Sakiyas or
Water Wheels—The Nile is Egypt
CHAPT. XIV.—MIDWINTER IN EGYPT.
Midwinter in Egypt—Slaves of Time—Where the Water Jars are Made—Coming
to Anchor and how it was Done—New Years—” Smits” Copper Popularity—Great
Strength of the Women—Conscripts for the Army—Conscription a Good
Thing—On the Threshold of Thebes
CHAPT. XV.—AMONG THE RUINS OF THEBES.
Situation of the City—Ruins—Questions—Luxor—Ivarnak—Glorification of
the Pharaohs—Sculptures in Stone—The Twin Colossi—Four Hundred Miles in
Sixteen Days
CHAPT. XVI.—HISTORY IN STONE.
A Dry City—A Strange Circumstance—A Pleasant Residence—Life on the
Dahabeëh—Illustrious Visitors—Nose-Rings and Beauty—Little Fatimeh—A
Mummy Hand and Thoughts upon it—Plunder of the Tombs—Exploits of the
Great Sesostris—Gigantic Statues and their Object—Skill of Ancient
Artists—Criticisms—Christian Churches and Pagan Temples—Society—A Peep
into an Ancient Harem—Statue of Meiùnon—Mysteries—Pictures of Heroic
Girls—Women in History
CHAPT. XVII.—KARNAK.
An Egyptian Carriage—Wonderful Ruins—The Great Hall of Sethi—The
Largest Obelisk in The World—A City of Temples and Palaces
CHAPT.
XVIII.—ASCENDING THE RIVER.
Ascending the River—An Exciting Boat Race—Inside a Sugar Factory—Setting
Fire to a Town—Who Stole the Rockets?—Striking Contrasts—A Jail—The Kodi
or Judge—What we saw at Assouan—A Gale—Ruins of Kom Ombos—Mysterious
Movement—Land of Eternal Leisure
CHAPT. XIX.—PASSING THE CATARACT OF THE
NILE.
Passing the Cataract of the Nile—Nubian Hills in Sight—Island
of Elephantine—Ownership of the Cataract—Difficulties of the
Ascent—Negotiations for a Passage—Items about Assouan—Off for the
Cataracts—Our Cataract Crew—First Impressions of the Cataract—In
the Stream—Excitement—Audacious Swimmers—Close Steering—A Comical
Orchestra—The Final Struggle—Victory—Above the Rapids—The Temple of
Isis—Ancient Kings and Modern Conquerors
CHAPT. XX.—ON THE BORDERS OF
THE DESERT.
Ethiopia—Relatives of the Ethiopians—Negro Land—Ancestry of the
Negro—Conversion Made Easy—A Land of Negative Blessings—Cool air
from the Desert—Abd-el-Atti's Opinions—A Land of Comfort—Nubian
Costumes—Turning the Tables—The Great Desert—Sin, Grease and Taxes
CHAPT. XXI.—ETHIOPIA.
Primitive Attire—The Snake Charmer—A House full of Snakes—A Writ of
Ejectments—Natives—The Tomb of Mohammed—Disasters—A Dandy Pilate—Nubian
Beauty—Opening a Baby's Eyes—A Nubian Pigville
CHAPT. XXII.—LIFE IN THE
TROPICS—WADY HALFA.
Life in the Tropics—Wady Haifa—Capital of Nubia—The Centre of
Fashion—The Southern Cross—Castor Oil Plantations—Justice to a
Thief—Abd-el-Atti's Court—Mourning for the Dead—Extreme of our Journey—A
Comical Celebration—The March of Civilization.
CHAPT. XXIII.—APPROACHING
THE SECOND CATARACT.
Two Ways to See It—Pleasures of Canal Riding—Bird's Eye View of the
Cataracts—Signs of Wealth—Wady Haifa—A Nubian Belle—Classic Beauty—A
Greek Bride—Interviewing a Crocodile—Joking with a Widow—A Model Village
CHAPT. XXIV.—GIANTS IN STONE.
The Colossi of Aboo Simbel, the largest in the World—Bombast—Exploits of
Remeses II.—A Mysterious Temple—Feting Ancient Deities—Guardians of the
Nile—The Excavated Rock—The Temple—A Row of Sacred Monkeys—Our Last View
of The Giants
CHAPT. XXV.—FLITTING THROUGH NUBIA.
Learning the Language—Models of Beauty—Cutting up a Crocodile—Egyptian
Loafers—A Modern David—A Present—Our Menagerie—The Chameleon—Woman's
Rights—False Prophets—Incidents—The School Master at Home—Confusion—Too
Much Conversion—Charity—Wonderful Birds at Mecca
CHAPT. XXVI.—MYSTERIOUS
PHILÆ.
Leave “well enough” Alone—The Myth of Osiris—The Heights of
Biggeh—Cleopatra's Favorite Spot—A Legend—Mr. Fiddle—Dreamland—Waiting
for a Prince—An Inland Excursion—Quarries—Adieu
CHAPT. XXVII.—RETURNING
Downward Run—Kidnapping a Sheykh—Blessed with Relatives—Making the
Chute—Artless Children—A Model of Integrity—Justice—An Accident—Leaving
Nubia—A Perfect Shame
CHAPT. XXVIII.—MODERN FACTS AND ANCIENT MEMORIES.
The Mysterious Pebble—Ancient Quarries—Prodigies of Labor—Humor
in Stone—A Simoon—Famous Grottoes—Naughty Attractions—Bogus
Relics—Antiquity Smith
CHAPT. XXIX.—THE FUTURE OF THE MUMMY'S SOUL.
Ancient Egyptian Literature—Mummies—A Visit to the Tombs—Disturbing
the Dead—The Funeral Ritual—Unpleasant Explorations A Mummy in Pledge—A
Desolate Way—Buried Secrets—Building for Eternity—Before the
Judgment Seat—Weighed in the Balance The Habitation of the
Dead—Illuminated—Accommodations for the Mummy—The Pharaoh of the
Exodus—A Baby Charon—Bats
CHAPT. XXX.—FAREWELL TO THEBES.
Social Festivities—An Oriental Dinner—Dancing Girls—Honored by the
Sultan—The Native Consul—Finger Feeding—A Dance—Ancient Style
of Dancing—The Poetry of Night—Karnak by Moonlight—Amusements at
Luxor—Farewell to Thebes
CHAPT. XXXI.—LOITERING BY THE WAY.
“Very Grammatick”—The Lying in Temple—A Holy Man—Scarecrows—Asinine
Performers—Antiquity—Old Masters—Profit and Loss—Hopeless
“Fellahs”—Lion's Oil—A Bad Reputation—An Egyptian Mozart
CHAPT.
XXXII.—JOTTINGS.
Mission School—Education of Women—Contrasts—A Mirage—Tracks of
Successive Ages—Bathers—Tombs of the Sacred Bulls—Religion
and Grammar—Route to Darfoor—Winter Residence of the Holy
Family—Grottoes—Mistaken Views—Dust and Ashes—Osman Bey—A Midsummer's
Night Dream—Ruins of Memphis—Departed Glory—A Second Visit to the
Pyramids of Geezeh—An Artificial Mother
CHAPT. XXXIII.—THE KHEDIVE.
Al Gezereh—Aboo Yusef the Owner—Cairo Again—A Question—The
Khedive—Solomon and the Viceroy—The Khedive's Family Expenses—Another
Joseph—Personal Government—Docks of Cairo—Raising Mud—Popular
Superstitions—Leave Taking
CHAPT. XXXIV.—THE WOODEN MAN.
Visiting a Harem—A Reception—The Khedive at Home—Ladies of the
Harem—Wife of Tufik Pasha—The Mummy—The Wooden Man Discoveries of
Mariette Bey—Egypt and Greece Compared—Learned Opinions
CHAPT. XXXV.—ON
THE WAY HOME.
Leaving our Dahabeeh—The Baths in Cairo—Curious Mode of Execution—The
Guzeereh Palace—Empress Eugenia's Sleeping Room—Medallion of Benjamin
Franklin in Egypt—Heliopolis—The Bedaween Bride—Holy Places—The Resting
Place of the Virgin Mary—Fashionable Drives—The Shoobra Palace—Forbidden
Books—A Glimpse of a Bevy of Ladies—Uncomfortable Guardians.
CHAPT.
XXXVI.—BY THE RED SEA.
Following the Track of the Children of Israel—Routes to
Suez—Temples—Where was the Red Sea Crossed?—In sight of the Bitter
Lakes—Approaching the Red Sea—Faith—The Suez Canal—The Wells of Moses—A
Sentimental Pilgrimage—Price of one of the Wells—Miriam of Marah—Water
of the Wells—Returning to Suez—A Caravan of Bedaweens—Lunch
Baskets searched by Custom Officers—The Commerce of the East
CHAPT.
XXXVII.—EASTWARD HO.
Leaving Suez—Ismailia—The Lotus—A Miracle—Egyptian Steamer—Information
Sought—The Great Highway—Port Said—Abd-el-Atti again—Great Honors
Lost—Farewell to Egypt
0028
CHAPTER I.—AT THE GATES OF THE EAST.
THE Mediterranean still divides the East from the West. Ages of traffic
and intercourse across its waters have not changed this fact; neither
the going of armies nor of embassies, Northmen forays nor Saracenic
maraudings, Christian crusades nor Turkish invasions, neither the
borrowing from Egypt of its philosophy and science, nor the stealing
of its precious monuments of antiquity, down to its bones, not all the
love-making, slave-trading, war-waging, not all the commerce of four
thousand years, by oar and sail and steam, have sufficed to make the
East like the West.
Half the world was lost at Actium, they like to say, for the sake of a
woman; but it was the half that I am convinced we never shall gain—for
though the Romans did win it they did not keep it long, and they made
no impression on it that is not, compared with its own individuality,
as stucco to granite. And I suppose there is not now and never will be
another woman in the East handsome enough to risk a world for.
There, across the most fascinating and fickle sea in the world—a
feminine sea, inconstant as lovely, all sunshine and tears in a moment,
reflecting in its quick mirror in rapid succession the skies of grey
and of blue, the weather of Europe and of Africa, a sea of romance and
nausea—lies a world in Everything unlike our own, a world perfectly
known yet never familiar and never otherwise than strange to the
European and American. I had supposed it otherwise; I had been led to
think that modern civilization had more or less transformed the East
to its own likeness; that, for instance the railway up the Nile had
practically “done for” that historic stream. They say that if you run
a red-hot nail through an orange, the fruit will keep its freshness and
remain unchanged a long time. The thrusting of the iron into Egypt may
arrest decay, but it does not appear to change the country.
There is still an Orient, and I believe there would be if it were all
canaled, and railwayed, and converted; for I have great faith in habits
that have withstood the influence of six or seven thousand years of
changing dynasties and religions. Would you like to go a little way with
me into this Orient?
The old-fashioned travelers had a formal fashion of setting before the
reader the reasons that induced them to take the journey they described;
and they not unfrequently made poor health an apology for their
wanderings, judging that that excuse would be most readily accepted for
their eccentric conduct. “Worn out in body and mind we set sail,” etc.;
and the reader was invited to launch in a sort of funereal bark upon
the Mediterranean and accompany an invalid in search of his last
resting-place.
There was in fact no reason why we should go to Egypt—a remark that the
reader will notice is made before he has a chance to make it—and there
is no reason why any one indisposed to do so should accompany us. If
information is desired, there are whole libraries of excellent books
about the land of the Pharaohs, ancient and modern, historical,
archaeological, statistical, theoretical, geographical; if amusement
is wanted, there are also excellent books, facetious and sentimental. I
suppose that volumes enough have been written about Egypt to cover every
foot of its arable soil if they were spread out, or to dam the Nile if
they were dumped into it, and to cause a drought in either case if they
were not all interesting and the reverse of dry. There is therefore no
onus upon the traveler in the East to-day to write otherwise than suits
his humor; he may describe only what he chooses. With this distinct
understanding I should like the reader to go with me through a winter in
the Orient. Let us say that we go to escape winter.
It is the last of November, 1874—the beginning of what proved to be the
bitterest winter ever known in America and Europe, and I doubt not it
was the first nip of the return of the rotary glacial period—that we go
on board a little Italian steamer in the harbor of Naples, reaching it
in a row-boat and in a cold rain. The deck is wet and dismal; Vesuvius
is invisible, and the whole sweep of the bay is hid by a slanting mist.
Italy has been in a shiver for a month; snow on the Alban hills and in
the Tusculan theatre; Rome was as chilly as a stone tomb with the door
left open. Naples is little better; Boston, at any season, is better
than Naples—now.
We steam slowly down the harbor amid dripping ships, losing all sight of
villages and the lovely coast; only Capri comes out comely in the haze,
an island cut like an antique cameo. Long after dark we see the light on
it and also that of the Punta della Campanella opposite, friendly beams
following us down the coast. We are off Pæstum,' and I can feel that its
noble temple is looming there in the darkness. This ruin is in some sort
a door into, an introduction to, the East.
Pæstum has been a deadly marsh for eighteen hundred years, and deserted
for almost a thousand. Nettles and unsightly brambles have taken the
place of the “roses of Pæstum” of which the Roman poets sang; but still
as a poetic memory, the cyclamen trails among the debris of the old
city; and the other day I found violets waiting for a propitious
season to bloom. The sea has retired away from the site of the town
and broadened the marsh in front of it. There are at Pæstum three
Greek temples, called, no one can tell why, the Temple of Neptune, the
Basilica, and the Temple of Ceres; remains of the old town wall and
some towers; a tumbledown house or two, and a wretched tavern. The
whole coast is subject to tremors of the earth, and the few inhabitants
hanging about there appear to have had all their bones shaken out of
them by the fever and ague.
We went down one raw November morning from Naples, driving from a
station on the Calabrian railway, called Battipaglia, about twelve miles
over a black marshy plain, relieved only by the bold mountains, on
the right and left. This plain is gradually getting reclaimed and
cultivated; there is raised on it inferior cotton and some of the vile
tobacco which the government monopoly compels the free Italians to
smoke, and large olive-orchards have been recently set out. The soil is
rich and the country can probably be made habitable again. Now, the
few houses are wretched and the few people squalid. Women were pounding
stone on the road we traveled, even young girls among them wielding the
heavy hammers, and all of them very thinly clad, their one sleazy skirt
giving little protection against the keen air. Of course the women were
hard-featured and coarse-handed; and both they and the men have the
swarthy complexion that may betoken a more Eastern origin. We fancied
that they had a brigandish look. Until recently this plain has been a
favorite field for brigands, who spied the rich traveler from the height
of St. Angelo and pounced upon him if he was unguarded. Now, soldiers
are quartered along the road, patrol the country on horseback, and
lounge about the ruins at Pæstum. Perhaps they retire to some height for
the night, for the district is too unhealthy for an Italian even, whose
health may be of no consequence. They say that if even an Englishman,
who goes merely to shoot woodcock, sleeps there one night, in the right
season, that night will be his last.
We saw the ruins of Pæstum under a cold grey sky, which harmonized with
their isolation. We saw them best from the side of the sea, with the
snow-sprinkled mountains rising behind for a background. Then they stood
out, impressive, majestic, time-defying. In all Europe there are no
ruins better worthy the study of the admirer of noble architecture than
these.
The Temple of Neptune is older than the Parthenon, its Doric sister, at
Athens. It was probably built before the Persians of Xerxes occupied the
Acropolis and saw from there the flight of their ruined fleet out of the
Strait of Salamis. It was built when the Doric had attained the acme of
its severe majesty, and it is to-day almost perfect on the exterior.
Its material is a coarse travertine which time and the weather have
honeycombed, showing the petrifications of plants and shells; but of its
thirty-six massive exterior columns not one has fallen, though those on
the north side are so worn by age that the once deep fluting is nearly
obliterated. You may care to know that these columns which are thirty
feet high and seven and a half feet in diameter at the base, taper
symmetrically to the capitals, which are the severest Doric.
At first we thought the temple small, and did not even realize its two
hundred feet of length, but the longer we looked at it the larger it
grew to the eye, until it seemed to expand into gigantic size; and
from whatever point it was viewed its harmonious proportions were an
increasing delight. The beauty is not in any ornament, for even the
pediment is and always was vacant, but in its admirable lines.
The two other temples are fine specimens of Greek architecture, also
Doric, pure and without fault, with only a little tendency to depart
from severe simplicity in the curve of the capitals, and yet they did
not interest us. They are of a period only a little later than the
Temple of Neptune, and that model was before their builders, yet they
missed the extraordinary, many say almost spiritual beauty of that
edifice. We sought the reason, and found it in the fact that there are
absolutely no straight lines in the Temple of Neptune. The side rows of
columns curve a little out; the end rows curve a little in; at the
ends the base line of the columns curves a trifle from the sides to the
center, and the line of the architrave does the same. This may bewilder
the eye and mislead the judgment as to size and distance, but the effect
is more agreeable than almost any other I know in architecture. It is
not repeated in the other temples, the builders of which do not seem to
have known its secret. Had the Greek colony lost the art of this
perfect harmony, in the little time that probably intervened between the
erection of these edifices? It was still kept at Athens, as the Temple
of Theseus and the Parthenon testify.
Looking from the interior of the temple out at either end, the entrance
seems to be wider at the top than at the bottom, an Egyptian effect
produced by the setting of the inward and outer columns. This appeared
to us like a door through which we looked into Egypt, that mother of all
arts and of most of the devices of this now confused world. We were
on our way to see the first columns, prototypes of the Doric order,
chiselled by man.
The custodian—there is one, now that twenty centuries of war and rapine
and storms have wreaked themselves upon this temple—would not permit us
to take our luncheon into its guarded precincts; on a fragment of the
old steps, amid the weeds we drank our red Capri wine; not the usual
compound manufactured at Naples, but the last bottle of pure Capri to
be found on the island, so help the soul of the landlady at the hotel
there; ate one of those imperfectly nourished Italian chicken's orphan
birds, owning the pitiful legs with which the table d'hote frequenters
in Italy are so familiar, and blessed the government for the care, tardy
as it is, of its grandest monument of antiquity.
When I looked out of the port-hole of the steamer early in the morning,
we were near the volcanic Lipari islands and islets, a group of
seventeen altogether; which serve as chimneys and safety-valves to this
part of the world. One of the small ones is of recent creation, at least
it was heaved up about two thousand years ago, and I fancy that a new
one may pop up here any time. From the time of the Trojan war all sorts
of races and adventurers have fought for the possession of these coveted
islands, and the impartial earthquake has shaken them all off in turn.
But for the mist, we should have clearly seen Stromboli, the ever-active
volcano, but now we can only say we saw it. We are near it, however,
and catch its outline, and listen for the groans of lost souls which the
credulous crusaders used to hear issuing from its depths. It was at
that time the entrance of purgatory; we read in the guide-book that the
crusaders implored the monks of Cluny to intercede for the deliverance
of those confined there, and that therefore Odilo of Cluny instituted
the observance of All Souls' Day.
The climate of Europe still attends us, and our first view of Sicily
is through the rain. Clouds hide the coast and obscure the base of Ætna
(which is oddly celebrated in America as an assurance against loss by
fire); but its wide fields of snow, banked up high above the clouds,
gleam as molten silver—treasure laid up in heaven—and give us the light
of the rosy morning.
Rounding the point of Faro, the locale of Charybdis and Scylla, we come
into the harbor of Messina and take shelter behind the long, curved
horn of its mole. Whoever shunned the beautiful Scylla was liable to be
sucked into the strong tide Charybdis; but the rock has lost its terror
for moderns, and the current is no longer dangerous. We get our last
dash of rain in this strait, and there is sunny weather and blue sky at
the south. The situation of Messina is picturesque; the shores both of
Calabria and Sicily are mountainous, precipitous and very rocky; there
seems to be no place for vegetation except by terracing. The town is
backed by lofty circling mountains, which form a dark setting for its
white houses and the string of outlying villages. Mediaeval forts cling
to the slopes above it.
No sooner is the anchor down than a fleet of boats surrounds the
steamer, and a crowd of noisy men and boys swarms on board, to sell us
muscles, oranges, and all sorts of merchandise, from a hair-brush to
an under-wrapper. The Sunday is hopelessly broken into fragments in a
minute. These lively traders use the English language and its pronouns
with great freedom. The boot-black smilingly asks: “You black my boot?”
The vender of under-garments says: “I gif you four franc for dis one. I
gif you for dese two a seven franc. No? What you gif?”
A bright orange-boy, we ask, “How much a dozen?”
“Half franc.”
“Too much.”
“How much you give? Tast him; he ver good; a sweet orange; you no like,
you no buy. Yes, sir. Tak one. This a one, he sweet no more.”
And they were sweet no more. They must have been lemons in oranges'
clothing. The flattering tongue of that boy and our greed of tropical
color made us owners of a lot of them, most of which went overboard
before we reached Alexandria, and would make fair lemonade of the streak
of water we passed through.
At noon we sail away into the warm south. We have before us the
beautiful range of Aspromonte, and the village of Reggio bear which
in 1862 Garibaldi received one of his wounds, a sort of inconvenient
love-pat of fame. The coast is rugged and steep. High up is an isolated
Gothic rock, pinnacled and jagged. Close by the shore we can trace the
railway track which winds round the point of Italy, and some of the
passengers look at it longingly; for though there is clear sky overhead,
the sea has on an ungenerous swell; and what is blue sky to a stomach
that knows its own bitterness and feels the world sinking away from
under it?
We are long in sight of Italy, but Sicily still sulks in the clouds and
Mount Ætna will not show itself. The night is bright and the weather has
become milder; it is the prelude to a day calm and uninteresting. Nature
rallies at night, however, and gives us a sunset in a pale gold sky with
cloud-islands on the horizon and palm-groves on them. The stars come out
in extraordinary profusion and a soft brilliancy unknown in New England,
and the sky is of a tender blue—something delicate and not to
be enlarged upon. A sunset is something that no one will accept
second-hand.
On the morning of December 1st., we are off Crete; Greece we have left
to the north, and are going at ten knots an hour towards great hulking
Africa. We sail close to the island and see its long, high barren coast
till late in the afternoon. There is no road visible on this side, nor
any sign of human habitation, except a couple of shanties perched high
up among the rocks. From this point of view, Crete is a mass of naked
rock lifted out of the waves. Mount Ida crowns it, snow-capped and
gigantic. Just below Crete spring up in our geography the little islands
of Gozo and Antigozo, merely vast rocks, with scant patches of low
vegetation on the cliffs, a sort of vegetable blush, a few stunted trees
on the top of the first, and an appearance of grass which has a reddish
color.
The weather is more and more delightful, a balmy atmosphere brooding on
a smooth sea. The chill which we carried in our bones from New York
to Naples finally melts away. Life ceases to be a mere struggle,
and becomes a mild enjoyment. The blue tint of the sky is beyond all
previous comparison delicate, like the shade of a silk, fading at the
horizon into an exquisite grey or nearly white. We are on deck all day
and till late at night, for once enjoying, by the help of an awning,
real winter weather with the thermometer at seventy-two degrees.
Our passengers are not many, but selected. There are a German baron and
his sparkling wife, delightful people, who handle the English language
as delicately as if it were glass, and make of it the most naïve and
interesting form of speech. They are going to Cairo for the winter, and
the young baroness has the longing and curiosity regarding the land of
the sun, which is peculiar to the poetical Germans; she has never seen a
black man nor a palm-tree. In charge of the captain, there is an Italian
woman, whose husband lives in Alexandria, who monopolizes the whole
of the ladies' cabin, by a league with the slatternly stewardess, and
behaves in a manner to make a state of war and wrath between her and
the rest of the passengers. There is nothing bitterer than the hatred of
people for each other on shipboard. When I afterwards saw this woman in
the streets of Alexandria I had scarcely any wish to shorten her stay
upon this earth. There are also two tough-fibered and strong-brained
dissenting ministers from Australia, who have come round by the Sandwich
Islands and the United States, and are booked for Palestine, the Suez
Canal and the Red Sea. Speaking of Aden, which has the reputation of
being as hot as Constantinople is wicked, one of them tells the story
of an American (the English have a habit of fastening all their dubious
anecdotes upon “an American”) who said that if he owned two places,
one in Aden and the other in H——, he would sell the one in Aden. These
ministers are distinguished lecturers at home—a solemn thought, that
even the most distant land is subjected to the blessing of the popular
lecture.
Our own country is well represented, as it usually is abroad, whether by
appointment or self-selection. It is said that the oddest people in the
world go up the Nile and make the pilgrimage of Palestine. I have even
heard that one must be a little cracked who will give a whole winter to
high Egypt; but this is doubtless said by those who cannot afford to go.
Notwithstanding the peculiarities of so many of those one meets drifting
around the East (as eccentric as the English who frequent Italian
pensions) it must be admitted that a great many estimable and apparently
sane people go up the Nile—and that such are even found among Cook's
“personally conducted.”
There is on board an American, or a sort of Irish-American more or less
naturalized, from Nebraska, a raw-boned, hard-featured farmer, abroad
for a two-years' tour; a man who has no guide-book or literature, except
the Bible which he diligently reads. He has spent twenty or thirty years
in acquiring and subduing land in the new country, and without any time
or taste for reading, there has come with his possessions a desire to
see that old world about which he cared nothing before he breathed the
vitalizing air of the West. That he knew absolutely nothing of Europe,
Asia, or Africa, except the little patch called Palestine, and found a
day in Rome too much for a place so run down, was actually none of our
business. He was a good patriotic American, and the only wonder was that
with his qualification he had not been made consul somewhere.
But a more interesting person, in his way, was a slender, no-blooded,
youngish, married man, of the vegetarian and vegetable school, also
alone, and bound for the Holy Land, who was sick of the sea and
otherwise. He also was without books of travel, and knew nothing of
what he was going to see or how to see it. Of what Egypt was he had the
dimmest notion, and why we or he or anyone else should go there. What
do you go up the Nile for? we asked. The reply was that the Spirit had
called him to go through Egypt to Palestine. He had been a dentist, but
now he called himself an evangelist. I made the mistake of supposing
that he was one of those persons who have a call to go about and
convince people that religion is one part milk (skimmed) and three parts
water—harmless, however, unless you see too much of them. Twice is
too much. But I gauged him inadequately. He is one of those few who
comprehend the future, and, guided wholly by the Spirit and not by any
scripture or tradition, his mission is to prepare the world for its
impending change. He is en rapport with the vast uneasiness, which I do
not know how to name, that pervades all lands. He had felt our war in
advance. He now feels a great change in the air; he is illuminated by an
inner light that makes him clairvoyant. America is riper than it knows
for this change. I tried to have him definitely define it, so that I
could write home to my friends and the newspapers and the insurance
companies; but I could only get a vague notion that there was about to
be an end of armies and navies and police, of all forms of religion, of
government, of property, and that universal brotherhood is to set in.
The evangelist had come aboard on an important and rather secret
mission; to observe the progress of things in Europe; and to publish his
observations in a book. Spiritualized as he was, he had no need of
any language except the American; he felt the political and religious
atmosphere of all the cities he visited without speaking to any one.
When he entered a picture gallery, although he knew nothing of pictures,
he saw more than any one else. I suppose he saw more than Mr. Ruskin
sees. He told me, among other valuable information, that he found Europe
not so well prepared for the great movement as America, but that I would
be surprised at the number who were in sympathy with it, especially
those in high places in society and in government. The Roman Catholic
Church was going to pieces; not that he cared any more for this than for
the Presbyterian—he, personally, took what was good in any church,
but he had got beyond them all; he was now only working for the
establishment of the truth, and it was because he had more of the truth
than others that he could see further.
He expected that America would be surprised when he published his
observations. “I can give you a little idea,” he said, “of how things
are working.” This talk was late at night, and by the dim cabin lamp.
“When I was in Rome, I went to see the head-man of the Pope. I talked
with him over an hour, and I found that he knew all about it!”
“Good gracious! You don't say so!”
“Yes, sir. And he is in full sympathy. But he dare not say anything.
He knows that his church is on its last legs. I told him that I did
not care to see the Pope, but if he wanted to meet me, and discuss the
infallibility question, I was ready for him.”
“What did the Pope's head-man say to that?”
“He said that he would see the Pope, and see if he could arrange an
interview; and would let me know. I waited a week in Rome, but no notice
came. I tell you the Pope don't dare discuss it.”
“Then he didn't see you?”
“No, sir. But I wrote him a letter from Naples.”
“Perhaps he won't answer it.”
“Well, if he doesn't, that is a confession that he can't. He leaves the
field. That will satisfy me.”
I said I thought he would be satisfied.
The Mediterranean enlarges on acquaintance. On the fourth day we are
still without sight of Africa, though the industrious screw brings us
nearer every moment. We talk of Carthage, and think we can see the color
of the Libyan sand in the yellow clouds at night. It is two o'clock
on the morning of December the third, when we make the Pharos of
Alexandria, and wait for a pilot.
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