AS WE sail down into the heart of Egypt and into the remote past,
living in fact, by books and by eye-sight, in eras so far-reaching that
centuries count only as years in them, the word “ancient” gets a new
signification. We pass every day ruins, ruins of the Old Empire, of the
Middle Empire, of the Ptolomies, of the Greeks, of the Romans, of the
Christians, of the Saracens; but nothing seems ancient to us any longer
except the remains of Old Egypt.
We have come to have a singular contempt for anything so modern as the
work of the Greeks, or Romans. Ruins pointed out on shore as Roman,
do not interest us enough to force us to raise the field-glass. Small
antiquities that are of the Roman period are not considered worth
examination. The natives have a depreciatory shrug when they say of an
idol or a brick-wall, “Roman!”
The Greeks and the Romans are moderns like ourselves. They are as
broadly separated in the spirit of their life and culture from those
ancients as we are; we can understand them; it is impossible for us
to enter into the habits of thought and of life of the early Pharaonic
times. When the variation of two thousand years in the assignment of a
dynasty seems to us a trifle, the two thousand years that divide us and
the Romans shrink into no importance.
In future ages the career of the United States and of Rome will be
reckoned in the same era; and children will be taught the story
of George Washington suckled by the wolf, and Romulus cutting the
cherry-tree with his little hatchet. We must have distance in order to
put things in their proper relations. In America, what have we that
will endure a thousand years? Even George Washington's hatchet may be
forgotten sooner than the fiabellum of Pharaoh.
The day after Christmas we are going with a stiff wind, so fresh that we
can carry only the forward sail. The sky is cloudy and stormy-looking.
It is in fact as disagreeable and as sour a fall day as you can find
anywhere. We keep the cabin, except for a time in the afternoon, when
it is comfortable sitting on deck in an overcoat. We fly by Abooteeg;
Raâineli, a more picturesque village, the top of every house being a
pigeon-tower; Gow, with its remnants of old Antæopolis—it was in the
river here that Horus defeated Typhon in a great battle, as, thank God!
he is always doing in this flourishing world, with a good chance of
killing him outright some day, when Typhon will no more take the shape
of crocodile or other form of evil, war, or paper currency; Tahtah,
conspicuous by its vast mounds of an ancient city; and Gebel Sheykh
Hereédee, near the high cliffs of which we run, impressed by the grey
and frowning crags.
As we are passing these rocks a small boat dashes out to our side, with
a sail in tatters and the mast carrying a curiously embroidered flag,
the like of which is in no signal-book. In the stern of this fantastic
craft sits a young and very shabbily clad Sheykh, and demands
backsheesh, as if he had aright to demand toll of all who pass his
dominions. This right our reïs acknowledges and tosses him some paras
done up in a rag. I am sure I like this sort of custom-house better than
some I have seen.
We go on in the night past Soohag, the capital of the province of
Girgeh; and by other villages and spots of historic interest, where the
visitor will find only some~heaps of stones and rubbish to satisfy a
curiosity raised by reading of their former importance; by the White
Monastery and the Red Convent; and, coming round a bend, as we always
are coming round a bend, and bringing the wind ahead, the crew probably
asleep, we ignominiously run into the bank, and finally come to anchor
in mid-stream.
As if to crowd all weathers into twenty-four hours, it clears off cold
in the night; and in the morning when we are opposite the the pretty
town of Ekhmeem, a temperature of 51° makes it rather fresh for the
men who line the banks working the shadoofs, with no covering but
breech-cloths. The people here, when it is cold, bundle up about the
head and shoulders with thick wraps, and leave the feet and legs bare.
The natives are huddled in clusters on the bank, out of the shade of the
houses, in order to get the warmth of the sun; near one group a couple
of discontented camels kneel; and the naked boy, making no pretence of
a superfluous wardrobe by hanging his shirt on a bush while he goes to
bed, is holding it up to dry.
We skim along in almost a gale the whole day, passing, in the afternoon,
an American dahabeëh tied up, repairing a broken yard, and giving
Bellianeh the go-by as if it were of no importance. And yet this is the
landing for the great Abydus, a city once second only to Thebes, the
burial-place of Osiris himself, and still marked by one of the finest
temples in Egypt. But our business now is navigation, and we improve the
night as well as the day; much against the grain of the crew. There
is always more or less noise and row in a night-sail, going aground,
splashing, and boosting in the water to get off, shouting and chorusing
and tramping on deck, and when the thermometer is as low as 520 these
night-baths are not very welcome when followed by exposure to keen wind,
in a cotton shirt. And with the dragoman in bed, used up like one of his
burnt-out rockets, able only to grumble at “dese fellow care for nothing
but smoke hasheesh,” the crew are not very subordinate. They are liable
to go to sleep and let us run aground, or they are liable to run
aground in order that they may go to sleep. They seem to try both ways
alternately.
But moving or stranded, the night is brilliant all the same; the
night-skies are the more lustrous the farther we go from the moisture
of Lower Egypt, and the stars scintillate with splendor, and flash
deep colors like diamonds in sunlight. Late, the moon rises over the
mountains under which we are sailing, and the effect is magically
lovely. We are approaching Farshoot.
Farshoot is a market-town and has a large sugar-factory, the first set
up in Egypt, built by an uncle of the Khedive. It was the seat of power
of the Howara tribe of Arabs, and famous for its breed of Howara horses
and dogs, the latter bigger and fiercer than the little wolfish curs
with which Egypt swarms. It is much like other Egyptian towns now,
except that its inhabitants, like its dogs, are a little wilder and
more ragged than the fellaheen below. This whole district of Hamram is
exceedingly fertile and bursting with a tropical vegetation.
The Turkish governor pays a formal visit and we enjoy one of those
silent and impressive interviews over chibooks and coffee; in which
nothing is said that one can regret. We finally make the governor
a complimentary speech, which Hoseyn, who only knows a little
table-English, pretends to translate. The Bey replies, talking very
rapidly for two or three minutes. When we asked Hoseyn to translate, he
smiled and said—“Thank you”—which was no doubt the long palaver.
The governor conducts us through the sugar-factory, which is not on so
grand a scale as those we shall see later, but hot enough and sticky
enough, and then gives us the inevitable coffee in his office;
seemingly, if you clap your hands anywhere in Egypt, a polite and ragged
attendant will appear with a tiny cup of coffee.
The town is just such a collection of mud-hovels as the others, and we
learn nothing new in it. Yes, we do. We learn how to scour brass dishes.
We see at the doorway of a house where a group of women sit on the
ground waiting for their hair to grow, two boys actively engaged in this
scouring process. They stand in the dishes, which have sand in them,
and, supporting themselves by the side of the hut, whirl half-way round
and back. The soles of their feet must be like leather. This method of
scouring is worth recording, as it may furnish an occupation for boys at
an age when they are usually, and certainly here, useless.
The weekly market is held in the open air at the edge of the town. The
wares for sale are spread upon the ground, the people sitting behind
them in some sort of order, but the crowd surges everywhere and the
powdered dust rises in clouds. It is the most motley assembly we have
seen. The women are tattooed on the face and on the breast; they wear
anklets of bone and of silver, and are loaded with silver ornaments. As
at every other place where a fair, a wedding, or a funeral attracts
a crowd, there are some shanties of the Ghawazees, who are physically
superior to the other women, but more tattooed, their necks, bosoms and
waists covered with their whole fortune in silver, their eyelids heavily
stained with Kohl—bold-looking jades, who come out and stare at us with
a more than masculine impudence.
The market offers all sorts of green country produce, and eggs, corn,
donkeys, sheep, lentils, tobacco, pipe-stems, and cheap ornaments in
glass. The crowd hustles about us in a troublesome manner, showing
special curiosity about the ladies, as if they had rarely seen white
women. Ahmed and another sailor charge into them with their big sticks
to open a passage for us, but they follow us, commenting freely upon our
appearance. The sailors jabber at them and at us, and are anxious to get
us back to the boat; where we learn that the natives “not like you.” The
feeling is mutual, though it is discouraging to our pride to be despised
by such barbarous half-clad folk.
Beggars come to the boat continually for backsheesh; a tall juggler in a
white, dirty tunic, with a long snake coiled about his neck, will not go
away for less than half a piastre. One tariff piastre (five cents) buys
four eggs here, double the price of former years, but still discouraging
to a hen. However, the hens have learned to lay their eggs small. All
the morning we are trading in the desultory way in which everything is
done here, buying a handful of eggs at a time, and live chickens by the
single one.
In the afternoon the boat is tracked along through a land that is
bursting with richness, waving with vast fields of wheat, of lentils,
of sugar-cane, interspersed with melons and beans. The date-palms are
splendid in stature and mass of crown. We examine for the first time the
Dôm Palm, named from its shape, which will not flourish much lower
on the river than here. Its stem grows up a little distance and then
branches in two, and these two limbs each branch in two; always in
two. The leaves are shorter than those of the date-palm and the tree is
altogether more scraggy, but at a little distance it assumes the dome
form. The fruit, now green, hangs in large bunches a couple of feet
long; each fruit is the size of a large Flemish Beauty pear. It has a
thick rind, and a stone, like vegetable ivory, so hard that it is used
for drill-sockets. The fibrous rind is gnawed off by the natives when it
is ripe and is said to taste like gingerbread. These people live on gums
and watery vegetables and fibrous stuff that wouldn't give a northern
man strength enough to gather them.
We find also the sont acacia here, and dig the gum-arabic from its
bark. In the midst of a great plain of wheat, intersected by ditches and
raised footways we come upon a Safciya, embowered in trees, which a long
distance off makes itself known by the most doleful squeaking. These
water-wheels, which are not unlike those used by the Persians, are
not often seen lower down the river, where the water is raised by the
shadoof. Here we find a well sunk to the depth of the Nile, and bricked
up. Over it is a wheel, upon which is hung an endless rope of palm
fibres and on its outer rim are tied earthen jars. As the wheel revolves
these jars dip into the well and coming up discharge the water into a
wooden trough, whence it flows into channels of earth. The cogs of this
wheel fit into another, and the motive power of the clumsy machine is
furnished by a couple of oxen or cows, hitched to a pole swinging
round an upright shaft. A little girl, seated on the end of the pole is
driving the oxen, whose slow hitching gait, sets the machine rattling
and squeaking as if in pain, Nothing is exactly in gear, the bearings
are never oiled; half the water is spilled before it gets to the trough;
but the thing keeps grinding on, night and day, and I suppose has not
been improved or changed in its construction for thousands of years.
During our walk we are attended by a friendly crowd of men and boys;
there are always plenty of them who are as idle as we are, and are
probably very much puzzled to know why we roam about in this way. I am
sure a New England farmer, if he saw a troop of these Arabs, strolling
through his corn-field, would set his dogs on them.
Both sides of the river are luxuriant here. The opposite bank, which is
high, is lined with shadoofs, generally in sets of three, in order
to raise the water to the required level. The view is one long to
remember:—the long curving shore, with the shadoofs and the workmen,
singing as they dip; people in flowing garments moving along the high
bank, and processions of donkeys and camels as well; rows of palms above
them, and beyond the purple Libyan hills, in relief against a rosy sky,
slightly clouded along the even mountain line. In the foreground the
Nile is placid and touched with a little color.
We feel more and more that the Nile is Egypt. Everything takes place on
its banks. From our boat we study its life at our leisure. The Nile
is always vocal with singing, or scolding, or calling to prayer; it is
always lively with boatmen or workmen, or picturesque groups, or
women filling their water-jars. It is the highway; it is a spectacle a
thousand miles long. It supplies everything. I only wonder at one thing.
Seeing that it is so swift, and knowing that it flows down and out into
a world whence so many wonders come, I marvel that its inhabitants
are contented to sit on its banks year after year, generation after
generation, shut in behind and before by desert hills, without any
desire to sail down the stream and get into a larger world. We meet
rather intelligent men who have never journeyed so far as the next large
town.
Thus far we have had only a few days of absolutely cloudless skies;
usually we have some clouds, generally at sunrise and sunset, and
occasionally an overcast day like this. But the cloudiness is merely a
sort of shade; there is no possibility of rain in it.
And sure of good weather, why should we hasten? In fact, we do not.
It is something to live a life that has in it neither worry nor
responsibility. We take an interest, however, in How and Disnah and
Fow, places where people have been living and dying now for a long time,
which we cannot expect you to share. In the night while we are anchored
a breeze springs up, and Abd-el-Atti roars at the sailors, to rouse
them, but unsuccessfully, until he cries, “Come to prayer!”
The sleepers, waking, answer, “God is great, and Mohammed is his
prophet.”
They then get up and set the sail. This is what it is to carry religion
into daily life.
To-day we have been going northward, for variety. Keneh, which is thirty
miles higher up the river than How, is nine minutes further north. The
Nile itself loiters through the land. As the crew are poling slowly
along this hot summer day, we have nothing to do but to enjoy the wide
and glassy Nile, its fertile banks vocal with varied life. The songs of
Nubian boatmen, rowing in measured stroke down the stream, come to us.
The round white wind-mills of Keneh are visible on the sand-hills above
the town. Children are bathing and cattle and donkeys wading in the
shallows, and the shrill chatter of women is heard on the shore. If this
is winter, I wonder what summer here is like.
0185
0186